# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1849 06 12_S165
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

165

and divine service, and as a magistracy has upheld it). Behold, when Hezekiah prayed thus, Isaiah the prophet came, and proclaimed to him God's grace, and promised him yet fifteen years to live, and had a plaster of figs made, and laid it on his boil, that the king might be made whole. Is. 38. Thus also Sirach speaks and says: My son, when thou art sick, despise not this, that thou pray unto the LORD, and he will make thee whole. Leave off from sin, and make thine heart blameless, and cleanse thine heart from all wickedness, etc. Then give place to the physician, for the LORD hath created him, and let him not go from thee, for thou hast need of him. There may come an hour that the sick man shall be helped by the former alone (prayer and conversion), if they pray the LORD that it may go better with him and that they may obtain health to live longer. Likewise Psalm 107: Fools are plagued and become sick unto death. But when they cry unto the LORD in their trouble, he delivereth them out of their distresses; he sendeth his word and healeth them, and saveth them that they die not.

In such manner we should compose ourselves to it, and remind ourselves of God's help and of our faith, as often as we say in the ten commandments: I am the LORD, thy God. But God is not a God of the dead, but of the living. Therefore I shall live, for the LORD is my God. What then should the pestilence do to me? I will and must live; if it is not here, then it is yonder in eternal life. I believe in God the Almighty, who giveth me life and preserveth me in life, which neither pestilence, death, nor devil can take from me. For I believe in JESUS Christ, my LORD, who sitteth at the right hand of God, and is my Saviour. If I believe in him and am blessed, what then should death harm me? I also pray daily: LORD, deliver me from all evil! and I say thereto a good strong Amen. Well then, I am now content; let God do with me according to his gracious good pleasure! I am yet his, and live for ever. Thereon I live, thereon I die; I am God's, dead and living.

This have I desired to write unto you as briefly as I could in this half hour, as a Christian to Christians, a brother to his brother, and as a teacher and servant of JESUS Christ. Be ye therefore undismayed, and say with David: Though my flesh and my heart faileth, yet art thou, God, the strength of my heart and my portion. May the eternal, gracious God turn his wrath from us, and comfort, strengthen and keep you with your dear wife and little children and all your kindred, for the sake of JESUS Christ, his dear Son, Amen.

Dresden, the 8th of October 1564.

With delight the prodigal son went out from his father's house; with sorrow he came back again. Consider the end. The greater the delight at the beginning, the greater the sorrow at the end.

(Contributed by Pastor Keyl.)

The Original Order of Divine Service in the German Churches of the Lutheran Confession.

(Continuation.)

6. The Arrangement of the Individual Services.

For easier survey we will regard the chief service as divided into two halves, of which the first embraces the action of the Word and the other that of the Sacrament; while according to the old church orders everything in the first half is different, and except the sermon only the "Glory be to God on high" and the Creed are found throughout, in the second half, according to all the old Agenden, a perfect uniformity shows itself through the whole church year, and only in the Preface, perhaps, is there found an allusion to a festival season.

In the first half of the chief service stand first the Introit, the Kyrie and the great Gloria. With the Introit the choir announces to the congregation the special significance of the Sunday or festival day, much as the angel once did to the shepherds. Then the congregation in the Kyrie makes known its petition for forgiveness of sin before the triune God, whereupon the minister with the intonation "Glory be to God on high" exhorts them to give God his honor through faith, that the Father, for the sake of Christ his Son, through the power of the Holy Ghost, freely forgives sin; and now the congregation, praising, confesses the triune God and his great deeds in the hymn "Allein Gott in der Höh sei Ehr." These three parts, for the last two, as is well known, make up but one, namely the great Gloria, are prescribed in all purely Lutheran church orders, and indeed in the order given; accordingly the chief service begins almost universally with the Introit. But since the singing of the Introits, because they were composed in the Latin language and required the cooperation of a choir, could not be carried out in many places, most church orders expressly permit that instead of the Introit a German church hymn be sung. Only in a few church orders are pieces from the Sunday Matins placed before the Introit, e. g.: "Come, Holy Ghost," the Lesson, the Benedictus or the Te Deum; some others place before the Introit, after the pattern of the Roman church, the Confiteor or the reading of the general Confession and Absolution; the most church orders, however, have omitted this, because the Confession lies already in the Kyrie. At the Kyrie only one church order prescribes kneeling. In two church orders the great Gloria is lacking, and about six related to one another permit it to be omitted in case of want of time.

There follows now upon the Gloria, as a rule, the Salutation (The LORD be with you), Collect, (yet without preceding Intonation and Responsory), reading of the Epistle, Gradual hymn and reading of the Gospel; as regards what falls between Epistle and Gospel, wherein strong differences appear, I refer to what was said above concerning the church hymns. In other respects the church orders of a genuinely Lutheran stamp show little difference. To this belongs, e. g., the exchange of the Collect, as the petition of the congregation, for the general church prayer, which some Agenden put in this place.

After the reading of the Gospel there follows in all purely Lutheran church orders, with few exceptions, the Creed "Ich glaub an Einen Gott allein," intoned by the minister. Then the hymn sung by the congregation: "Wir gläuben all an einen Gott," thereupon the sermon, and after it a hymn which is to suit the sermon. Only a Liegnitz order of service of the year 1534, itself not quite pure, has the hymn "Komm Heiliger Geist" sung after the Gospel, then preaching, and assigns to the Creed its place first before the exhortation to the communicants, as was done in the earliest church for certain reasons no longer applicable; other similar deviations in the position of the Creed may here be passed over in silence, just as the explanation of the several parts just mentioned, of which mention has already been made above; we therefore pass at once to the consideration of the

second half of the chief service, which embraces the action of the Sacrament; to this belong first the Salutation, Preface, Sanctus and exhortation to the communicants. The Salutation belongs at this place necessarily to the Preface, and always appears before it, as before the opening Collect. In other respects the church orders differ most widely from one another in the arrangement of these parts, and indeed, after deducting unimportant particulars, they may fitly be brought into three main classes. The first and least in number has first the Lord's Prayer or a paraphrase (rewording) of it, and thereupon an exhortation to the communicants read, and then proceeds to the communion itself, but at the consecration has no Lord's Prayer any more said or sung. The second, in number the middle one, places the exhortation to the communicants first, thereafter Salutation, Preface and Sanctus, whereupon then consecration and distribution follow. The third finally and most numerous has this division consist of the sequence of Salutation, Preface, Sanctus and exhortation. If one adds to this that almost all church orders leave it free, in consideration of the time, to omit either the exhortation or the Preface, although for the former also very short formularies are at hand, it is easily explained how the three orders given could pass over into one another in many ways through such various omissions.

As for the following component parts of the Com-