# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_December 1859_S370
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

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

-pel, faith and works, justification and sanctification; only, not merely the Lutheran forcefulness is lacking, but also the clarity and instructiveness regarding the distinction between these things. Arndt does, however, give descriptions of faith which, though deficient, one seeks in vain in the books of the Pietists. He writes, for example: "Ah, you say, whereby do I recognize faith? Answer: by three marks of true faith. The first mark is that it looks to Christ alone, clings to him, builds and trusts on him, makes Christ its own, unites itself with Christ, and straightway thinks, considers, concludes that Christ is his; therefore this is the voice of faith: My Lord Christ, my Lord and my God, my Redeemer and Savior, you are my righteousness, my redemption, my sanctification; behold, when you feel this in your heart, then you have true faith. Secondly, it is a mark of faith that it excludes everything that is not God and Christ himself; therefore excluded from faith are all angels and angelic wisdom and righteousness, the holiness, works, and righteousness of all men; faith will and must have Christ alone, and God in Christ; therefore faith says: Lord, if only I have you, then what do I ask further, etc., that is: My Lord Christ, I cannot and will not be righteous and blessed without you; you are my righteousness, blessedness, life, and everything. Behold, thereby you sense and know true faith. Thirdly, it is the nature of faith that it makes a new creature out of man, and is the new spiritual life in man, and renews man daily, cleanses the heart, sighs after God and after the eternal, and says: Ah, Lord Christ, remain in me and I in you; live in me, enlighten me, comfort me, strengthen me, sustain me, preserve me from sins, and rule me through your Holy Spirit, that I may close my life in blessedness and rise joyfully on the Last Day. Behold, that is true faith; this faith God sees and knows, he hears its sighing, its inward spiritual voice and language, even though it speaks no word. For it is not stated here that the bearers or the sick man spoke a word; and yet the Lord saw their faith." The defect of this description, which is otherwise indeed quite splendid, evidently consists in this, that Arndt has not included in it the grounding of faith on the outward, spoken or written Word.

As for, finally, the sermon of A. H. Francke, one cannot indeed say that he teaches anything incorrect about the capacity for comfort and the marks of one who has come to the forgiveness of his sin; but whereas Luther presents all this in such a way that only those who are truly unrepentant are thereby terrified, and makes it his chief concern to urge the hearers to come to the wedding feast of grace, with Francke, on the contrary, the chief concern throughout the whole sermon is rather to make the secure uncertain of their state of grace and to drive them into a certain struggle for the forgiveness of sins, while comfort flows rather sparingly, so that even honest hearts are driven more into anxiety, that they