main and proper doctrines, consists of
ideas, that is, spiritual truths that can only be spiritually discerned,
and to the expression of which words are necessarily inadequate, and
must be used by accommodation. Hence the absolute indispensability of a
Christian life, with its conflicts and inward experiences, which alone
can make a man to answer to an opponent, who charges one doctrine as
contradictory to another,--"Yes! it is a contradiction in terms; but
nevertheless so it is, and both are true, nay, parts of the same
truth."--But alas! besides other evils there is this,--that the Gospel
is preached in fragments, and what the hearer can recollect of the sum
total of these is to be his Christian knowledge and belief. This is a
grievous error. First, labour to enlighten the hearer as to the essence
of the Christian dispensation, the grounding and pervading idea, and
then set it forth in its manifold perspective, its various stages and
modes of manifestation. In this as in almost all other qualities of a
preacher of Christ, Luther after Paul and John is the great master. None
saw more clearly than he, that the same proposition, which, addressed to
a Christian in his first awakening out of the death of sin was a most
wholesome, nay, a necessary, truth, would be a most condemnable
Antinomian falsehood, if addressed to a secure Christian boasting and
trusting in 'his' faith--yes, in 'his' own faith, instead of the faith
of Christ communicated to him.

I cannot utter how dear and precious to me are the contents of pages
197-199, to line 17, of this work, more particularly the section headed:

How we ought to carry ourselves towards the Law's accusations.

Add to these the last two sections of p. 201. [8] the last touching St.
Austin's opinion [9] especially. Likewise, the first half of p. 202.
[10] But indeed the whole of the 12th chapter 'Of the Law and the
Gospel' is of inestimable value to a serious and earnest minister of the
Gospel. Here he may learn both the orthodox faith, and a holy prudence
in the time and manner of preaching the same.

July, 1829.

[Footnote 1: 'Doctoris Martini Lutheri Colloquia Mensalia:' or Dr.
Martin Luther's Divine Discourses at his Table, &c. Collected first
together by Dr. Antonius Lauterbach, and afterwards disposed into
certain common-places by John Aurifaber, Doctor in Divinity. Translated
by Capt. Henry Bell. 'Folio' London, 1652.]

[Footnote 2: N. B. I should not have wr