# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_December 1859_S354
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

354 A Comparison of Luther with Arndt and August H. Francke in This Regard, etc.

not deal with works; for it does not agree with saying: Go out and run hither and yon, atone for your sin; you must keep and do this and that if you are to be rid of your sins — but rather, straightway, without any work or law, out of pure grace, your sins are forgiven you. Therefore this lies outside the kingdom of Christ, to press people with the law.. If you offer me a work, then it is not the Holy Spirit; for he proceeds in such a way that he first brings me the grace of Christ, and does not lead to works; for thus he speaks: Your sins are forgiven you, be of good comfort, and the like — he does not drive first toward works, but first fetches you up to God through his sweet words and grace, and shows you at first no work at all; but afterward, toward your neighbor, you will find works enough.. I say this: even if it were a work that God now commanded at this very hour, I still would not press it in such a way, nor condemn the one who does not follow it at once; I would rather try to find him some excuse, that he might perhaps still be weak, and let the kingdom of grace burst over him. We shall become aware that the work in question is directed toward God, and does not concern the neighbor at all in this matter; men make a compulsion of it and say: If you do this, then you are a Christian; if you do not do it, then you are not.. The kingdom of Christ proceeds in such a way that we set all our glorying and defiance in grace alone; the other works are to remain free — one is not to compel them, nor to wish to be a Christian on their account, but rather to come with such works, in this connection, to the aid of one's neighbor. We ought therefore to hear this Gospel in such a way that we grasp its sayings, that it be written into the heart, that this light, these words and lamps, shine rightly within us, so that by them we might be able to judge other doctrine. Thus he says to the man sick of the palsy: Your sins are forgiven you. These words and the like belong here, that one should take them to heart, since it is nothing yet but grace alone, no work, whereby the conscience is driven to do anything."

In the second sermon of the Kirchenpostille he writes: "We ought to regard the kingdom of Christ as a beautiful, great vault or covering, drawn over us on every side, which covers and shields us from God's wrath; yes, as a great, wide heaven, in which pure grace and forgiveness shine and fill the world and all things, so that all sins, compared to it, are scarcely as a little spark against the great, wide sea; and even though it presses down, it can nevertheless do no harm, but must, before grace, be scattered and dissolved. Whoever could grasp this might well be called a master; but we shall all have to humble ourselves and not be ashamed to keep learning it as long as we live. For our nature, wherever it knows how to bring up a sin, can make out of it a burden as heavy as heaven; and then the devil blows on it, and turns a little spark into a fire that fills heaven and earth. Here the page must be turned, and it must be firmly concluded: even if sin were ever so great and heavy, this article is far higher, wider, and greater.. When you look at this article, you have both: sin takes away all your holiness, however devout you may be on earth;