# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1848 04 18_S135
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

That is a foolish and unchristian pretext, which betrays a faithless heart. Christ says, Matthew 6:28: "Consider the flowers of the field, how they grow." Likewise Matthew 10:29: "Not one leaf falls from the tree without your Father's will in heaven, and not one bird falls to the earth without his will; how much more you, who are worth more than birds — even all the hairs of your head are numbered!"

Now if, then, your condition is a station that is not in itself sin, even though you may have come into it through sin and folly, that same condition and station is not therefore any less pleasing to God; for all things please God well, says Moses (Gen. 1:31), apart from sin. Therefore, where you are in a station that is not in itself sin, you are certainly appointed by God, and are in a condition that is well-pleasing to God: only see to it that you do not sin within it. If you were to fall from a loft and break a leg in two, the room or the bed into which that fall had brought you, and which forces you to remain there, would not thereby be any the worse or any less pleasing to God, even though another might come into it without such a fall.

Indeed, let this be a sure sign to you that you are in a right, God-pleasing station, if you feel weariness and displeasure with it; there God is certainly at work, letting the evil spirit assail you and tempt you, to see whether you are fickle or steadfast or not, and giving your faith occasion to struggle and to strengthen itself.

Also, when I speak of the station that is not in itself sinful, I do not mean by this that anyone may live here on earth without sin. All stations and conditions sin daily; rather I mean the stations which God has instituted, or whose institution is not against God, such as being married, servant, maid, master, mistress, rulers, governors, judges, officials, peasant, citizen, etc. Sinful station I call robbery, usury, the condition of public women, and, as things now stand, pope, cardinals, bishops, priests, monks, and convents of nuns who do not preach or hear preaching. For these stations are certainly against God wherever they occupy themselves only with masses and singing and do not concern themselves with God's Word, so that a common woman may come to heaven far sooner than one such as these. To be a clergyman and not occupy oneself with God's Word (which ought to be his one and only work) is exactly like being married and never being together, but each running off, one this way, the other that way, whoring about. Whence it is to be feared: many a foundation and cloister is much more a house of whoredom and knavery belonging to the devil; pious and outwardly upright in body, but within the soul nothing but sin."

People who depart from God's Word even in a single point, and follow their own opinion, deny God and his Word entirely.

(Luther, Church Postil, on the Gospel for the Third Day of Christmas.)

"Whoever does not receive God in a single point, especially in that which he causes to be taught, it will afterward avail him nothing that he wishes to receive him in those points which he himself has chosen. If Abraham had wished to say that it was not God nor God's work when he was commanded to sacrifice his son Isaac, and had followed his own reason and said: he would not sacrifice his son, but would otherwise serve the God who created heaven and earth — what would that have profited him? He would have lied: for in that very point he would have rejected the God who created heaven and earth, and invented another god under the name of the God who created heaven and earth, and would have despised the God who had set that commandment before him.

Behold, thus all lie who say that they mean the true God who created heaven and earth, and yet do not accept his work and Word, but set their own opinion above God and his Word. If they truly believed in a God who created heaven and earth, they would also know that this same God is a creator over their own opinion as well, and may make, break, and judge it as he wills. But since they will not let him be a creator over themselves and their own opinion, even in such a small point, it cannot be true that they believe him to be the creator of the whole of creation.

Then you say: Yes, but what if I were deceived, and it were not God? Answer: Be still, dear man; such a heart, which does not stand upon its own opinion, God does not let be deceived; for it is not possible that he should fail to come into and dwell in such a heart, as the Mother of God says, Luke 1:53: He fills the hungry. And Psalm 107:9: He fills the empty souls. But if someone is deceived, it is certain that he had stood upon his own opinion, whether secretly or openly. Therefore an empty heart always stands in fear, in matters that are uncertain, as to whether they are of God. But the opinionated fall upon a thing suddenly, and let it be enough for them that it glitters and seems good to them. Again, what is certainly of God, the empty-hearted take up quickly, but the opinionated persecute the very same.

Now there is no surer sign that something is of God than that it stands against and above one's own opinion. So the opinionated think there is nothing surer that is not of God than that which goes against their own opinion; for they are makers of God and masters of God — whatever is right according to their own opinion, that must be God and God's own. Thus all who stand upon themselves must be led astray, and all come to the right way who stand idle and empty of themselves — that is, who keep the true Sabbath. And where this same opinion comes to the point of forcing God's Word to serve its own presumption, and thus falls with its own light upon Scripture, there is no counsel nor help left any more. For then it supposes that God's Word is on its side, and that it must insist upon it; that is the final fall, and truly Lucifer's own misfortune, of which Solomon says, Proverbs 24:16: The righteous falls seven times and rises again; but the unbelieving fall into every misfortune."

Unbelief Refuted.

He has made the earth by his power, and established the world by his wisdom, and stretched out the heavens by his understanding (Jer. 10:12).

The famous astronomer Athanasius Kircher convinced one of his acquaintances, who doubted the existence of God, of it quite strikingly. At a time when his friend was about to come to him, he placed a beautiful celestial globe in a corner of his room. The friend arrived while Kircher seemed to be occupied with astronomical calculations, which obliged him to look about the room in the meantime. He soon noticed the globe, and after a short pause asked Kircher whether it belonged to him, who had made it, and so forth. Kircher answered that it did not belong to him, that no one had made it, and that it must have come there by chance. "You are joking," said the friend, and seemed to grow annoyed when Kircher persisted in his claims. Kircher at once seized the opportunity and said: "You will not believe that this small and inferior body came into being by itself — how then can you believe that the far greater and more beautiful original, the heavens with all their planets and stars, came to be as we now see it by itself, through mere chance?" The unbeliever fell silent.

Pastoral Prudence.

"If you cannot accomplish something in peace and in a good way, I do not advise that you strive with force and harsh temper among most of your own people. Rather, give room to wrath and let the tares grow with the wheat. It is better to make a few blessed in peace than to unsettle all for the sake of many. And it is better to bear with many for the sake of a few, than to ruin a few for the sake of many."*) (Luther, to [illegible] at the Leisnig monastery. Opp. Hal. XXI, 576.)

The Blessing of Intercession for a Wayward Child.

Spener had a son of outstanding abilities, who was, however, extremely wayward. All means of love and of earnestness proved fruitless, and the father could at last do nothing more — as the only thing he still trusted himself to continue with good reason — than pray that dear God would yet save his son, whenever and in whatever way, leaving that to Him.

Some time afterward the son fell seriously ill, and lay for several weeks in great inward struggles, but outwardly almost mute and motionless. Suddenly he raised himself up with force, threw up his hands, and cried out from a laboring breast: "My father's prayers surround me like mountains!" Soon afterward the inward struggles ceased, a gentle peace spread over the whole being of the sufferer, and he was saved both in body and in spirit. From then on he was an entirely different man, and Spener, shortly before his death, had the joy of seeing his son established as an upright man in a significant office and happily married.

Studying for the Sermon.

Whoever wished to say that men need not concern themselves with what and how they should teach, since the Holy Spirit himself makes the teachers, could just as well say that we need not pray either, because Christ says: "Your heavenly Father knows what you need before you ask him." (Augustine, De doctrina christiana, Book IV, ch. 16.)

Luther, a Weak Lutheran.

"I well know how bitter and hard it has become for me, and still daily becomes, to grasp and hold fast this cornerstone. People may call me Lutheran; but in doing so they nearly do me wrong, or else I am indeed but a small, weak Lutheran. God strengthen me!" Luther, on Ps. 118:23.

*) Perhaps the last sentence should read: "few for the sake of many to ruin." —Ed.