# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_August 1859_S250
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

250

Gleanings.

I. Even the Jena rationalist Rückert, in his recently published pro-rector's address, "The Task of Jena Theology in the University's Fourth Century," takes the name "justification by faith" as his signboard. On this Rudelbach remarks, in the third number of his journal for the current year: "As for the principle smuggled in here, interpreted in the Jena manner, it is enough to keep Luther's word in mind: Justus ex fide vivit, sed ex fide crucifixi [The just shall live by faith, but by faith in the Crucified]."

II. In a review of Dr. Herm. Hupfeld's (professor at Halle) translation and exposition of the Psalms, Paulus Cassel writes in the same place: "One certainly cannot praise too highly the fact that the language of the Old Testament is being cultivated so admirably by more recent scholarship; but it cannot be denied that purely grammatical philology, in other spheres too, tends to be paired with an arrogance that makes for a truly instructive psychological phenomenon. The outward successes achieved upon the body of the Word so overwhelm men's vanity, just as chemistry does in the study of nature. They begin to look down loftily upon the very Spirit for whose sake they exist and labor. One does not attain the ideal quality of the Psalms without growing into them with one's innermost life. The truth one then finds does not fail to bring its blessing upon one's own nature. His learning and teaching will become for him a way to salvation and to joy even in the midst of struggle (Ps. 35:9); in whatever manner and by whatever means we approach the commentating of the Psalms today, we have no cause at all to be self-righteous and proud. For the actual progress that exegesis has made — not merely for the people and the church (which is, after all, properly the main point), but also for scholarship — is, on the whole, quite small; especially when we compare it with what we have received from the ancients."

III. In a review of the Jena writer Rückert's work "The Lord's Supper," in which the author attempts to show that even divine power is not great enough to bring it about that in the Holy Supper the body and blood of Christ are really and truly present and received, Ströbel writes the following: "One sees that the old weather-maker, Lady Reason, takes quite a mouthful in this book. Not content with setting herself up as mistress, interpreter, and judge over God's words and mysteries, she also sets bounds to divine omnipotence — quite narrow, tight bounds. She considers herself competent and qualified to keep watch that God think or speak nothing she has not first censored, resolve or carry out nothing she has not approved, establish and ordain nothing she has not ratified. To exercise such a critical oversight over the King of heaven and earth has been her way and custom from time immemorial; and so it troubles us little, and changes not the slightest thing in the divinely ordained course of events. Despite all this rational-police surveillance, it still