# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Januar 1862_S15
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

The Lutheran Observer. 15

is regenerated both below and above. For the regeneration which, in faith, begins with the birth pangs of repentance and passes through justification to the life of sonship, is brought to its completion with the mystical union. The subsequent renewal or sanctification in good works does not, strictly speaking, belong here, since it is the life-activity of the one who has been regenerated, but not the regeneration itself. I do not, namely, hold the opinion of some older theologians(!) that one already has the whole of regeneration with the faith that arises out of repentance and lays hold of justification from God. But that matters less here. Since Thomasius assigns precisely to the sacraments the task of reshaping man's natural substrate, everyone can see that this happens, through the mystical union, in a deeply penetrating way, inasmuch as here nature and nature — the nature of Christ and the nature of man — are essentially and properly united. And this, now, is the alteration of the doctrine that Thomasius undertakes: that he must separate this union of natures, once he has tied it to the sacraments, from justification, whenever justification occurs, as a consequence of the preached gospel, before baptism. From this predicament Thomasius extricates justification only by an artificial route after baptism — which I wish here merely to indicate, since I cannot pursue his teaching into all its fine points. In keeping with this halved regeneration, we then also have a halved justification: one through the bare word, which has indeed pronounced the divine verdict unto life, but withholds from the justified person the life thus pronounced in union with God and Christ; and another, which brings him, through the sacraments, into possession of all the goods of life.

Finally, I gladly acknowledge what fine insights Thomasius has given even in that part of his teaching which I have contested. I am also quite content that one should seek to dig deeper into the mine-shafts of the divine word. Only this seems to me very dangerous: to speculate about the mysteries of faith without a clear scriptural basis — and Thomasius himself, in all likelihood, does not conceal from himself that the scriptural basis is the weakest part of his new teaching. If he means to hold fast to his teaching on baptism, he will also have to rework his teaching on justification anew. I believe, however, that this latter doctrine, in which he lives, stands higher for him than that other one, about which he merely speculates.

(Submitted by Prof. Cramer.)

The "Lutheran Observer."

Americanism. In the latest number of the "Lutheran Observer" we find the recommendation of a book which, to judge by the quotations cited, seems bound to be unpalatable to anyone not yet completely blinded by American arrogance or chiliastic enthusiasm — but which, together with its recommendation, unfortunately awakens the sad apprehension that the