The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1883, Page 38

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. "38

The Lutheran Pioneer.

The Lord will provide.

BY MRS. M. A. COOK.

In some way or other the Lord will provide.
It may not be my way;
It may not be thy way;
And yet in His own way
“The Lord will provide.”

At some time or other the Lord will provide.
It may not be my time;
It may not be thy time;
And yet in his own time
“The Lord will provide.”

Despond, then, no longer—the Lord will provide;

And this be the token:
No word he hath spoken
Was ever yet broken,
“The Lord will provide.”

March on, then, right boldly; the sea shall divide
The pathway made glorious.
With shoutings victorious
We'll join in the chorus,
“The Lord will provide.”

Certainty of Faith.

By Dr. MarTIn LUTHER.

Before all things we must know whether this
-doctrine of ours is God’s Word; for if we know
that, we can firmly rest in the confidence that
it shall and must remain, and that no devil can

overturn it; much less, the world and all its

courtiers, however much they may rage and
foam against it. God be praised, I regard my
doctrine as certainly the Word of our Lord
God, and have now driven out of my heart all
other beliefs, though they promise what they
will. And I have almost overcome such severe
.temptations as when my heart sometimes says:
+*Are you, then, the only one who holds the
true Word of God in its purity? And do the
others all taken together not possess it?” Thus
Satan also tempts us, and powerfully assails us
with the name and title of the church. ‘‘Yea,’’
he says, ‘‘what the church has hitherto determ-
ined, and for so many years has held to*be
true, you overthrow as though it were not true,
_and with your doctrine you are disturbing both
the spiritual and the wordly government.’’
This argument I find throughout in all the
prophets, as the most eminent chiefs, both in
church and state, say: ‘‘We are God’s people;
for we are in the regular government founded
and established by God. What we as the
Jargest and best flock conclude and acknowl-
edge as true, should be held. - Who are you,
ye fools, that ye will teach us? you are scarcely
a handful.” There indeed one must not only
be well equipped with God’s Word, but he
must also have certainty of doctrine; otherwise
he cannot stand in the conflict. One must be
able to say: “I am certain that that which I
teach and hold, is the true Word of God, the
high Majesty in Heaven, and is eternal, un-
changeable truth; and all that does not agree
with it or is contrary to it, is false and of
Satan.”
It is this alone which enables one to begin
‘and to remain steadfast in saying: “‘All the
___ rest of you together err and are wrong, but my

doctrine is alone true and the certain truth of
God; thereby I remain, even though the whole
world would say otherwise.’? For God cannot
lie; and as I have His Word, that Word can-
not fail me, nor be overcome by all the gates
of hell; and I find comfort in that God says:
“T will give you people and hearers. Let Me
have all the care. I will sustain you, if you
only remain steadfast by My Word.”

We must be certain that the doctrine is
right and is eternal truth, and not ask after
how it will be received by the people. There-
fore Christ says (John 8, 46.): ‘ Which of you
convinceth me of sin? And if I say the truth,
why do ye not believe me?’’ And all the
Apostles were most certain of their doctrine,
and Paul especially urges the firmest confidence
when he says to Timothy (1. Ep. 1, 15.): ‘“This
is a faithful saying, and worthy of all accept-
ation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to
save sinners.”’? For faith in God through Christ
must be sure and confident that He makes the
conscience joyful, and brings it to peace. And
St. Peter in his Epistle says (2. Ep. 1, 19.):
‘We have also a more sure Word of prophecy ;
whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as
unto a light that shineth into a dark place.”
Where there is this certainty, there is then a
victory over the devil; but where one is not
certain of the doctrine, there it is not well to
dispute with the devil.

If you would be saved, you must therefore
be so sure of God’s Word, that if all men would
say otherwise, yea every angel would say, No,
you could stand up alone and say: “I still
know that this Word is true.”-—
—__2_- oo -

Stories of two of Luther’s Hymns.

