# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_August 1860_S235
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Instruction Against Doubt of the Divine Word and Its Truth. 235

...of the life everlasting to come; who would presume to despise this as a human invention, and not to hold it as God's secret revelation?

Accordingly, since the heart, which until now has contradicted this point out of error, will be compelled to convince and persuade itself that the mysteries here cited are God's mysteries and are rightly to be held as His unfathomable works, it will no longer be able to deny that Holy Scripture (which proclaims and treats of such mysteries out of and from God) is certainly God's Word, and can never rightly be contradicted.

Eleventhly, that Holy Scripture is God's truthful Word is proved by the inward movements and effects which arise through it in the hearts of men, and are found to be such that, thank God, one neither can nor may deny them. For behold: when a pious heart, through the weakness of its flesh, has fallen into this or that sin against the commandment and will of God, and hears — either in the common assembly, from a public sermon, or otherwise, from this holy Book of the Bible — a single saying concerning the strict wrath and holy righteousness of God against its sin, one that threatens it with its deserved punishment; dear God, how then does the heart begin to be stirred, how it pounds with sheer unrest in the sinful body, how it sighs, how it grieves, until it again obtains its holy absolution and is reconciled with the gracious God — it does not settle, nor does it come to rest, until it is refreshed, and hastens for that reason to the well of grace, that it may be refreshed once more — just as if it were driven by some visible and forcible means, as, alongside the examples of Holy Scripture in David, Peter, and the like, daily experience abundantly proves. A little saying can do this, a little word of this holy book can do this — indeed, it can accomplish such great and incomprehensible deeds. Corrupted nature does not do it, since it is, alas, inclined with lust and desire toward sin; but this powerful, truthful Word of God does it, and drives it with all its might, for which reason God Himself, through the holy prophet Jeremiah, in his 23rd chapter, verse 29, quite rightly and fittingly compares it to a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces.

Again, likewise, when a penitent, grace-hungry heart hears, in the sermon or elsewhere, but especially in holy absolution, a word of comfort concerning God's kindly grace and ready forgiveness of sins — as, for instance, when God says with His precious oath, Ezek. 33:11: As surely as I live, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Or Isa. 1:18: Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be like wool. Isa. 11:3: He shall not judge by what His eyes see, nor