# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Februar 1859_S54
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

J. Ch. Köcher's Proof that the Evangelical-Lutheran Religion, etc.                    54

-caused the greatest disorder, and turned everything upside down. For it
is impossible, indeed impossible, that a man who reads constantly and with
understanding and insight, or hears it read, should come away without
some benefit": ¹) "even if one of the dead should rise, even if an angel
should come down from heaven, Scripture would still have to be more
credible than all of them. For this the King of angels, the Lord of the
dead and the living, has himself given us as a law.

§ 3.

The Evangelical-Lutheran religion teaches and confesses that neither the
unwritten ordinances of the ancients, nor the decrees and pronouncements
of church councils, nor the teachings of the fathers, can furnish a
reliable ground of knowledge of the divine truths, nor a rule and standard
therein. In this, entirely in agreement with it, are

in the second century Justin Martyr ²): "We have no command from Christ
that would bind us to give faith to human ordinances and doctrines, but
rather to believe that which the blessed prophets have preached, and which
Christ himself has taught us." The same author, replying to the Jew
Trypho, who had reminded him: ³) "I have told you, O man, that if you wish
to walk securely and with certainty in all things, you should hold fast to
Holy Scripture" — answers: "It is resolved with me to follow no man or
human teachings, but God and the teachings that come from him;"

in the third century Cyprian ⁴): "Wherefore, if we are to hear Christ
alone, we need not pay attention to what another before us has thought
good to do, but to what Christ, the first and foremost of all, has done.
For one must not follow the custom of man, but the truth of God; for God
says through the prophet Isaiah: In vain do they worship me, teaching the
opinions and commandments of men; and the Lord repeats this very thing in
the Gospel, when he says: "You reject the commandment of God, that you
may establish your own traditions;"

in the fourth century Jerome ⁵): "We must not follow the error of our
parents or ancestors, but the authority

1) Concione IV. de Lazaro Tom. V. Opp. p. 77.

2) in Dialogo cum Tryphone Judaeo p. 267. Opp,

3) ibid. pag. 306.

4) Epistola LXIII. ad Caecilium p. 155. Opp. Quare si solus Christus audien-
dus est, non debemus attendere, quid alius ante nos faciendum putaverit, sed quid,
qui ante omnes est, Christus prior fecerit. Neque enim hominis consvetudinem sequi
oportet, sed Dei veritatem: cum per Isaiam prophetam Deus loquatur et dicat: Sine
causa autem colunt me, mandata et doctrinas hominum docentes. Et iterum Dominus
in Evangelio hoc idem repetat, dicens: Reiicitis mandatum Dei, ut traditionem vestram
statuatis.

5) Commentar. in Jerem. Cap. IX. Tom. V. Opp. p. 240. Ergo nec parentum
nec maiorum error sequendus est, sed autoritas Scripturarum, et Dei docentis im-
perium.