Ap. IV. 67, At cum Deo non potest agi, Deus non potest apprehendi nisi per verbum.
Nagel: “A God who is everywhere is not much different from a God who is nowhere. What we need is a God who is somewhere.”
Wilhelm Loehe, *Three Books about the Church, *trans. E. T. Horn (Reading, Pennsylvania: Pilger Publishing House, 1908), 177-183: The Lutheran Church knows that the Lord imparts His Holy Spirit only through His Word and Sacraments, and therefore she acknowledges no other means of operation. She knows that in the work of salvation man is able to do nothing more than lend his ear to the divine truth just as he would lend it to any other word; therefore before anything else, she tries to move men and admonish them to hear and to heed the Word . . . She does not consider it an insult if it is said: This pastor thinks it enough to preach, catechize, administer the Sacraments, hear the confessions of penitents, and comfort the sick. She knows that even the most faithful pastors do not enough of this. She does not care for a multiplication of pastoral offices, but she does care for a right use of those enjoined in the Scriptures and handed down from old time. To many it is a new discovery that one ought not be a master of many trades but a master of the few and noble means; but the Church never knew any other wisdom – in one word, she does much with few means . . . The poverty of our fathers is richer than the riches of their critics . . . Therefore it does not have any sympathy with the new highly-praised means of furthering good works. She desires to carry on good works, but not in the manner of an association or a stock company . . . The preacher of the Church is therefore no friend of “new measures,” as the Methodists call them, but he stands by the old measures of patient, faithful loyalty to the Word and true doctrine.