# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_November 1863_S329
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Some Remarks on a New Apology for the Reformed Church. 329

gather up into one heap, so that the whole sum of all prayer goes against
our chief enemy — for he is the one who, in all that we ask, hinders us in
regard to God's name or honor, God's kingdom and will, our daily
bread, a cheerful good conscience, etc. Therefore we at last gather all this
together and say: Dear Father, help us to be rid of every misfortune. But
nevertheless there is also included in this whatever evil may befall us
under the devil's kingdom — poverty, shame, death, and, in short, all
the unhappy misery and heartache which is without number upon earth."

Everyone sees from this that Luther's meaning is only that it has the
appearance, as though the devil in particular were meant here according
to the Greek; but in any case the word must then be taken synecdochically
for all evil and ill — hence also Luther later, not only in his Small
Catechism, but also in the year 1532 in his exposition of the Sermon on
the Mount, and in the year 1535 in his instruction on how to pray, for
Peter Balbirer [the barber], not only retains the words "deliver us from
evil," but also presents the same as a petition for deliverance from all
evil through a gracious hour and a blessed end.

But let us go on. Mr. Lic. K. continues thus:

"Our Reformed Church recognizes Roman leaven in the so-called
concept of the office in the Lutheran Church, in that one wishes to
surround the servant of the Word with a certain priestly nimbus. Our
Reformed Church, to be sure, firmly holds to the divine institution of
the preaching office, but sees in the preachers nothing but the duly
called proclaimers of the divine Word and the administrators of the
holy Sacraments, and abhors everything that might in any way recall a
priestly dignity and a nimbus connected with it. The promise of the
forgiveness of sins, to be spoken by the clergyman to penitent sinners
according to the conditions established by the Word of God, has no
extraordinary meaning or power, but works no more than when a
Christian brother imparts the promises of the Gospel to another who,
on account of his sins, has a broken heart; and thus our Reformed
Church is, with its whole heart, the enemy of all hierarchical cravings.
Servants of the Word, proclaimers of the same, fellow elders — that is
what their preachers are, and everything that would make them into
priestly mediators is an abomination to our Reformed Church, which
it abhors."

Marginal remarks: Here we can be brief. Mr. Lic. has once again
heard the bells ring without hearing where the clapper strikes [i.e.,
caught a rumor without grasping it rightly]. He has heard that there
are now theologians within the Lutheran Church who hold the
hierarchical principles he censures: forthwith he charges them to the
Lutheran Church itself. Mr. K. evidently does not know the doctrine
of the Lutheran Church. We believe, therefore, that in order for him
to become acquainted with it — among other things on the point of the
preaching office — we can do nothing better than to recommend to him
and his like the study of the following classic passages from our
Smalcald Articles: "On this one must indeed confess, that the keys
were given not to one man alone, but to the whole Church