Preface.

But so that God, our heavenly Father, may come to the aid of our weakness and we may not lack the indicated means, He gives us His holy Word not in one way, but in many kinds of manners and ways. He lets it be preached to us, lets it be sung and told to us, written for us, and presented in pictures. He gives us all kinds of teachers, such as Prophets and Apostles, whom He Himself illuminated without an intermediary for His Divine recognition and informed of His word. He gives us wise men whom He has informed of His Divine Word and truth through the medium of the Prophets and Apostles, or through their bequeathed writings and the workings of the Holy Spirit, in such a way that they can present, explain, and interpret the doctrine of the Prophets, Christ, and His dear Apostles to other people. He also gives us scribes or Evangelists, who must reveal and proclaim His Divine Word through Christian writings and books, so that it may reach and become known in places where one will not tolerate the public preaching of the Word.

Psalm 8; Matthew 21

And where the Prophets, Apostles, and wise men must keep silent, or cannot teach, there God awakens and gives the unlearned and infants, the small children, and poor little schoolchildren, who must sing His holy Word and Gospel in the streets and beg for the dear Bread at the doors, so that we may not lack the same saving food of His Divine word, just as the children of Israel in the desert did not lack the Bread of Heaven.

And if we despise such manifold gifts and means of His, as the Jews did, then the dear