Luther's little catechism itself is written in such a way that it must be considered an excellent book; one may look at the things that occur in it or at the way it is presented or at the order in which it is presented. Everything is arranged in such a way as the true nature and actual intention of the Catechism requires. It comprehends all those truths and doctrines of faith that everyone must know if he truly wants to believe in Jesus and attain salvation. One has well distinguished those pieces that deal with the foundation of faith from those in which such a relationship does not exist. They have looked not only at faith, but also at life, precisely because true and justifying faith must be active through love, and neither can be separated from the other. Blessed Luther explained all this in his explanations in a simple and thorough way. Both had to be done if it was to be a useful and edifying catechism. It is intended for children and simple-minded people, according to whose nature a teacher has to orient himself in instruction and present everything in a simple manner. Luther combined this simplicity with thoroughness and based all catechetical teachings on Scripture as a certain and immovable foundation, because he knew well that just as Scripture is the only guide to faith and life, it is also the only source from which everything contained in the Catechism must flow, and nothing in it can be accepted as true unless it agrees with Scripture. The order followed is good, and the five main pieces have such a coherence among each other, that the
thing itself. This is based on the main content of the Catechism, which is that it teaches us the order of salvation established by God. Before the Fall, He established it in such a way that if one would keep the Law perfectly and not commit a single sin, one would be saved, and therefore the first main part, The Law, begins in such a way that, even if we are not able to keep it perfectly, we must first recognize our great ruin and our great guilt in such a way that we crawl to the cross and take refuge in Jesus Christ and His perfect atonement. After the fall, God made a covenant of grace with the human race and, according to His wisdom, justice and goodness, decreed such an order of salvation that if one would truly believe in Jesus and persevere in faith until the end, one would attain the righteousness that is valid before God and salvation. And this is the purpose of the second main part, On Christian Faith, which primarily presents the articles of faith, but also includes the doctrine of the righteous and saving faith. Such faith is not a work of nature, but of grace, a benefit and gift of God, for which we have to ask and implore Him, and therefore the doctrine of prayer follows in the third main section; and since God does not kindle, strengthen, and sustain it in us directly, but by means of the prescribed means of grace, and among such means of grace are also the holy sacraments, this is the reason why the blessed Luther added the fourth and fifth main sections, On Holy Baptism and the Lord's Supper. The prefaces, which he prefixed to both catechisms, are not to be read without arousal. We can clearly see from them how highly he held the catechetical truths and how much the ignorance of those who professed the evangelical doctrine at that time and the negligence of some preachers in this regard went to his heart.
See Joh. Wilh. Baier's "Aphorismi de informatione catechetica, ad praefationes catechismorum beati Lutheri." From
The good and beautiful order that is found in our Catechism has also been acted upon by others, such as Zacharias Schiller in the preface to his "Explicatio Catechismo", Caspar Erasmus Brochmand in "Commentar, in epistolam ad Ebraeos, VI, 1.p. 209, who notes that the method of our Catechism is set up in the same way as Christ, John and the Apostles, that they began with repentance and then presented the doctrine of faith; likewise Johann Mari. Schamel in "Vindiciae catecheticae", p. II, Gregor Langemack in "Historia catechetica", part. II, p. 114, and others.