# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_December 1859_S369
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Comparison of Luther with Arndt and August H. Francke in Respect, etc. 369

not only that he should eat and drink, but that I should gain something to do with him through these works and might bring him to Christ. These works lie outside the kingdom, directed to those who are not in the kingdom, so that you may bring them too into the kingdom. — It is remarkable how Luther proceeds in the L. sermon of the Church Postil on the Gospel for the 19th Sunday after Trinity. He says at the outset: "The sum of this Gospel is the great, high article of faith called: forgiveness of sins." But before Luther enters upon this, he explains: "But that one may rightly understand this, one must know well and properly to distinguish the two governments, or two kinds of righteousness. One here on earth, which God has also ordained and placed under the Ten Commandments in the second table, and which is called a worldly or human righteousness, and serves for this, that people here on earth may live with one another and use the goods that God has given us. For he wills that this life too be conducted and carried on in nice peace." Now in order to hold fast the right distinction between the two kinds of righteousness, and to guard the hearers so that they do not confuse them, he discusses at length, before passing to the doctrine of the forgiveness of sins, the character of an upright Christian life, as something necessary for this life and commanded by God, and seeks to awaken desire and love for it; whereupon he then describes righteousness in one continuous flow and shows the way to attain it, remaining entirely silent about works, until at last he says in closing: "Behold, there you have everything that belongs to this article concerning the Christian righteousness which stands in the forgiveness of sins, given to us through Christ and received through and with the Word by faith, pure and simple, without any of our own work. Yet not in such a way that a Christian should not and must not do good works, but that one should not mix and weave them into the doctrine of faith, nor hang upon them the shameful delusion that they can accomplish something toward righteousness before God — whereby one befouls and corrupts both the doctrine of works and the doctrine of faith. For everything depends on keeping this article pure and clear, separated from all our own doing; but afterward, when we have this righteousness, works should follow and remain here below on earth, so that they constitute and maintain worldly righteousness, and thus both go rightly, yet each particularly in its own nature and dignity: the one before God in faith, above and prior to all works; the other in works of love toward one's neighbor." In the sermon of the House Postil, Luther concerns himself almost not at all with repentance and good works, and endeavors only to show how the means of grace and faith are necessary for the forgiveness of sin. Only once, after he has censured the doctrine of the papists, does he continue thus: "It is true, I should feel remorse and let my sin grieve me heartily; but through this I do not come to the forgiveness of sin. Through what, then?" and so forth.

If one now also compares in this respect the sermons of Arndt on our Gospel, one cannot say that he mixes law and gos-