# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Februar 1859_S51
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

J. Ch. Köcher's Proof that the Evangelical-Lutheran Religion, etc.                    51

...are not satisfied, we will go through the principal articles of faith by
which it differs from other religions, and over which it carries on a
controversy with them, and show plainly that the most ancient teachers of
the Christian Church taught the very same thing that the Lutheran Church
still publicly confesses and maintains to this day.

§ 2.

The Evangelical-Lutheran religion teaches and confesses that the books of
Holy Scripture are the only pure and perfect source from which all men, of
whatever rank and sex they may be, can draw and attain a correct and
thorough knowledge and understanding of all divine truths necessary to
their salvation. This very thing is taught

in the first century by Clement of Rome ¹): "Look diligently into the
Scripture, which contains the true utterances of the Holy Spirit; take up
the letter of the blessed apostle Paul, and consider what he wrote to you
at first, at the beginning of the Gospel;"

in the second century by Polycarp ²): "Neither I, nor anyone else like me,
can imitate the wisdom of the blessed and renowned Paul, who dwelt among
you and was known by face to the people who then lived, who taught the
word of truth with great diligence and thoroughness, and who also, though
absent, wrote you a letter, by reading and considering which you can be
further built up in the faith that has been given you;"

Irenaeus ³): "We have come to know the plan of our salvation through no
other men than those very ones through whom the Gospel came to us — which
they first preached in their own time, and afterward, by the will of God,
delivered to us in writings, that the same might be the foundation and
pillar of our faith": ⁴) "Read diligently the Gospel that has been left to
us by the apostles, and the prophets, and you will find that everything
our Lord did, and taught, and suffered, was foretold beforehand in them;"

Tertullian ⁵): "I do not accept what you adduce of your own apart from
Scripture": ⁶) "The heretics may con-

1) Epistola I. ad Corinthios Cap. XLV.

2) Epistola ad Philippenses Cap. III.

3) Lib. III. adversus Haereses cap. I. Non per alios dispositionem salutis nos-
trae cognovimus, quam per eos, per quos Evangelium pervenit ad nos, quod quidem
tunc praeconiaverunt, postea vero per Dei voluntatem in scripturis nobis tradide-
runt, fundamentum et columnam fidei nostrae futurum.

4) Lib. IV. cap. 66. in fine: Legite diligentius id, quod ab apostolis est evan-
gelium nobis datum, et legite diligentius prophetas, et invenietis universam actio-
nem, et omnem doctrinam, et omnem passionem domini nostri praedicatam in ipsis.

5) in libro de carne Christi Cap. VI. p. 26. Opp. Non recipio, quod extra
scripturam de tuo infers.

6) in libro de Praescriptionibus adversus haereticos Cap. XI. p. 107. Opp. Con-
fingant tale aliquid haeretici. Quid enim illis post blasphemiam inlicitum est?
Sed etsi confinxerint, nihil promovebunt. Ipsa enim doctrina eorum, cum Apostolica