“These sermons were preached in the Church of the Holy Communion, Philadelphia, to a congregation consisting in part of University and college students. In preaching it was impossible to disassociate from my mind the struggles through which many of these young people were passing and the battles which I was asked to help them fight during the week.
“If ever any man was competent to write on true Christianity, that man was John Arndt. It had become his very life; it entered into the very center of his own experience; it was an essential part of his being, and hence it was only necessary to let the mouth utter that, of which the heart was full.
“Nor will the careful student ever recall Lincoln without recognizing the Gettysburg incident as condensing within itself all that he elsewhere spoke and wrote and accomplished. The meaning of what had transpired on the first three days of July, 1863, with the thousands of lives that had been sacrificed, and the tens of thousands that were enduring untold physical suffering, and the countless homes throughout the land that were darkened because they mourned loved ones, so filled his heart that he compressed the convictions of a lifetime and the anguish of the responsibilities he was then bearing, into a two minutes' address that has become the most highly cherished classic that America has produced.
“The book presents Christian doctrine and Christian character, as both are drawn from the words of the Bible. It sums up the Biblical teachings concerning divine truth and human life, and presents the principles of the Christian religion both for the guidance of faith and intellect and for the formation of character…
Henry Eyster Jacobs' Book of Concord in modern English is highly respected and has been widely used. It is now back in print and available in all formats. The Augsburg Confession, Apology, Small and Large Catechisms, and Formula are also available as separate books.
“The Father hath revealed Himself in Christ. He gave His only begotten Son to a life on earth, to suffering and death, that the alienated sons of men might be redeemed, and reconciled to Him, and brought back again into filial relationship with Himself, that in the true spirit of adoption they might look up to Him and call Him, Abba, Father.
“Hymns are a most important part of our worship. They mold character and often shape the lives of those who sing them.”
“The writing of these pages was an accident and a pleasure.
Luther’s Little Instruction Book (Small Catechism) has been translated into many of the languages of the world. Williston Walker in his History of the Christian Church describes it as “one of the noblest monuments of the Reformation”.
“The Apology is more than a mere polemical treatise. It is a thorough discussion, in all its relations, of the cardinal doctrine of Justification by Faith alone, without Works; for whatever be the article treated, the discussion always reverts to this theme.
The Augsburg Confession is the first part of the Book of Concord, the Lutheran Confessions. The Saxon Visitation Articles were used by pastors to instruct their congregants and appeared in Saxon editions of the Book of Concord until the forced union of Lutheran and Reformed in the Nineteenth Century.
“The Formula of Concord is the result of controversies within the Lutheran Church after the breach with the Papacy had become complete… It required more than a single generation for the Evangelical faith in all its power to penetrate the minds and lives of even its staunchest adherents; and when we recall the deplorable condition into which the Church had fallen, and the deep ignorance not only of the people, but also of the ministry, described in the introductions to the Catechisms, we cannot wonder at the subsequent internal struggles, when the controversy with the Papists absorbed less attention…
“When a student at College, Charles P. Krauth was known to all to possess brilliant and versatile talents, and high hopes were entertained of the future years of his life… When Mr.
“The attentive reader… will see that the matters here treated are not antiquated or obsolescent, but enter most deeply into the issues of the hour.” — Henry Eyster Jacobs
Clear print, large format quality paperback available on Amazon by the Lutheran Librarian
A Summary of the Christian Faith has been appreciated by Christians since its original publication for its easy to use question and answer format, its clear organization, and its coverage of all the essentials of the Christian faith.
“I want you to understand that I have never preached opinions from this pulpit; it is not a question of opinion; I have absolutely no right to stand here and give you my opinion, for it is not worth any more than yours; we do not come to church to get opinions; I claim that I can back up every sermon I have preached, with the Word of God, and it is not my opinion nor yours, it is the eternal Word of God, and you will find it so on the Judgment day.
"A decade has fully passed since the outbreak of the eventful controversy which has divided the Lutherans of North America into two camps. Dr. Walther showed already in the years of 1864—70, a leaning to the Calvinistic doctrines… The controversy itself broke out first in the year 1872, when Lehre und Wehre, the organ of the Missourians, (p.
“One of the areas in which the Reformer has been repeatedly misrepresented has to do with the relationship of the Church with the Jewish people, frequent attempts being made to link him with modern anti-Semitism.
“The body without the spirit is dead, but it retains for a while the form; and while the form is there, hope may sometimes lie cherished that life will yet revisit it; but when even the form is gone, and the body fallen to ashes, unless God shall speak, hope is extinct forever.
“The life of so distinguished a servant of God as Melanchthon deserves to be better known to the general reader than it actually is. In the great Reformation of the sixteenth century, his work stands second to that of Luther alone.
“There are points in the Church’s history, years, months, days, in which all the evil that has ever assailed the Church, seems brought to a focus, and to overcome it, the Holy Ghost, who never deserts his charge, concentrates against it not only the sum of all the experience of the Church of the past, but also the endowments of new, fuller, richer unfoldings of the sense and power of God’s Word.