# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1848 04 18_S134
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

combative and threatening fate of his Church and of our people, so that, if for no other reason, our age ought to feel driven to look into these writings.

But there are those who say: If Luther had lived in our time, how differently he would have written! — meaning by this not the form but the substance, and wishing thereupon to judge the value of a renewed acquaintance with Luther's writings. Against these we set that well-known word of the Reformer, where he wrote: "And should anyone after my death say, were Luther alive now, he would teach and hold this or that article differently, for he had not sufficiently considered it, etc. — against this I now say, as then, and then as now, that by God's grace I have most diligently considered all these articles, have drawn them through Scripture and back through it again many times, and would defend them just as certainly as I have now defended the Sacrament of the Altar. I am not now drunk nor thoughtless; I know what I am saying, and I feel well enough what it will cost me at the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ at the Last Judgment. Therefore let no one make a jest or a loose interpretation of it; I am in earnest." In the face of such earnestness, it would indeed be fitting that even those who are Luther's opponents, or fancy themselves his opponents, should not simply close the matter with him by shutting their eyes to him, but should look him manfully and honestly in the eye, and examine and weigh his words, whether it is indeed being fulfilled what Luther said concerning his adversaries: "As long as I live you shall have no peace from me; if you kill me, you shall have ten times less peace, and I will be to you a bear in the way and a lion in the streets, as Hosea says. However you deal with me, you shall not have your way, until your iron brow and brazen neck be broken, either in grace or in disgrace. If you do not amend, as I would gladly wish, then let it remain that you rage in enmity and I pay it no heed. God grant that you come to know yourselves. Amen."

But let us turn from content to form: what writings speak more in the manner of the people, and more soundly in language and thought, than those of our Reformer? From this well of rejuvenating linguistic freshness those men have, by their own admission, drunk to whom we owe the restoration of German letters. Whoever with a German heart knew how to feel the beauty of the German language has been refreshed by these sound, primally vigorous tones. No nation of the modern world has writings like these, which, at the most various times, like the invigorating flood of the sea's waves, have strengthened aging thoughts and manners of speech into youthful blossoming. And truly, even for our own time, with its admiration of Gallic smoothness and polished perfection of form, a refreshment from this spring of original mastery of language will bring more than merely outward blessing.

For in these writings there is life as if cast in a single mold; they are the testimonies of one who was a Christian through and through, a German in his whole being, and who is the purest, most transparent of natures. His faults lie as open as the gifts and graces with which God endowed him. Thus both his faults and his excellences become, in a twofold way, the most instructive of examples. There is nothing here of courting appearances, which is meant to serve as an artificial cloak for one's nakedness, nothing of the mannerism and jingle of stock phrases in which modern, contrived piety clothes itself as in the robes of monastic orders; rather, one feels of every word that it comes from the heart — from a heart that has not learned to misuse language to veil its actual thoughts, but to use it as the herald which God has given us, to preach the thoughts of divine truth freely and frankly from the housetops.

And what writings, like Luther's, have become such a national sanctuary of the Protestant people? Woe to those who lay hands on such sanctuaries without putting a better and well-grounded truth in their place. The significance of a nation in the history of peoples stands or falls with such national sanctuaries. Either their adoption was a perversity, in which case the glory of our Protestant people falls through the fault of its forebears; or their rejection is folly and thoughtlessness, in which case we, the grandchildren, bear the guilt of betraying our most precious treasures. But we, who wish to remain German and devout as Luther was, see in his writings the manifestos to our people, meant to inspire it to new battles and new victories under the banner of the old truth.

Dissatisfaction with One's Calling and Station.

(See: Luther's Church Postil on the Gospel for the Day of St. John the Evangelist.)

"How does it come about that no one is content with his own condition, but each thinks the other's condition is better than his own? He who is a merchant praises the craftsman because he sits quietly at rest at home, whereas he himself must wander astray about the land; the craftsman, in turn, praises the merchant because he is rich and moves among people, and so it goes on; each is weary of his own condition and sighs after that of another. If he is married, he praises the man who has no wife; if he has none, he praises the married estate; if he is a clergyman, the worldly estate pleases him; if, on the other hand, he is a layman, the clerical estate pleases him. And if God could not deal with them so that they would be content, serving him in the condition in which he has placed them, then it would not be bitter or hard for them. But now, since they are weary of it, no one burdens them but themselves; they make their own lives bitter for themselves without any need or cause.

And even if God were to allow someone to change his condition entirely according to his own will, in order to atone for such weariness, he would nevertheless become just as weary, indeed more weary, in all the others, and would in the end remain with his own. Therefore one must not think of changing one's condition, but of changing one's weariness. Lay aside and exchange the weariness, and then one condition will be to you as another, and all stations will count as equal, as it has come to you, so that you will need no change, nor wish for one.

Thus some heathen have had the thought that if all men's misfortunes were brought together into one heap, and one were to divide it out equally there, it would certainly come to pass that each would much rather keep his own. So very evenly does God govern the world, that to every advantage clings its equal disadvantage. And no one sees more than how smoothly another man's shoe fits; he does not see where it pinches him. Again, the one who wears the shoe does not notice how smoothly it fits, but only how badly it pinches. With such folly the world goes on, that each looks only at his own misfortune and only at the other's good fortune; but if he were also to see his own good fortune alone, and the other's misfortune as well, he would thank God and would be most peacefully content, however poorly or badly things stood with him.

To avoid such unrest, discord, and weariness, faith is useful and necessary — the faith that firmly holds that God governs justly, and appoints each one to the condition that is most useful and fitting for him, such that it could not have turned out better even if he himself had had the choice. This faith produces rest, contentment, peace, and drives away weariness. But where faith is not present, and a man judges according to his own feeling, opinion, and sensation, there, behold, weariness sets in: for he feels only the misfortune of his own condition, and not that of his neighbor. Again, he sees neither the advantage of his own condition, nor the misfortune of his neighbor; and so from this feeling follow weariness, displeasure, toil, and labor in his life; he becomes impatient with it and discontented with God; then God's praise, love, and gratitude fall silent within him, and he remains all his life long a secret murmurer against God, like the Jews in the wilderness; yet he gains nothing more from it than that he makes his own life bitter for himself, and thereby earns hell besides.

Therefore you see how, in all things, faith is necessary, and how it makes all things light, good, and sweet, even if you were in prison and facing death, as the martyrs prove; and how, without it, all things are heavy, evil, and bitter, even if you had all the world's pleasure and joy — as all great lords and the rich prove, who always have the most wretched life of all.

Thus some say: Yes, if I knew that it was not my own folly or the devil that had brought me here, and were certain that God himself had so appointed me, I would gladly be joyful, content, and satisfied! Answer: