# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_December 1859_S364
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

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

the Lord has commanded to preach in his name repentance and forgiveness of sins." This splendid passage, however, Arndt closes in such a way that the mighty stream of comfort is again somewhat dammed, and the rock-bottom foundation is again made to seem, at least in impression, somewhat unsteady. He continues, namely, as follows: "Where there is now repentance, there forgiveness of sins should also be; the two must go together. A preacher can forgive sin to no impenitent heart. For God does not forgive it, and it is against God's command." Thus Luther would hardly have closed the golden chain in which the blessings of salvation and benefits are linked together like members. He would, on the contrary, have shown that absolution is indeed also valid when it is spoken to an impenitent person, but that such a one, on account of his unbelief, does not rejoice in it or obtain it. A similarly fine presentation to the one above is found in Arndt's third sermon. There he writes: "Behold, once you have rightly recognized your sin from the aforementioned considerations and law-sermons, and you feel in your heart the wholesome sorrow and repentance over your sin, then you should turn to the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 1. He has revealed to us the heart of his heavenly Father, and his great love toward the human race; such love of God has no greater witness than that he loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, so that all who believe in him should not perish but have everlasting life.. From this love of God come so many promises of the forgiveness of sin: Isa. 1:18 and 43:25: I blot out your sin. From the promise comes the precious oath, Ezek. 33:11. From the oath comes the covenant of grace, Jer. 31:31ff. From the covenant, the death of Christ, as a confirmation of the testament. From the death of Christ, the seals and the sacrament. From the seals, the application and appropriation: if you are baptized, you belong to God's love, promise, oath, covenant, the death of Christ, and the Supper. Now climb back up again from baptism," etc.

An altogether different teaching about the way and manner in which one must come to the forgiveness of sins is found among the Pietists. They too teach, to be sure, that the Word, the sacrament, and faith are the means of attaining to it, but in doing so they do not proceed from the ground that forgiveness has been earned for all men and that it has been placed in the Word and in the sacraments, and is therefore now to be taken from them through faith and laid hold of by them. They teach, rather, that the Word of God serves only to alarm a person, to place him in a struggle of conscience, and to produce in him a capacity to pray for the forgiveness of sins, and that, once the Holy Spirit has then, in answer to that prayer, produced the assurance of it, the Word and the sacraments then serve to support the forgiveness received in the heart. A. H. Francke, for example, says not a word, in the sermon already cited, about the fact that the one who has become, through the law, a helpless sinner should