# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1850 07 23_S191 # AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration) 191 nourished and provided for? Has not God done it? Can He not also do so henceforth? Or is His fountain of blessing dried up? See now how needless and useless our cares are! It is possible that the Elbe may dry up, but not that God's blessing and fatherly care for His own should cease. Therefore Why art thou sad? God yet liveth. Care and care not overmuch, It goes as God will have it. Let it go as it goes, If it but goes to heaven! I thank you, said the troubled man, for the good reminder; I confess that I wrong my dear God when I would provide for myself with my cares. I will endeavor to rid myself of useless cares! God help my weakness! What and Who is a Christian? If thou wouldst properly know and make and give the definition of what a Christian is, or why a man is called a Christian, then thou must not gape nor look at the law of Moses, the government of the Pope, nor at the life and holiness of any men, even the holiest, but solely hither at this word of Christ, where He says: "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them" (John 10, 3. 4.) Thou shouldst say: A Christian is not he who leads a glorious, strict, earnest Carthusian or hermit life: for such things Jews and Turks also can do, among whom some live much more strictly. And in short, all that can be done in us and by us makes no Christian. What then? Only this, that one know this Man, hold of Him and expect of Him what He wills to be held of Him, namely, that He is the good Shepherd, who layeth down His life for His sheep and knoweth them. Such knowledge is and means nothing else than the faith which follows from the preaching office of the Word, which is not our own thoughts or come from men, but brought and revealed from heaven by Christ Himself, as He says to Peter, Matt. 16, 17.: "Flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee," etc. These two must agree and come together: His Word and our faith; for if He did not reveal Himself through the Word and let His voice be heard, we should know nothing of the Shepherd. Thus I say, and in no other way does one become a Christian, than that one hear this voice alone and know of or let himself imagine no other shepherd, let it be called and glitter as it will, but take this one image alone into the heart. And so all together, who are Christ's sheep, have without distinction this one color and form, by which they are to be known and are like one another in this, that they at the same time believe in this Shepherd and confess His Word, even though otherwise outwardly they are distinguished in manifold ways, yea, in the world are scattered hither and thither without order and cast among other people. From this we now have this comfort, that whoever thus knows Christ is certainly one of His sheep and already known of Him and chosen to be a sheep, and shall and may not seek further nor gape about how he may become a sheep, nor torment himself and rack himself with vain thoughts whether he be foreseen (elected) and how he may become certain of salvation, but should comfort himself joyfully with this and be sure, if he hears this Christ's voice, that he has in Him the dear Shepherd, who knows him, that is, takes him to Himself as His little sheep, cares for him and will protect and save him, so that he need fear nothing from devil, hell and death. (Luther in the Kirchenpostille.) "Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful." Ps. 1, 1. The learned have observed herein that first a man is led astray to take counsel with the ungodly, that is, to take pleasure in their wickedness, to talk with them about it, and to ponder evil things; afterward they bring him along so that he walks with them in one way, so that he has fellowship with them, lends a hand in wickedness and joins in; at last he even sits down with them in the seat of the scorners, he becomes so ready and shameless in wickedness that he begins openly to make mockery of God's Word and takes pains, as an appointed professor of Satan in the high school of atheism, to spread and propagate the godless way. Thus the sanctuary and heaven have their steps, by which one ascends, and hell also, by which one descends; I mean, as the believers increase by degrees in godliness, so also the unbelievers in wickedness. One would not think that it were possible, if experience did not testify to it, that there are people who strive their utmost to increase in ungodliness to such a point that they would have all remembrance of God and of divine things rooted out of their hearts, the contradiction of conscience stifled, and their soul assured in unbelief; these are with all right first-formers in the school of the devil and can sit in the seat of the scorners, to seduce others. At which a Christian heart justly is horrified and marvels that Satan can bring the human soul so far that it will know no more of God, hear nothing of Him, think not of Him, it will also have the natural light extinguished and become an inhuman wretch and a very devil. Ah LORD, my God! what wonder that it repented Thee that Thou hadst made man! A wonder it is that Thou canst look so long upon such brands of hell! Ah, deliver soon Thy Church from such abominations and devils! Ah, make haste! Ah come, LORD JESUS! Amen. Scriver. "A bishop then must be blameless." 1 Tim. 2, 3. "If any be blameless." Tit. 1, 6. On this Augustine writes: "The Apostle does not say: if any one is without sin, for if he said that, every man would thereby be declared unfit and none could be consecrated to the preaching office; but he says: if any one is without a crime, such as murder, adultery or any defilement with fornication, theft, fraud, sacrilege and the like. For a crime is a grave sin, altogether worthy of accusation and condemnation." Chrysostom: "The Apostle has with the single word 'blameless' expressed every kind of virtue. Therefore he who is conscious even of only a slight guilt does altogether ill who desires something of which he has made himself unworthy by his works; for such a one it is not fitting to rule, but rather to be ruled. For he who takes over the government of others should fittingly distinguish himself by so great a splendor of virtue that, like the sun, he outshine the others as little star-lights with his radiance; he should have so unspotted and well-ordered a life that all can look upon him and his life as upon a distinguished pattern." Gregory: "Those who still succumb in the struggle with vices should by no means stand at the head as teachers of others." From the Song of Songs. The nightingales are singing. Who hears them not? In the land it begins to dawn. And seest thou not, In ravines where the robber Lived on blood, Appears the woman of women Wreathed in light; Appears in bright splendor, Trusted of the LORD, In ever-green wreath, The dear Bride! Forward, forward, ye singers, The harps here! Take the harps. O longer Delay no more. The Bride comes walking there, Still timid indeed, Hides a gentle fear, — Yet altogether holy! G. Schaller.