# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_April 1863_S121
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

What the Apostles Say and What Christ the Lord Says to Our Catechism Controversy. 121

"...I too will deny before my Father who is in heaven. You must not suppose that I have come to send peace on earth. I have not come to send peace, but the sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a man's foes will be those of his own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever does not take up his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it." Matt. 10:32–39.

Not human regard for any judgment or favor in the world, but rather the question — What do the Apostles say, and what does Christ say, to our catechism controversy? — was what guided the author of this modest treatise when, in defense of the truth, he took issue in the newspaper he reads with the first excitement over the Royal Ordinance of April 14 of this year. For this reason he has also chosen, for the present separate reprint of the newspaper articles in question, to

acknowledge. So may this little sample suffice. I can indeed offer no more, though I am much more indebted to my friends over there. Only now and then the old impulse still pulls at me once more, but I must always bitterly atone for the presumption. At present, moreover, the sad experience cools my ardor, that nothing helps any more. The fire can be content so long as it stays clear of the water: this will never let itself be kindled by it. Woe, then, to those who wish to unite when God calls to battle!

After this preliminary remark it will surprise you less that, with the appended remnants of the weapons forged — for my part as well — for the fight for Luther's word and spirit, since an untimely peace would not let them come into use, I journey to a land which, despite all its distress, I prize because it — can still fight. In the old world, by contrast, it seems only lawsuits are still able to arise. The struggle over ideal goods is, in the eyes of this generation, folly. But there is no greater fool than one who fights for God and the faith!

Since this disposition has hitherto held the upper hand in our catechism war, it seems to me a noteworthy sign of the times. The earth has grown dry, and the sickle is already sharpened!

This too serves God's children for their good. I confess with trembling that I myself experience it in great weakness. Though it is painful, through the disclosure of a defect one so gladly denies, to be separated according to the spirit in the same measure as it shows itself in the flesh, in its nakedness, yet there is, after all, peace only in the truth.

To my friends and benefactors, then, this slight and feeble sign of life from him whom they carry in their hands — who, together with his own, lives in God on their goodness — shall be a comforting proof that I, wherever I too may be, share with them the suffering of this time: namely, the anguish of seeing the hostile world and the murderer from the beginning oppress and threaten the faith, advance across the breadth of the earth, and surround the beloved city; and that in such fellowship of the Spirit I feel, day by day, more of my own powerlessness and the power of my sin — yet am thereby also put to ever deeper shame in just this way, that Christ does not withdraw his gracious presence from me, his unworthy vessel.

This testimony, my greeting.                              R. Röbbelen.