Luther gave to the people not only the Bible
and the Catechism, but also a number of Gos-
pel hymns which aided greatly in spreading the
work of the Reformation. A Spanish monk
writes of Luther’s hymns: ‘It is a matter of
great wonder, how deep a root these hymns
have taken, which coming in numbers from
Luther’s workshop, are now sung in all houses
and shops, markets, streets, and country lanes.”

At Brunswick, in the year 1527, the people
met in one of the churches to do away with the
popish ceremonies. The town-council, who were
of Romish opinions, had called to their aid a
Doctor of theology from Magdeburg. This
Dr. Sprengle proudly promised that, by three
sermons, he would root out all ‘‘ Lutheran
heresy’’ in Brunswick. He was received in
great pomp by the priests and monks, and soon
began to preach. But when, in the middle of
his sermon, he wished to prove from a passage
in the New Testament, that man could get
salvation by good works, one of his hearers
rose up and cried out with a loud voice:
“Doctor, you are mis-quoting the text; in the
Holy Scriptures it is written differently.’
Visibly annoyed, Sprengle answered: ‘‘Good
friend, you perhaps have a different trans-
lation; in mine it is thus written.’” However,

he went on preaching and again said that every
man can be saved by his own good works. An
honest citizen now cried out, ‘‘ Priest, you lie,”’
and in a clear voice began to sing Luther's
hymn ‘“O God! look down from heav'n and see.”
The whole congregation at once joined in the
hymn. The words of the second verse, which
speak of ‘‘false doctrine of man not founded
on God’s word,’’ were like heavy blows to the
doctor. Ashamed, he left the pulpit, pressed
his way through the crowd out of the church,
and went away crest-fallen. The congregation
cheerfully separated.

The same thing happened, two years later,
at Lubeck. A poor blind man had sung
Luther’s hymns before the house doors, and
was expelled from the town by the Roman
Catholic Council. When, on the following
Sunday, the chaplain at St. James’ Church,
after the sermon, began the customary prayers
for the dead, two little boys began to sing
“0 God! look down from heav'n and see.’ All
the people fell on their knees, and sang the
hymn with solemnity to the end. This was
the first German Hymn which was sung in the
church at Lubeck. From that hour, the whole
city went over to Luther’s doctrines; if a monk
or a priest spoke any thing from the pulpit
opposed to the Gospel, the people at once be-
gan to sing ‘‘O God! look down from heav’n and
see.’ Thus the Lubeckers with this simple
hymn sung in the Reformation.

“Out of the depths I cry to Thee,”’ is an-
other true Reformation hymn which Luther
adapted from the 130th Psalm.

On the 6th of May, 1524, a poor old man, a
clothworker by trade, wandered through the
streets of Magdeburg, offering printed copies
of this hymn to the citizens for sale. In the
market-place he began to sing with a loud,
clear voice, ‘‘Out of the depths I ery to Thee.’’
A crowd of the curious soon collected around
him, which grew larger every minute. The
old man sang on cheerfully, distributing at the
same time his hymns among the crowd. One
and another joined in, and at last all began to
sing. Then the Roman Catholic mayor sent
his guards, who arrested the cloth-worker, be-
cause he had dared to sing one of Dr. Luther’s
hymns. This made great disturbance in the
town, and two hundred citizens demanded, _
before the town hall, the liberation of the
prisoner. The cloth-worker was set at liberty,

and the Congregations of St. Ulrich and St.

John declared that ‘‘the Eternal Lord and
Bishop Jesus Christ was their Captain, and
that under Him they would bravely fight’’;
and they did fight bravely till Luther's doc-
trines gained the victory.

Luther himself, in his hard conflicts, often
comforted himself with thishymn. Thus, in
1530, when at the Castle of Coburg, during
the Diet of Augsburg, on recovering from @
fainting fit, he cried to, his anxious friends,
“Come, to confuse the devil, let us sing the
psalm—‘ Out of the depths Icry to Thee’, and thus
praise and glorify God.”