# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_October 1859_S295
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

The Twentieth Chapter of the Revelation of St. John. 295

"and encompassed the camp of the saints and the beloved city"—: for when every pulpit resounded with the folly of Aristotle, and no confessional had any other comfort for troubled consciences than letters of indulgence or one's own works of self-chosen penance, then indeed the fortress of the saints was closely enough shut in. If anyone so much as raised himself a moment above the breastwork of the invisible church with his sighs, then it rained glowing arrows of the ban and the interdict. Ah, how hostile were the children of God accounted, men like Huss and Luther — and yet such were "the beloved city," so far as anything of it was perceived at all. Never, surely, did the enmity against God of which Romans 8:7 speaks come forward more brazenly than at that time.

Whoever wishes to picture to himself, in one living image, the condition of the invisible church of those days, let him think of John Huss, or of Luther as he stood ready to leave Wittenberg (1518), and as he lay on his knees at Worms and groaned before his God, because the kings of the earth rose up and the rulers took counsel against the LORD and against his Anointed.

Yet all the same a camp of the saints had been kept by God, one like the seven thousand who in the days of Elijah did not bend their knees before Baal. And an even fairer victory did the Israel of God celebrate. For immediately, in what follows, it says:

"and fire fell from God out of heaven and consumed them."

If we take along with this the following tenth verse, which had already sounded in the previous chapter at verses 20 and 21, before it could here ring out in its full peal, then we can think of nothing else but the old song of victory, which since the fourteenth chapter has not yet fallen silent at all. The whole history of the Reformation is set forth at this point as a new sacrifice of Elijah upon Carmel. What shadow of the old covenant could better furnish a sketch of this act of God? — Here, then, we stand again on the old spot, which only now appears higher to us because we recognize it as the summit of the "first resurrection," though it now encourages us all the less to false hopes. This too, after all, is but a passage through, a gate of heaven.

Now let us run over the words: "fire fell" — it did not rise up, as the devil's lie does; rather it came down suddenly and without effort, seeking nothing better than what it already had, but willing to serve the world at God's command. So was Luther illumined through the reading of Scripture, and, without seeking it himself, driven by the Holy Spirit, imparted to the world the light he had received.

"from God" — while men cried: the devil, the devil!

"out of heaven" — and yet it was meant to damn Luther to hell.

"and consumed them" — while all the while they were eating a good roast. But let one only picture to himself the Diet of Worms, whether it was not indeed just as it is here described. The Emperor at least could