# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Januar 1862_S4
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

4 Preface to the 1862 Volume.

and their own tireless labor also was, that they were but poor little pupils of Luther's! In saying so, they gave the honor not to Luther, but to him who, out of burning love for his devastated Church, had heaped upon Luther a wealth of gifts such as he had given to no teacher of the Church since the time of the apostles. With what longing for pure knowledge did they all hang upon Luther's lips, once they had learned how, at Luther's word, God's word disclosed itself to them so brightly! With what eagerness did they look forward to every new writing from Luther's pen, and with what zeal did they read it! With what gratitude did they receive Luther's teaching, and with what faithfulness did they pass it on again! All their great gifts they devoted to distributing further, in their own way, what God had taught them through his servant Luther. Both the Augustana and its Apology bear the name of Melanchthon as their author, but both incomparable confessional writings of the Church contain nothing other than Luther's theology. And indeed it is not merely a fact that the Augustana was really composed not by Melanchthon but by Luther, the former only having edited it on the basis of a writing of Luther's and given it, in part, its form; but also, as regards the Apology, its content proves to be not merely an equal result of Melanchthon's own study of the Bible alongside Luther's, but a faithful epitome, and at the same time an eloquent defense, of the pure evangelical doctrine God had again bestowed upon the Church through Luther — yet coming from a man who had grasped and made it his own in the clearest and liveliest way. In no writing does Melanchthon appear so childlike a faithful pupil of Luther's, rendering and defending his teacher's doctrine with such mastery, as in the Apology. In the same relation to Luther we likewise find a Martin Chemnitz, a Johann Gerhard, and all the great teachers of our Church down into the time of Pietism — save that with every new generation we see our teachers drawing ever more indirectly from Luther. What are Chemnitz's Examen Concilii Tridentini, what are Johann Gerhard's Loci theologici, what are all the immortal works of the best theologians of our Church in earlier times, for the most part, but golden buildings built from the gold of doctrine that God had once let Luther win? They did not regard it as their task to be "creative," but rather to recognize and take note of the time in which they had been visited; to gather, after God had scattered with full hands; and to hold fast and preserve what they now had, so that no one should take their crown. And yet what a vigorous, fresh theological life was found in the midst of it! What labor, seeking, and searching in Scripture! What growth in knowledge!

So we too can now regard it only as a sacred duty, before we can even think of, or set out to be, "creative," first to become acquainted with, to make our own, and to hand on the treasures of doctrine and knowledge which God has already bestowed upon us in the nearly two thousand years, now behind us, of the