The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1900, Page 6

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The Lutheran Pioneer.

(For the LUTHERAN PIONEER.)

Our Small Catechism.

“Yord, grant that we e’er pure retain
The catechismal doctrine plain,

As Luther taught the heavenly truth
In simple words to tender youth.”

Thus we prayerfully sing in one of our dear |

old hymns.

!
| very imperfect and dim knowledge of the holy
| will of his Creator. Therefore God decided to
| repeat His holy will to man, and this He did
| from Mount Sinai in the Holy Ten Command-
}ments. The account of the giving of the Holy
| Ten Commandments is found ‘in the 19th and
20th chapters of Exodus.

In reading these chapters, you will, how-

In these words we ask the Lord} ever, soon notice that Luther does not give

to help us by His grace that we may always| all the Commandments in the exact words of
retain the pure and plain doctrine of His Word | the Bible; and it will be but natural for you

as taught by Luther in simple words in his so-
called Small Catechism. Next to putting the
Bible into the hands of the people, Luther did

no more blessed work than the writ-
ing of the Small Catechism. In this
book Luther gives us the sum and
substance of the whole Bible in the
most simple words; so simple that
they can be understood even by chil-
dren. It contains nothing but the
heavenly truth of the Bible and has
no other purpose than the Bible has;
namely, to show us the way to eternal
life. There is not a single word in
the whole Small Catechism that is not
‘based upon God’s own Word. And
though it is so comprehensive and
deep that the wisest doctors can still
learn from it, it is, nevertheless, so
simple that children of six and seven
years can learn from it how to be
saved. It teaches us the Law of God
in all its severity and pruclaims to us
the blessed Gospel in all its sweet-
ness. In short, we may truly call our
Small Catechism a Small Bible.
Luther divides his Small Catechism
into six Chief Parts: 1. The Holy
Ten Commandments; 2. The Creed ;
8. The Lord’s Prayer; 4. The Sacra-
- ment of Holy Baptism; 5. The Office
of the Keys and Confession; 6. The
Sacrament of the Altar. These six
Chief Parts are followed by several
prayers to be spoken in the morning
and evening, before and after meals;
by a Table of Duties, comprising pas-
sages of Holy Scripture wherein the various
estates are taught their duties; and, finally,
by a number of questions and answers drawn
up for those who intend to go to the Lord’s
Supper.

Tne Hory ‘Ten Commanpaenrs.

The First Chief Part of our Catechism treats
of the Holy Ten Commandments. In these
Ten Commandments God reveals His holy will

_ to men, telling them how they shall be and
what they shall do and not do. They are,
therefore, a brief summary of the Law.

_ When God created Adam and Eve, He wrote

5 Bis holy will in their hearts, so that they had

@ perfect knowledge of all that God required

ofthem. But by the fall of our first parents
s handwriting became almost wholly effaced
id yery blurred, so that man retained but a

to ask, why not? An examination of the Bible-
text will soon give you one reason. You
will, namely, find that the Commandments

“Suffer little children to come unto me,”’

as given in the Bible contain certain things
which were meant only-for the Jews. The
other reason is that Luther desired to give the
Commandments in the least possible words,
and therefore he omitted those words which
God added merely by way of explanation.
Let me give you only two examples. Exod.
20, 2 we read: ‘‘which have brought thee out
of the land of Egypt, out of the house of
bondage.’’ Now, we see at once that these
words refer only to the Jews. Exod. 20,4.5
the Lord says: ‘‘Thou shalt not make unto
thee any graven image or any likeness of any-
thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the
earth beneath, or that is in the water under
the earth: thou shalt not bow down thyself
to them, nor serve them.’” These words are
only an explanation of the words in verse 8:
“Thou shalt haye no other gods before me.”

As we read on, we come to passages which
enjoin certain duties upon the Jews from
which we Christians are absolved in express
words of Holy Scripture. For upon the same
occasion that God gave the Ten Command-
ments which are binding upon all men for all
time. He also gave the Jews certain laws con-
cerning religious ceremonies, sacrifices, and
holidays, as well as political laws for their
government as His chosen people, which have
no binding force upon us. In distinction from
the Ten Commandments, or the Moral Law,
these latter are called the Ceremonial and
Political Laws.

After God had spoken the Ten
Commandments, He wrote them down
on two tables of stone. Following this
division, we also speak of Two Tables,
placing the first three Commandments
on the First Table and the other seven
on the Second Table. For while Love
is the sum of each and all the Com-
mandments, yet there is a difference
between the first three and the other
seven Commandments. The three
Commandments of the First Table,
namely, treat of the love we owe God,
whereas the seven Commandments of
the Second Table treat of the love we
owe our neighbor.

Christ, our Lord, gives the Sum of
the two Tables with these words:
“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God’
with all thy heart, and with all thy
soul, and with all thy mind. This is
the first and great commandment.
And the second is like unto it, thou
shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”
(Matt. 22, 3739.) Love to God shall
fill our heart, soul, and mind, and be

" the source of all thoughts, words, and
deeds; and our neighbor, our fellow-
-man, be he friend or enemy, acquaint-
ance or stranger, rich or poor, we are
to love as we love ourselves and do
unto him as we would have him do
unto us. F. J. L.

—_—— - o~<me

God’s Protection.

He has kept and folded us from ten thou-
sand ills when we did not know it; in the
midst of our security we should have perished,
every hour, but that He sheltered us ‘‘from
the terror by night and from the arrow that
flieth by day’? from the powers of evil that
walk in darkness, from snares of our ow2 evil
will. He has kept us even against ourselves;
and saved us from our own undoing. Let us
read the traces of His hand in all our wayS
in all the events, the chances, changes of this
troubled state. It is He that folds and feeds
us, that makes us to go in and out—to be
faint, or to find pasture—to lie down by the
still waters, or to walk by the way that
parched and desert.—C. P.