# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Februar 1863_S54
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

54 A New Homiletical Monthly.

The first issue of this monthly lies before us; it contains two sermons, homiletical rules and counsels, meditations, aphorisms, and a few notices. The prospectus states, under point two: "The sermons admitted for publication must be genuinely Christian and evangelical, and must avoid denominational controversies. They are to present, so far as possible, a complete picture of the best American-German pulpit gifts of the present day, and to form an edifying bond among the various German churches that confess the fundamental doctrines of evangelical Christianity." The monthly is thus meant to serve the union, and nondenominational sermons — for once, rather than the usual constitution, liturgy, etc. — are now to form the bond among the various churches. As specimens of the "best American pulpit gifts of the present," Dr. Schaff gives first a sermon of his own, and second a "war sermon" by Dr. Mann of Philadelphia. — Both sermons are written in good German, and in places lively and eloquent. Schaff's sermon has the theme "God is Love," on the text 1 John 4:8, and opens with the words: "God — what a small word, and what a great thought!" Mann's sermon takes as its text Ezek. 14:17: "Sword, go through the land." His theme, "Of War, and How Christians Think about War," misses the mark, for since the body of the sermon only carries out how Christians think about war, the first half of the theme is superfluous. One expects, in keeping with the theme, first something general "about war" and then the "thinking" — the Christians' judgment on war. But the sermon does not deliver what the theme promises. In the "best" American-German sermons, precision of theme at the very least should not be lacking.

In Dr. Schaff's sermon there are Pelagianizing tendencies that are not "genuinely Christian and evangelical." He says: "Kindness of heart, benevolence, friendship, love are the noblest traits of character in man. They were implanted in us by the God of love, and though clouded and weakened by the fall, have not been altogether abolished." Holy Scripture teaches, on the contrary, that through the fall the good, the virtues in man as such, were not merely clouded and weakened but wholly died. "You were," says the apostle Paul, Eph. 2:1, "through trespasses and sins — not 'weakened,' not feeble, not sick, not powerless, but — dead!" (ὄντας νεκρούς) [being dead]. — The goodness, love, and friendship of the natural man are only a semblance of goodness, a semblance of love, etc. Were there in these "virtues" even the smallest spark of the life that is from God, then the natural man, after the fall, could not be wholly and utterly and completely "a child of wrath" of God, as in fact he is. God teaches through his word, Eph. 4:18: "They (the Gentiles) walk in the vanity of their mind, having the understanding darkened, and are — not merely clouded and weakened, but — alienated from the life that is of God, through the ignorance that is in them,