# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Mai 1863_S135
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

What the Apostles Say and What Christ the Lord Says to Our Catechism Controversy. 135

the prominent Jews mostly belonged to it, the high priests too. Accordingly, the wisdom that is falsely regarded as a progress of the age, which has only a smile for the biblical doctrine of the prince of this wicked world, by no means protects against an inhumanity such as is lamented in the witch trials.

Finally, it was likewise discovered a good while ago, by another Jewish sect, that confession and absolution cannot be reconciled with faith in an invisible, holy, and righteous God. For that very reason it reviled Jesus as a blasphemer (Matt. 9:3), when he himself administered the office which he afterward bestowed upon the Church as an inexhaustible fountain of blessing (see Matt. 18:17-18), and the administration of which he commanded to the disciples, as the forerunners of all shepherds and pastors (see John 20:21-23). — Even at the time of the Reformation there was no lack of those to whom Luther's guidance on confession, as it stands in the "new catechism," gave offense. Otherwise there would have been no need for the bold word: "If a thousand and yet another thousand worlds were mine, I would not let a single piece of this confession be taken out of the Church!"

Let these examples suffice. For that a godly singer already had to complain thousands of years ago:

"The fools say in their hearts: there is no God!"

is a reminder, set against the testimonies of revelation, of a stage of free reason's development which even the most determined opponents of the "new catechism" nevertheless still do not seem to have reached — namely, that they live in the nineteenth century. And from what has been said it is sufficiently clear how the shadow has ever borne witness to the light, and how the present-day disparagements of biblical truth likewise only confirm anew the old saying:

"Faith is not every man's thing!"

(cf. 1 Cor. 2:14.)

g) Age Does Not Protect Against Folly.

The sun rises with time and with time sets again. Who will expect a brighter light in the evening than in the morning? And yet time meanwhile has advanced considerably. One keeps counting further until midnight. But with every new hour it only grows darker than it was before.

So the progress of time is not always a gain in insight and wisdom. Of mankind as a whole the above proverb holds rather just as true as of the individual.

h) What Is Lacking in the Protest in No. 178 to That of April 18, 1521?

It evidently wishes to conform to Luther's glorious confession at Worms. But what it lacks is what is always required on the part of sinful man-