Before I present some quotes, the following are download links to the various texts (DOCX files are zipped):
A future blog post is planned to combine the links to all 3 volumes. Any updates to these files will be noted on these blog posts.
Among the many topics covered in this volume is the doctrine of The Church, particularly the local church, a doctrine in which the LC-MS has departed from Pieper, also Walther. While President Matthew Harrison identifies only Prof. J. T. Mueller for his antagonism, he fails to mention that his real target is… Dr. Franz Pieper in the teaching of this volume, p. 483 ff.. Prof. Mueller was an "easy" target for President Harrison, Concordia Seminary President Pieper is not.
Notable Quotes (page numbers from original German book):
75: "Works, insofar as they are mixed into the article of justification, are not God's but the flesh's and the devil's works"
79: Leo XIII's Circular Letter (Immortale Dei) of November 1, 1885, also inculcates in the United States the duty to place itself at the service of the Papal Church and to suppress all other "worships" as soon as they have the power to do so. Cf. the article "The Pope's Latest Encyclical" in L. u. W. 1886, p. 12 ff.
80: “In this order [Jesuit Order], the rule is that even sins cease to be sins and become good works in the eminent sense when the superior of the order commands the sins and the members of the order perform them in dutiful obedience”
107: “the cause of apostasy is always contempt for the divine Word and reluctance to accept the Holy Spirit's action in the Word.”
109: “This objectively existing grace, presented through the objective means of grace, not the "Christ in us" and holy life, is the saving grace, ή χάρις τον ϑεοϋ ή σωτήριος. [“the grace of God that bringeth salvation”]”
110: “But in spite of all synergistic fears and counter-reasons, the fact cannot be denied that the Scriptures teach divine sole efficacy, as in conversion, so also in regard to perseverance in the faith.”
123: "In expounding the doctrine of the means of grace, the general objective reconciliation or justification is to be assumed."
125: "Even more recent Lutheran theologians, in the interest of combating the inspiration of Holy Scriptures, have expressed and advocated the peculiar opinion that not the word read, but only the word preached is the means of grace." [Many LCMS pasters do not believe "the word read" is a means of grace.]
130: "Therefore Luther has rightly taught that whoever has an evil conscience from sins should go to the sacrament and take comfort, not in the bread and wine, not in the body and blood of Christ, but in the Word, which in the sacrament offers, presents, and gives me the body and blood of Christ as given and shed for me."
138: "Rome… does not understand by saving grace the grace of the forgiveness of sins, which is taken by faith and thus is certain to man, but the infusion of good qualities"
162: "Luther and the Lutheran Church are the mouth of Christianity on earth also with regard to their doctrine of the means of grace."
189: "The ridicule which unbelieving newspaper writers pour upon the revival meetings of the Negroes and the whites fills us with disgust."
197: "Zwingli followed the counsel of Erasmus and the humanistic train of the time when he turned to the 'very purest sources'. He had a different starting point than Luther."
201: "There is only one deliverance from the works doctrine for Reformed theology. That is the defection to Lutheran territory. "
206: "The essence of this pietism was that it gave instruction to base the state of grace before God on inner processes in the human heart"
215: On Luther and the Jews [click "Continue Reading" below]
224: "The old Norwegian Synod also had to present the Christian doctrine of absolution in the dispute it got into with the Augustana Synod over objective reconciliation or justification."
232: "the Gospel is not the presentation of a mere "plan of salvation" or the presentation of conditions by the fulfillment of which man finally arrives at the forgiveness of sins, but the Gospel is an absolution of sins addressed to the whole world"
254: "If prayer is placed next to word and sacrament as a means of grace, then prayer is easily understood as a supplement to God's grace, namely as if God were only completely reconciled through prayer"
256: "synergists... show a tendency to call or use prayer as a means of grace"
278: "Luther rightly says that the antinomians with their demand to banish the sermon of the law from the church... also deprive the church of the gospel and Christ."
283: "...the separation of law and gospel is beyond the powers of the natural man"
294: "The fact that Zwingli and Calvin also contain a lot of gospel comes from the fact that they stood under the powerful influence of Luther's Reformation."
296: "The most powerful human writing, as on the doctrine of justification, so on the doctrine of law and gospel, is Luther's detailed commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians"
335: "We are more certain of the faith in infant baptism than in adult baptism. In the baptism of adults, we must accept their word when we ask them if they believe."
339: "Even the Old Testament sacrifices, in so far as they were types of Christ's atoning sacrifice, offered forgiveness of sins for Christ's sake"
354: "They [Reformed] all agree that Christ's body and blood are not present in the Lord's Supper, "
376: "The Reformed doctrine of the Lord's Supper has its basis not in Scripture, but in a fixed human idea."
414: "According to the latest legislation in the United States Congress, the use of fermented grape juice 'for sacramental purposes' is not affected by the prohibition legislation. Thus, there is no reason to experiment with grape juice in this regard either." [This was omitted in the CPH book. Pieper appears to suggest that the use of grape juice would be acceptable if the state banned alcoholic beverages.]
432: "The Reformed doctrine of the Lord's Supper is an actual renunciation of Christ's words."
461: "Even those who believe before receiving baptism are to be counted as members of the Christian Church"
466: "…the papal church, by its official doctrine [of works], places itself outside of Christendom"
470: "Where there is no faith, there is no appropriation of grace, despite all the use of the sacraments"
480: "Although the separation of church and state is pronounced in the Constitution of both the United States… in practice church and state are often mixed."
490: "Unionism… is a caricature of Christian unity, indeed a mockery of it."
501: "The use of a scholarly language that is understandable only to specialists does not correspond to the purpose of our synods and is in fact a kind of insult to the assembly. "
513: "Times have come, and they may come again, when unbelief and false doctrine are so rampant that orthodox Christians are dependent on the preaching of the Word in the home. "
516 ff.: "Here belong the passages of Christ, which testify that the keys are given to the whole Church … By the "whole church" of which the Smalcald Articles address is of course not to be understood the church scattered over the whole world (ecclesia universalis), but the local church (ecclesia particularis), as also immediately on the basis of Matt. 18:20 is added: 'Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.'"
521-522: On the term "Priests", Luther said: "…it was "assumed from either paganism or Judaism to the great detriment of the church,… [Paul] lets the right and dignity of the priesthood remain in the congregation."
532: "so we can recognize on the basis of the Scriptures… that in the papacy "the Antichrist" has recognizably placed himself before us". [See DL30, 41-42, Walther against Loehe on the Antichrist]
533: "also the modern Protestant theologians, the Lutheran ones included, deny almost unanimously that the Pope is the Antichrist."
533: Individual Popes: "It has also been argued that there have been some personally honorable, even 'pious' popes."
534: Luther on the Papacy, and individual Popes: "…is such that it cannot or may not be administered by a pious, honest prince, but only by him who is an adversary to Christ."
545: "Eternal election cannot be recognized if the general grace is somehow limited"
559: Calvinists vs. Arminians: "There is no place left in the church for Lutherans in this division."
573: "What makes death death is the sensus irae divinae, [sense of divine wrath]"
573: Christians "go straight through death into life"
614: "there are no atheists in hell"
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