In this volume we hand over to the Christian reader Luther's delicious interpretations of a part of the New Testament, namely of the Evangelists Matthew, Lucas and John up to the sixth chapter of John inclusive.
The writings originally written in Latin, as, Luther's notes on the first eighteen chapters of the Evangelist Matthew and Luther's disputation on Luc. 7, 47. are newly translated by us, the other writings to the best of our ability, accurately revised, incorrect timing corrected, deficient supplemented, missing added. Newly included in this volume are Luther's sermons on the eighteenth to twenty-fourth chapters of Matthew and on the third and fourth chapters of John, which were printed from the Wolfenbüttel manuscript in the Erlangen edition. In these sermons, too, we have improved the text here and there and corrected and supplemented the time determinations. How necessary the latter was, can be seen from the fact that Lic. theol. G. Buchwald in the preface to his published "Eleven previously unprinted sermons by D. Martin Luther
held in the time of Trinity 1539, Werdau. Verlag von Kurt Anz. 1890.": "That the editor chose just the following sermons from the abundant material, happened . . . because just in the second half of the year 1539 there is a considerable gap in Luther's sermon activity known to us so far". 2c. On the other hand, it can be seen from the "Chronological Overview" given by us after the table of contents of this volume, that more than thirty sermons are contained in this volume, which belong to the indicated time period. - Furthermore, we have included four sermons on texts from the Evangelist Lucas in this volume, which are taken from the aforementioned small collection of Buchwald. The rest of these sermons will be printed at the appropriate place in the following volumes.
In the Wolfenbüttel manuscript, as noted in the Erlangen edition, vol. 44, p. 275, there is a gap. There the Silk Sermons are missing, which Luther preached on Matth. 21, 23-27. and Cap. 21, 28-32. These sermons are found in Buchwald's "Ungedruckte Predig-.
Martin Luther, Vol. III, First Half". We have translated them and inserted them in the relevant place.
Furthermore, we have included in this volume those of the sermons that Luther delivered at the Coburg fortress in 1530 that have not yet been included in any collection of Luther's works. These are taken from: "Ungedruckte Predigten D. Martin Luthers im Jahre 1530 auf der Coburg gehalten. Together with the last Wittenberg sermons before his departure and the first after his return. From Andreas Poach's handwritten collection of Luther's sermons [in the Zwickau Rathsschulbibliothek] edited for the first time by Dr. Georg Buchwald, Gymnasialoberlehrer in Zwickau. Zwickau. Published by Gebrüder Thost (R. Bräuninger). According to the order followed by Walch, we should have distributed these sermons according to the order of the chapters among the interpretations of the Gospels. But because they form, as Buchwald says, "in a sense a complete whole in their reference to the Diet of Augsburg," we did not want to tear them apart, but have included them in an appendix to this volume. The first two sermons were preached in Wittenberg, before Luther's departure for Coburg, the last after his return]. These three sermons, delivered in Wittenberg, are written down in Latin, with a few German fragments interspersed. The text
is incomplete, often very spoiled, the punctuation extremely poor. For this reason, they are quite unenjoyable in the form in which they are presented to us in Buchwald's small collection. For this reason, we have not only translated them, but also provided them, as far as we could, with the unavoidable improvements. Sermons of such poor quality (such are also the twenty-one sermons of Güttel. Luther would not have tolerated them in a collection of his writings, but we have included them so that the reader can form his own opinion. The ten sermons delivered in Coburg were originally written in German and are of incomparably better quality. Eight of these sermons are already in our edition (mostly after Krafft's good review), as can be seen from the index of this volume; only two of them have not been known before. However, one sermon, the seventh in Buchwald's collection, is very mutilated in the previous editions, which is why we also include it in this volume according to the Zwickau manuscript. Of the remaining sermons, we give, just as Buchwald, only a few different readings and corrections in the time determination.
Because this volume has become considerably stronger due to the newly included writings, we have been forced to
The first part of the text of the seventh and eighth chapters of St. John's is to be assigned to the following volume. It only needs to be noted that the text: "Kurzer Begriff und Ordnung aller vorgeschriebenen Bitten" (Walch, old edition, vol. VII, 1174. Erlanger, vol. 45, p. 204), which is not found in our table of contents, has not been omitted, but rather united with the preceding text, because it forms a part of it. There is no need for a further introduction to this volume, because everything necessary has been said in the first note for each individual text.
The editing of these interpretations of Luther's New Testament is a real pleasure and heartwarming for us.
Essence. If we preachers want to be and remain truly Lutheran and maintain and promote those who are commanded to us in right doctrine and godly living, this can be done in no better way than by us preachers ourselves diligently studying Luther's writings so that we are able to preach the Word of God to the people in Luther's way, but also by encouraging Christians not to neglect to read Luther's writings in addition to the Holy Scriptures. If this happens, it will not go without rich fruit. For this, God grant His grace and blessing, for the sake of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. Amen.