# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_November 1861_S324
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

324 Report on the Law.

and command, and do not apply it to yourself until you are certain that it is said to you; then do it, and do not ask what has been laid upon and commanded to others. If you say, with the fanatical spirits, God has spoken this with Moses, therefore I too must do it — then answer, dear friend: There is nothing in that; the word does not extend any further than to him to whom it is commanded. God bids the fish swim in the water, as stands written in the first Book of Moses; the birds fly in the air, the worms creep on the earth, the sun shines: there too is God's word. Do you therefore want to become a fish and live in the water? To hover in the air like a bird? Do you therefore want to become sun, moon, and stars? See how well that would become you. Will one then not see that Moses was given to a particular people? Therefore do not stretch him over the whole world, but keep him to his own people. In the New Testament he has an end, and counts for nothing more with his laws; he must hide himself away before Christ. But that we Gentiles have a law, our own conscience and reason teach us; as St. Paul also says in the first chapter to the Romans, that the Gentiles too have a knowledge of God, for God has revealed it to them, so that they see God's invisible nature, that is, his eternal power and Godhead, since this is perceived from his works, from the creation of the world onward; but they did not glorify him as God, etc. — by which words St. Paul shows that all the Gentiles have a knowledge of God, namely, that he has created all things, gives all things, nourishes and sustains everything; therefore their own conscience urges them that they ought to give God the honor and thank him for all his benefits. Therefore, even if Moses had never written the Law, all men would nevertheless have had the Law written by nature in their hearts. But God has also given the Jews a written law, that is, the Ten Commandments, over and above — which are themselves nothing other than the law of nature, which is written naturally into our hearts. What Moses wrote in the Ten Commandments, we feel naturally in our own conscience. Romans 2: For when the Gentiles, says the apostle, which have not the law (that is, the law written by Moses), and yet do by nature the things contained in the law, these, though they do not have the law, are a law unto themselves, in that they show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the meanwhile accusing or else excusing one another. Dear Christians, you have thus heard: when they come in with their Moses and want to bind your conscience with his laws, say to them: Dear sir, put your spectacles on your nose, and look at the text properly. We know well that one ought to be obedient to God in what he says, and that we belong to God just as well as the Jews do. But one must make a distinction between the Word of God and the words of God. This is what I must pay attention to: whether, when God says something, it concerns me. Therefore, dear fellow, if you want to compel me with God's word, then show me a text that concerns me;