General Council

“In 1906, Dr. Henry Eyster Jacobs, then in his sixty-second year, wrote these notes on his experiences in the leadership of the Lutheran Church. As he states in his opening sentence, these notes are set down for the use of others.

This is a highly readable, modern English version of the classic volume of Protestant Biblical theology. The translation of the Augsburg Confession is that of Charles P. Krauth, the Small Catechism by Charles F.

This book aims to present both an analysis of Luther’s Small Catechism and a clear, concise, yet reasonably full explanation of its contents. It is an attempt, upon the basis of twenty years’ experience and a study of the literature of the subject… The object of the book is twofold: first, to furnish an outline of teaching which the pastor may use as a guide in his oral explanation and questioning; and secondly, to furnish a sufficiently complete summary by means of which the catechumens may review the lesson and fix its salient points in their minds.

“The Church needs to restudy, to re-accept, to reaffirm, to re-experience justification by faith… Has not a large part of the Protestant Church practically lost this Reformation doctrine? …Is she not unconsciously drifting back into the old Romish heresy of justification by works, by service, by doing?

“This little volume of sermons has been prepared in response to repeated appeals from the people who heard them from the pulpit… they have been chosen from a cabinet of upwards of two thousand discourses.

“Lutheranism clings to God’s Written Word. Her motto is the Word of God, the whole Word of God, and nothing but the Word of God, not as a prescriptive letter, but as the power of God unto salvation.

“The Lutheran minister has three special activities. He is, first of all, a preacher of the Word, the whole Word, its Law and its Gospel. He is always and everywhere a seelsorger, a pastor, an under-shepherd, seeking the lost, feeding and caring for those in the fold, knowing them by name, carrying on his heart their woes, their wants and their welfare, looking after them individually and collectively.

“The book presents Christian doctrine and Christian character, as both are drawn from the words of the Bible… Throughout the work the aim has been to draw the teachings of the Bible directly from the sacred record itself.

“In these godless and worldly times we must earnestly and diligently preach conversion. We must insist on its necessity. We must reason, exhort, convince, beseech, and plead; ‘Turn ye, turn ye; why will ye die?

“The Lutheran Church may justly claim that, in the Common Service, she possesses and uses “the completest embodiment of the Common Service of the Christian Church of all ages”; a Service “which may he tendered to all Christians who use a fixed Order, the Service of the future as it has been of the past” (Preface to the Common Service).

“Jesus was asked by one of his disciples (Luke 11:2), not one of the twelve, but a more recent follower, who had not been present at the first giving of the prayer, ‘Lord, teach us to pray.

This book was prepared by pastor Emanuel Greenwald to help his congregants with their daily prayers. While originally intended for family worship, it is perfect for private daily devotions. There are prayers, hymns and Bible readings for each day of the year.

“I fear those ministers among us who seem to be terribly afraid of Pietism. They do not explain the distinction between a false and a true Pietism. To have ever a greater and deeper measure of the latter is surely one of our greatest needs.

Samuel Laird (1835-1913) “…belonged to a group of stalwart preachers and leaders whose influence could not be confined to a congregation or a city or a synod. Among them were numbered such men as Krauth, Krotel, Mann, Spaeth, the Schaeffers, Schmucker, Seiss, Greenwald, Passavant.

“The design of the Savior is, to show the difference between true and false religion… There is a true and a false worship of God, there are hopes which have, and there are hopes that have not a true foundation, and for us it is all important to know what will sustain us in the hour of need…

“There are many who would be saved, but they will not do that which is required in order to be saved, namely, to endure… and to walk in the grace vouchsafed to the end.

“So thorough has become the importance of the Individual, that the supremacy of law over royal power is now an established rule in England, and every individual has the right to resist an illegal act against his person or property, by whomsoever attempted.

“Luther taught that every true believer is a spiritual priest, is as near to the great Head of the Church as any official priest can be, and is equally entitled to the promise and gift of the Holy Ghost.

“Professor Jacobs is an exceptionally sympathetic and competent biographer… (He) has availed himself of all the latest sources of information, and done the needful work of selection and condensation with excellent judgment and skill.

“There are but two developed systems in the world that claim with any show of probability to be purely Biblical. These systems are the Lutheran and the Calvinistic. They possess a common basis in their recognition of the same rule of faith; their profession of the Old Catholic faith as set forth in the three General Creeds; in their acknowledgment of the doctrine of justification by faith and of its great associated doctrines; and they have vast interests, great stakes, mighty bonds of sympathy in common.