# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Juli 1862_S206
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

206 Report on the Right Mean of the Lutheran Liturgy.

could the longing to see him as he is be greater than there, where he draws
so near to us? The close of the service, now having arrived at its high point,
is formed by the Thanksgiving Collect, which is at once a petition
for the fruit of the sacrament received, and the Aaronic Blessing, "as the confirmation and sealing of all the gifts of grace received through Word and sacrament,
by a final impartation of grace" from him
who gives one thing in the manifold, and manifold things in the one.

As a second characteristic feature one might name freedom and manifold
variety of movement, as well as simplicity and single-heartedness. Spoken and sung word, now as free,
now as fixed speech, now through the minister of the Word, now through
the congregation, and between these also through the choir (which is not properly to be regarded as a representative of the
congregation, but as a circle stepping forth out of it,
which offers the gift of song as a special sacrifice for the sanctifying of the divine
Name and for the edification of the congregation of God) — these produce a
rich variety and a wondrously lovely alternation. But since
this variety and this alternation are determined not by arbitrary choice, but by
the idea of the whole Mass or Communion — the word of promise
and, in it, Christ*) — the whole service, over against papist
overloading, is again marked by simplicity and singleness of heart, which for that very reason
also requires, for its understanding and for taking pleasure in it, a simple and
childlike disposition; for it is not Reformed bareness and emptying-out that actually gives divine service
the stamp of simplicity and singleness of heart, but rather those forms and that
articulation of it by which the disposition is, throughout, involuntarily directed
to the Word and sacrament, so that, to speak with Luther,
"everything that happens among Christians in divine service happens
for the sake of the Word and the sacrament."

Through the individual parts of the service and their combination
into a rounded, characteristic whole, borne and pervaded by the one thing needful,
the principles developed in §§ 6-10 thus find their realization.

Here the reporter now further permits himself, for individual pieces as well as for the
whole of the chief service, partly to confirm what has been said about it here,
partly for a more thorough understanding, to adduce some of the relevant
sayings of Dr. Luther.

1. On the individual component parts of the chief service.

*) As the goal and capstone of the chief service, the reporter presents the Holy
Supper only in the sense that it is the final seal of the Gospel proclaimed through preaching and absolution. The guiding idea of the Communion is
and remains the word of promise in preaching, absolution, and the sacrament.
Compare with this what was said sub I, § 8, on the position of the Word and sacrament in this report,
together with the relevant citations under sub b from Dr. Luther's works, likewise the citation in
the preceding paragraph.