# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Juli 1864_S215
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Christian Catechism; A Guide to Religious Instruction. 215

the new catechism says: "Our sonship depends on the eternal Sonship of Christ." True as this is in the sense that we could not have become children of God through Christ if he had not been the Son of the living God, and thus true God, we are nevertheless God's children not properly because Christ is begotten of the Father in eternity, but because he became man. — Further, how indeed does the author know that the apostles understood the full meaning of the preface of the Lord's Prayer only after the outpouring of the Holy Spirit? Why not already after the resurrection, when the Lord opened the Scriptures to them? — Finally, our catechism sees in the "Father" faith, in "our" love, and in the words "which art in heaven" hope, as the three Christian cardinal virtues. Faith, of which it says on page 46, question 9, that it is no merit, is here nevertheless made into a virtue, a work. — As for the explanation of the individual petitions, the interpretation of the second cannot be squared with the Bible. The explanation reads thus: "Rule us ever more through thy Word and thy Spirit, and spread thy Gospel over the whole world, until all peoples turn to thee, and serve thee alone in holiness and righteousness." As proof for this doctrine of universal conversion, the following passages are cited: Revelation 11:15, Daniel 2:44, 7:14, 18:27, Luke 1:33, 1 Corinthians 15:25-28 — all of which, however, deal with the exaltation of Christ, in which he will reign as King of all kings, even over the ungodly. To this doctrine there indeed fits the further explanation, given below, that heathendom grew up wild on the soil of fallen human nature, which nevertheless seeks after the unknown God. Pelagius, indeed, teaches this, but not Scripture. "Judaism before Christ," the good Doctor further says, "is the preparation of Christianity, or the true religion in the making." All the godly men before Christ, then, did not yet have the right, complete religion, not yet the complete Gospel, were not yet Christians. That is the wisdom of our age. To exercise his pupils' memory for numbers, there follows, further, a statistical count of the thousands of Christians, Jews, Muhammedans, and heathen; and while the new catechism contains such improper matters, it leaves out so many splendid points — as, for example, in the explanation of the fourth petition, which is crammed into a single answer. Finally, one more piece of evidence for our learned catechism-writer's gift for combination. He finds, namely, in the Lord's Prayer an allusion to the Trinity. According to Christian doctrine only God is three-in-one; with Dr. Schaff there is more of it. He says: "Three-in-one is the division into address — petitions — thanksgiving; three-in-one the address: our — Father — in heaven; three-in-one the two classes of petitions (according to the Reformed sixfold division); three-in-one the thanksgiving: kingdom — power — glory." And this is supposed to belong to — a guide to religious instruction, as the title of the book informs us!
(To be concluded.)