# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_M rz 1859_S85
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

J. Ch. Koecher's Proof that the Evangelical Lutheran Religion, etc.	85

Or, depending on the circumstances, it will be expedient, in order to
overcome the stronghold of self-righteousness — against which the
sharpest arrows of the Law so often glance off — to expound to the sick
person the glory of eternal life: how all the saints, clothed in the fair
white silk of righteousness, crowned with honor, in the fellowship of all
the holy angels, stand before God's throne in the heavenly Jerusalem, and
will enjoy the glory of God, which no eye has seen and no ear heard, and
which has not entered into the heart of any man; and how God will wipe
away all tears, even all tears of repentance, from the eyes of his elect,
and will comfort them at his heart forever; for there no complaint or
strife, no tribulation or distress, will assail the saints, because there
will be no more sin; and that he, the sick man, has surely already
rejoiced in this for a long time, since — as he himself says — he has
lived so good a Christian life that the joy must already be alive within
him.

The wisdom of every faithful shepherd of souls, who is concerned for
the salvation of the sheep entrusted to him, will surely, through God's
grace, upon his heartfelt prayer, hit upon the right course, and his office
will be blessed toward such poor yet dearly bought souls.

(Conclusion to follow.)

J. Ch. Koecher's Proof that the Evangelical Lutheran
Religion Is Not a New Religion, but the Old Christian
Religion.

(Continued.)
§ 4.

The Evangelical Lutheran religion teaches and confesses that the
eternal Son of God took a human nature into his own subsistence, and,
by virtue of that personal union, imparted to it divine attributes and
perfections, majesty, honor, and glory. This is also the faith of the
first and ancient Christian Church, to which bear witness:

in the second century, Justin Martyr, who puts these words into
the mouth of Trypho the Jew 1): "can even those who now wish to live,
by keeping what Moses commanded, and believing on this crucified
Jesus — since they recognize that he is the Christ of God, and that
judgment over all has been fully given over to him, and that he
possesses an eternal kingdom — be saved?"

Tertullian 2): "Even if we said this, and fortified our opinion by

1) in Dialogo cum Tryphone pag. 264.

2) in libro de Carne Christi Cap. XI. [Even if we should say this, and
by whatever reasoning we might fortify our opinion, provided we do not
suppose, with such great madness as he imagined, that the very flesh
of Christ — as though sinful — was emptied out in him; since we
remember that it presides at the right hand of the Father in the heavens,
and we proclaim that it will come from there in the retinue of the
Father's glory.]