Preface.

Matthew 18

1 Thessalonians 5

And just as it heartily displeases our dear Lord God when a person leads and offends others into sin and shame through evil examples, so too it pleases God well and He desires of us that we lead and improve our neighbor toward good through public good works. The holy Apostle Paul also admonishes this very diligently in Romans 15, where he says: Admonish one another and build one another up. Likewise: Let each one of us conduct himself so that he pleases his neighbor for the good and for improvement.

XI. Whence faith comes.

Eleventh: Since we now know from the preceding account that everything depends on faith, and that it must be all in all, that we can do nothing good in this life, nor live and walk godly, without and outside of faith, and that we also cannot attain to eternal life or salvation without or outside of the same, we must now learn further where this faith comes to us from. Namely, it comes from hearing the Word of God and from diligent study of the holy Divine Scripture. For that same holy Divine Scripture teaches us what we should believe concerning Christ.

And when we make use of this same means, God is active through that same means in our hearts. He ignites thereby a light in us, by which light we can see and recognize our dear Lord Christ as our true God and Redeemer, as the Holy Scripture reports of this, as Paul says.