# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1852 03 30_S127
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

127

violate the honor of God, or provoke weak souls to offense!

Thirdly, let him strive to bring forth nothing paradoxical (contradicting orthodoxy), nothing that tickles the ears, but what truly serves for edification, what raises up fearful consciences and breaks iron hearts.

Fourthly, let him beware both of making fine words, and of being bitter and harsh. If he must rebuke, let him add: Dear friends, God knows that I do not speak out of hatred.

Fifthly, the preacher ought to be brief. Dr. Luther said to a theologian who always preached for the better part of two hours: Vos facitis taedium verbi, that is, You cause weariness of God's Word; and Philippus (Melanchthon): "a preacher would have to be quite exceptionally eloquent if he is to preach longer than half an hour without making his hearers weary." Good musicians make a pause when the playing is most delightful; so those preachers are best who know how to begin and how to stop." (See: Ratio formandi studii theologici. Norimb. 1565.)

The Only Comfort.

A preacher in Saxony, when he was court preacher at a princely court, was called to a sick nobleman, who addressed him in the following manner: "Mr. Court Preacher! I am very sick, and fear I might die; therefore I have had you called to me, and would now ask you to tell me something edifying; but one thing I must at once stipulate with you, that you tell me nothing of Jesus, for of that I will hear nothing." — The preacher said: "I am glad you tell me this so soon, for that would have been the first thing about which I should have tried to converse with you. However, there is, to be sure, much else that is edifying about which we can converse. May I speak with you of God?" — "Yes, of that I will gladly hear, for I always had much respect for God." The preacher now spoke of the love of God toward men, which was so agreeable to the sick man that at parting he asked him to come again soon.

When the preacher came the next time, the sick man said: "Well, what fine things will you tell me today? I have long been longing for your visit." On this day he spoke much of God's almighty power, wisdom and omniscience. This conversation was already much more serious than the former, yet it was still agreeable to the sick man. At a third visit the clergyman spoke of God's holiness. And now he said how God is so holy and pure a being and is surrounded by nothing but pure and holy beings. This conversation was still more serious than the former. But still far more so was a following visit, where the conversation turned upon God's righteousness. Then the sick man began: "Mr. Court Preacher, now I can bear it no longer, I grow anxious and afraid; if God is so holy and righteous as you say, I am lost!" —

Now the preacher went away, and did not come again the following day, for he thought: Let what he now feels sink in a little deeper with him. At length the patient had the preacher called, and when he came, he said: "My God, I know not how to compose myself for fear; tell me again something comforting, for it is to me as if I were already in hell, or hell were in me; do you not know anything by which I could find composure again?" The preacher answered: "I know nothing else at all to tell you, except that God is indeed gracious, but also wise, holy and righteous, and by virtue of His righteousness cannot do otherwise than punish evil. I should know much that is beautiful and excellent, but of that you will hear nothing; therefore you must die in this unhappy state, and expect your fate yonder, and then I must pity you from my heart." — "Well, what comforting and good thing do you know then? Tell me, I pray, can I yet be saved?" — "O yes! but not otherwise, until I may tell you something of Jesus." — "Well, tell me then in God's name whatever you will, if only I can yet be saved from my damnation." — Now he proclaimed to him the Gospel, that this Jesus, hitherto so despised by him, was his Lord and God, his Creator and Savior, to whom he should turn with all his sins and pray for grace. For such sinners He died, and shed His blood on the cross as a ransom for him and the whole world. — Now this sick man was glad to hear something of such a Jesus, who receiveth sinners. He then took refuge in Him also, and departed this life blessed, as a pardoned sinner, in faith in the merit of Christ.

(Wölblings christl. Geschichten.)

Recantation.

The Lutheran Pastor Rauschenbusch came to a sickbed, and the sick man could not cease describing himself in the strongest terms as the greatest of all sinners. "So it is really true, what I have heard of you?" said the pastor. At these words the sick man sat up: "What have you heard of me, Pastor? No one can say anything bad of me with justice" — and now the sinner, so humble a moment before, poured himself out in a eulogy upon his past life, and in imprecations upon the enemies and slanderers who had wounded him with evil report. "Not from enemies and slanderers," answered Rauschenbusch, "but from yourself I heard that you were so wicked a man; but I see now that you yourself do not believe it." —

Wölblings christl. Geschichten.

How the Papists Imagine the Church.

Thus Luther writes in his "Verantwortung wegen der von Herzog Georgen ihm aufgelegten Aufruhr, Anno 1533":

"There they painted a great ship, which was called the holy Christian Church, in which sat no layman, neither kings nor princes, but only the Pope with the cardinals and bishops in front under the Holy Ghost, and the priests and monks on both sides with oars, as if they were rowing to heaven. But the laymen swam in the water around the ship, some drowned, some drew themselves to the ship by cords and ropes, which the holy fathers threw out to them out of grace and the imparting of their good works, and helped them that they should not drown, but clinging and hanging to the ship might also come with them to heaven. And there was no pope, cardinal, bishop, priest, nor monk in the water, but only laymen. This painting was an image and brief summary of their doctrine, what they thought of the secular estates, and it is also the true picture of how they hold it in their books, they cannot deny it. For I too was one of such fellows, who helped to teach such things, and so believed, and knew no otherwise."

Dr. Wilhelm Bidenbach (father of Felix Bidenbach, born 1538), formerly preacher and professor at Tübingen, writes that he himself had also seen this picture described above, and indeed in a Capuchin monastery in Schönbach near Tübingen.

It is, alas, only too true that this picture would still, even now, suit not a few Protestant churches of our day, and would furnish a graphic likeness of the doctrine taught in them; for although among Protestants, to be sure, no one any longer believes that the preachers can help the poor laymen into heaven by the merit of their good works, yet many so-called Protestant preachers conduct themselves no otherwise than as if not the believers, but really the preachers were the true kernel and flower of the Christian Church, beside whom the laymen only swim along; as if to them alone the keys of heaven were given, so that no layman could come into heaven unless the preacher helped him in; as if they were not the oarsmen of Christians, but their commanders, the shipmasters.