Schola Pietatis: Volume 4

Johann Gerhard's The Practice of Godliness brings the theological precision of Lutheran Orthodoxy into the ordinary relationships and duties of Christian life.

Volume Four presents Gerhard's treatment of the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Commandments. Its thirty chapters examine the duties of children and parents, governing authorities and subjects, servants and masters; the preservation of the neighbor's life and the practice of love; and chastity, sobriety, and fasting.

Gerhard's exposition reaches far beyond a simple catalogue of prohibitions. The Fifth Commandment includes not only outward homicide, but hatred, injurious words, hostile gestures, and the refusal of reconciliation. Its positive demands lead to an extensive treatment of love toward the neighbor, mercy, friendship, concord, patience, forgiveness, and friendliness. The Sixth Commandment encompasses fornication and adultery in deed, word, gesture, and inward desire, followed by careful discussions of moderation, drunkenness, bodily discipline, and the proper Christian use of fasting.

Throughout the work, Gerhard joins sustained biblical exposition with testimony from the church fathers, classical authors, historical examples, moral maxims, and concluding prayers. He carefully distinguishes justification through faith in Christ from the necessary fruits of living faith. Christian obedience neither merits forgiveness nor replaces Christ's righteousness; it is the life to which the justified Christian is called and for which he daily seeks God's grace.

This first English edition of Book IV is based upon the 1623 German text and includes a historical introduction, editorial annotations, selected terminology, a biographical register, and comprehensive indexes of persons, works and documents, Scripture, and subjects.