# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_M rz 1861_S76
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

76 Report on the Preaching of the Correct Doctrine of Justification.

In the first place, namely, this happens when it is taught that a definite degree of contrition and remorse of heart, described now one way, now another, must be present before a person can truly believe in Christ. This is the old and new emotion-mongering of the old and new Pietists, whereby precisely those tender consciences already terrified by the office of the Law are held back from at once betaking themselves to their Savior and comforting themselves, in faith in the Gospel, with his merit. This, indeed, is certainly true: whoever willfully continues, as before, in an old, beloved, and accustomed service of sin — whether this be more open or more hidden before men — without being terrified before God's wrath and judgment and without feeling in his conscience the curse of the Law, stands in no true repentance, even if he were to profess it. Likewise it is no honest repentance and sorrow when the sinner, under God's chastising hand, wishes to be rid only of the punishment but not of the guilt of sin, whereas the truly penitent sinner seeks only the removal of this guilt, while gladly enduring God's just punishment for as long as it pleases God to impose it upon him as fatherly discipline. It is, however, falsely taught concerning repentance, and is at the same time an indirect corruption of the doctrine of justification, when poor sinners are told that they cannot truly believe in Christ until they have felt the pain of sin so and so deeply and so and so long, and have fought against sin with increasing success and overcome it more and more. As for the first erroneous assertion, it stems from a foolishly clever, presumptuous mastering-over of the ways and leadings of God with individual souls, wherein he has his own secret wisdom and governance, and does not wish to be outwitted by the haughty pious and wise. For although it is true that he lets one person experience the terrors and the consuming fiery zeal of his Law much more powerfully and for a longer time than another, the repentance and sorrow for sin of this latter person can nevertheless be just as true and sincere as that of the former; and the longing for grace arising from the message of the Gospel can be equally strong in both. It would therefore be just as unjust as unwise to proceed, in good Pietist fashion, to work upon the latter with the Law in order to see in him the same signs of repentance and contrition as in the former, and until then to keep closed to him the treasure of the comforting Gospel.

With regard, however, to the other erroneous assertion, something is required of a person before justifying faith which can only follow after it, as its fruit; for the Law gives no power for the victorious struggle against sin. It can, indeed, through its threats and curses, and through the servile fear it thereby arouses of temporal punishment, of death, and of God's wrath and judgment, hold back, as a bolt, the gross outbreaks of sin; but the dominion of evil desire remains as before — indeed, through the barrier of the prohibition it becomes only the more violent and powerful within, and the inner consent to the entice-