# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Juli 1860_S219
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Lucas Osiander on the Right Way of Preaching to the Simple. 219

their souls are fed, and they have enough to do in that they turn such
doctrines over in their minds during the week and put them to use for
the comfort and betterment of their lives; and the other, remaining
doctrines can well be treated at some other time, or indeed even a year
later, out of the very same text. — Now if, even so, controversial matters
of religion must now and then be brought to the pulpit for the sake of
the peasantry, this should not be done too often, nor with pointed
disputationibus and the recital of many arguments. For such sharp
disputationes the poor peasants do not understand, and when they hear
many argumenta of the adversaries recited, it can well happen that they
are thereby more vexed and confused than bettered. Therefore it is
enough if a preacher, coming in a village to some controverted article,
briefly relates our adversaries' erroneous opinion and sets against it a
few clear texts of Holy Scripture, so that a simple Christian may
understand and note this much: that the doctrine of the adversary (be
he Papist, Zwinglian, Anabaptist, Schwenkfeldian, or the like) is false
and seductive; then a good-hearted Christian who loves the truth will
well know how to guard himself against error. — It is likewise not
edifying when one sets before such simple hearers many stories out of
the heathen writers (on which one cannot ground oneself) and wastes
the time with them; rather, the best course is when the preacher stays
with Holy Scripture and proves and grounds his doctrine upon clear
testimonies and examples out of the Bible, known so far as possible to
the common man. On that a Christian can plant his feet securely, and
on that both live and die. — Whatever preacher would also teach the
simple peasants to good effect must not take pains to speak elegantly,
as when a chancellor speaks in chancery style before a prince or other
distinguished persons, but should use well-known words and phrases,
or such manner and way of speaking, as is intelligible to the common
man and as every simple person may well understand. To this also
belongs that a preacher should not make long periods, nor link many
clauses one to another and only at the very last conclude with a single
word. For before a simple hearer has heard the last word of the period,
he no longer knows what the first was, and for that reason he derives
little benefit from such sermons, since he has failed to understand a
great part of them. — A preacher must also so turn and direct his speech and
voice that every simple hearer thinks of nothing else than as though
the pastor were speaking with him alone and wished to instruct him.
When this is done, the parishioners attend the sermons with delight
and with great diligence, the time seems short to them, and they retain
readily what they have heard in such a sermon. — To speak of this, in
sum, and in conclusion, a faithful preacher must take the utmost pains
that even the very simplest of his little people may understand him well
and clearly. For this is spoken most elegantly and best of all in sermons,
when the preacher preaches the divine truth clearly and intelligibly. For