# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1853 08 30_S7
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

7

All orders received will be filled by us in turn.

We call special attention to our rich theological stock

Catalogues are gladly at your service.
Philadelphia, Aug. 15, 1853.

Schäfer and Koradi,
Southwest corner of 4th and Wood Street.

Notice.

The 1st edition of the 1st number of the book: "Die Märtyrer der evangelisch-lutherischen Kirche," consisting of 2000 copies, is already out of print. As soon as a sufficient number of subscribers again presents itself, a 2nd edition of it shall appear.

Hermann Fick,
ev. Luth. Pastor in Bremen,
near St. Louis, Mo.

Change of Address.

Revd. Fr. Schumann,
Arcadia P. O.,
Hamilton Co., Ia.

Private Pastoral Care.

For those who feel weak in faith:—Luther on Is. 53, 8: "Since nothing is more harmful or more pernicious than security and presumption, you should lift yourself up and receive comfort when you feel the weakness of your faith. For such timidity is a sure sign of a pious, God-fearing heart. For you are surely a member of Christ, even though you be a weak member. Besides, it is also commanded by God that we should not despise nor reject the weak Christians, Rom. 14, 1 ff. Therefore our Lord God will not be hostile to the weak in faith, or strike them in the face. For there remain also in pious and holy people fear and trembling before death, an anguished, timid heart and manifold infirmities. Therefore one should admonish those who do not so quickly grasp or perceive these things, that they should not be alarmed on that account, or let themselves be led astray, though they be at the beginning a little weak and unskilled, but that they pray and say with the apostles: Lord, increase our faith, Luke 17, 5. For you are not on that account without faith, or outside this doctrine, though you cannot yet so thoroughly well know or feel it. For St. Paul, the highly enlightened apostle, himself confesses that he has not yet attained, Phil. 4, 12. So one must also hold him for a Christian, and he is one, who is incorporated into Christ and clings to Him, however weakly he may, though he does not understand everything so fully and completely. For the same has already received our dear Lord Jesus Christ's righteousness because he begins to have it. In the Gospel it stands written everywhere thus: Jesus said to His disciples, etc., that He never calls His apostles masters, but always disciples, and the dear apostles have their name from learning, because they are Christ's disciples, not because they have already known and learned all. And although such knowledge of theirs is imperfect, yet it is the right knowledge of Christ, in which the apostles also remain disciples and pupils of Christ. The doctrine is indeed whole and perfect; but those who learn it are not taught enough, nor perfect, but we have only the firstfruits of the Spirit, Rom. 8, 23, reach forth ever farther, Phil. 3, 13, and mean also to come further. Therefore those are now Christians who feel the death and the power of sin strongly and fiercely. What do these same do? When they now see and feel sin and death before them, they nevertheless cling to Christ as best they can, though weakly, and do not deny the Word of God! they suffer everything on account of it, and persevere nevertheless in the dear Lord Jesus Christ; they seek and expect help, salvation and peace from no one else.—All this one must well note, that we do not make blocks out of the Christians, who feel and sense no sin at all. For a Christian has indeed still flesh and blood, therefore he must undoubtedly feel also sin and weakness of faith."

2 Tim. 2, 15.

Concerning the necessary rightly dividing of the Word writes the old Martin Geyer:

"It is a poor state of affairs when in the Word and the doctrine there is a lack of skilled carvers, when one thing is mixed with another and and spoiled, so that it must cause one more nausea than appetite. The word of the Law and of the Gospel must by all means be rightly divided. Old and new must be brought forth from the treasure by the householder with discretion, Matt. 13, 52, so that one does not preach many gentle words of comfort to defiant and insolent heads; they misuse them without that more than enough. On the other hand, to fainthearted, timid and doubting minds one must not drive in much of the strict doctrine of the Law or of subtle disputed questions; they would be thereby only the more frightened and confused, rather than strengthened and bettered. What does it profit if in a great drought in summer the air is cleansed by lightning and the earth shaken by thunder, if a fine fruitful rain does not follow thereupon? So upon strict law-sermons there belongs, for agitated hearers, a gentle evangelical comfort. He who labors at the Word and the doctrine does everything, as far as possible, at the right time, in the right place, in a fitting manner. If one nail is driven into the board in the right place, it holds better than a hundred nails in the wrong place."

Of People Who Can Master Everything.

So writes Luther:

Ambitious people let themselves think that they have great experience, and are the wisest of all; they hew the others to the bench, revile and slander them, and want to carry out everything and to master everyone. We do not want to go so far. God preserve us from the preachers who please all people and who have a good testimony from everybody. If all people held me for a good preacher, I would never again be a preacher. The reason is that those who are the cleverest can chop down the others and reform them. But if you look at them aright, there is not a grain of wisdom in them; yet they give testimony of great wisdom. In a city there must also be such people, who judge and master all the others, and are themselves the most foolish, or downright fools in the skin. He who would be a preacher must have judges who have nothing else to do than to judge us and criticize; but if they should try it for half an hour, it would go with them as with the piper who spoiled the dance. So also there were not many of them who thought anything of Moses, but they murmured against him, regarded him as a madman, and set themselves always against him, yes, would have stoned and slain him and Aaron. (On Deut. 1, 13.)

Gentle and Effective Reproof by Song and Stringed Instrument.

A friend reports from his visit in S... the following occurrence. "On my arrival there I learned with regret that two of our acquaintances there had fallen into discord with each other, and I wished very much that I might succeed in restoring good understanding between them. Accidentally—as one is wont to say—I met the one who had caused the dissensions at a third person's, in the room where there stood a fine piano. After we had greeted one another and had communicated something of our welfare in general, I stepped to the piano, and began to play and to sing:

"Ye children of the Most High, how stands it with love?
How does one follow the true impulse to union?
Do you also remain in the bond of unity?
Has no rending of spirits taken place?
The Father in heaven can know hearts,
We may not without love call ourselves brethren,
The flame of the LORD must burn brightly."

Something more I did not need to say to the guilty one. He dissolved in tears and did not delay to seek out the offended, and to ask him for the hand of peace."

(Ps. 133, 3.)