# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1844 12 08_S30
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

the lepers are cleansed, the sorrowful are gladdened, the sick are healed, and the dead are raised; only Satan and all his fallen spirits tremble, because through Satan's downfall the human race is redeemed anew. (Serm. 10.)

Leo the Great, Bishop of Rome, died 461.

Our Savior, beloved, is born today; let us be joyful. For it is not fitting that there should be room for our sorrow on the birthday of that life which consumes the terrors of mortality and offers us in its place joy over the promise of eternal life. No one is excluded from sharing in this festive joy. To all belongs one and the same joy, for the ground of it is common to all, because our Lord, the destroyer of sin and death, just as he finds no one free of guilt, so also appeared for the liberation of all. Let the saint exult, because he now draws near to the palm of victory; let the sinner rejoice, because he is invited to forgiveness; let even the heathen be glad, because he is called to life. (Alcuin, de nativ.)

Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux, died
1153.

When I often reflect on the fervor of the longing of the fathers, as often as they sighed for the coming of Christ in the flesh, I become troubled and dismayed within myself; I can then scarcely restrain my tears; shame fills me then at the lukewarmness and dullness of these wretched times. For who among us is filled with as great a joy at the actual bestowal of this grace as was once the longing that the mere promise of it had already kindled in the ancient saints? For behold, how many will indeed rejoice at this birth-feast of the Lord, whose celebration is approaching — but oh, that it might also happen over the birth itself! (Serm. 2. in cantic.)

The Same.

Jesus is born; let everyone rejoice, whoever he may be, whom the consciousness of his sins condemns to be guilty of eternal damnation. For Jesus' goodness surpasses all the greatness and countless number of our crimes. Christ is born; let everyone rejoice who has been overcome by his old sins, for no sickness of our soul, however deeply rooted it may be, can withstand the incarnation of the Son of God. God's Son is born; let him exult who is accustomed to obtaining great things, for the great Giver is coming. Brothers, here is the Heir. Let us humbly receive him, for thus the inheritance will also be ours. O Christians, rejoice, rejoice — our Redeemer comes down from heaven; behold, he is born of our own flesh, of the pure Virgin. O Christians, learn, learn to know the Father-heart of God; learn to bind brotherly hearts to the heart of your brother, and to love him. O Christians, sing psalms, sing psalms and bring Christ songs of thanksgiving; let us all say and sing together: Glory be to you, O Christ, who was born for us. (Serm. I. in vigil. nativ.)

30

Contributions
to the Defense of the Christian Religion against
the most common objections of the scoffers
and blasphemers of our day.
(Continued.)

When we asserted, in the fifth number of our paper, in the article bearing the above heading, that nothing is taught in the Bible that contradicts reason, we were asserting nothing new by this. Among others, Luther says: "Although natural reason cannot understand or attain by itself the light and the works of God, so that in affirmativis*) (as they speak of it) it judges quite crudely and uncertainly, yet in negativis, that is, as to what a thing is not, its judgment and understanding are certain. For reason does not comprehend what God is; yet it comprehends most certainly what is not God. Therefore, although it does not see what is right and good before God (namely, faith), it nevertheless truly knows that unbelief, murder, adultery, and disobedience are evil. Now whatever is contrary to reason is certainly far more contrary to God; for how should that which is against reason and human truth not also be against divine truth!" (Halle edition, XIX, 1940.)

*) That is, when reason is to say how a thing is.

This, however, is frequently misunderstood. When unbelievers hear this, their usual reply is as follows: If you admit that reason cannot contradict divine truth, then either much in Holy Scripture must be explained otherwise than it reads according to the letter, so that it may be brought into agreement with reason, or else all divine authority must be denied to the Bible; for does it not contain countless things that flatly contradict our reason? Are not the doctrines of the creation of the world out of nothing, of the Holy Trinity, of the incarnation of God, of the presence of the body and blood of Christ in the Lord's Supper, of the justification of a sinner before God by grace through faith, of the resurrection of the body, etc., altogether contrary to the laws of reason?

It will therefore be necessary, in order to avoid misunderstandings, to give a further explanation of the above statement. We can do this no better, however, than by letting one of the most experienced and godly Lutheran theologians, namely the blessed Gerhard, speak in our place. This recognized orthodox teacher writes in his book on the chief articles of Christian doctrine (called the Loci Theologici), according to as literal a translation as possible, the following:

"Not human reason, but divine revelation, is the foundation of faith; the articles of faith are not to be judged according to the dictates of reason, otherwise we would no longer have articles of faith, but resolutions of reason. The opinions and pronouncements of reason are to be confined to the circle of those things which are subject to the judgment of reason, and not extended to the circle of those things which stand above all the capacity of reason.

One must carefully distinguish, first, between the reason in man before the Fall into sin, and after the Fall. The former, as such, would never have been against divine revelation; the latter is very often against it, through the fault of its corruption. One must also, second, distinguish between the reason of a man not yet reborn, and the reason of one who is reborn. The former regards the mysteries of the faith as foolishness, but the latter does not contend against them. But it is such (reborn reason) only then and only so long as it follows the light of the Word, and judges concerning the mysteries of the faith not according to its own principles, but according to Holy Scripture. Further, third, one must distinguish between the reason which in this life has been restored only in its beginning, and that which in the life to come has been restored completely. The former is not yet so fully renewed, enlightened, and set right that it would be impossible for it to be against the articles of faith and to contest them, if it follows its own guidance. For just as in the reborn the struggle of the Spirit and the flesh remains (Gal. 5:17), through which they are provoked to sin, so there remains in them the struggle of faith and reason, insofar as the latter is not yet fully renewed; but the perfectly renewed reason excludes all conflict between reason and faith. Moreover, fourth, one must distinguish between the reason which is in truth and properly so called right reason, and the right reason according to the definition and in the sense of the adversaries — for example, the Photinians (deniers of the Trinity) and the Calvinists. Right reason, if by it one understands the true and properly so-called reason — namely, that which remains within the bounds of its proper objects and presumes no judgment over the mysteries of the faith, or which is enlightened by the light of the Word and set right by the Holy Spirit, and therefore in the mysteries of the faith does not pursue its own principles but judges them according to the light of the Word and the Holy Spirit — this reason is not opposed to faith. But the adversaries take the term 'right reason' to mean that which judges the mysteries of the faith according to its own principles. Finally, fifth, one must distinguish between what belongs solely to matters of revelation and of pure faith, and what is subject to the judgment of reason. In the latter matters, something is left to the light of reason; the former, because they are above sense, above reason, and above all capacity to grasp, are not to be determined by reason, but are to be accepted by faith." (Whoever will not acknowledge this limitation, but insists that