# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1850 09 03_S3
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

3

brotherly fellowship with you, you come to meet him halfway and deny your God, merely to remain with the Jew in the brotherhood; that I call being obliging indeed.

S. We deny our God? Where do we do that?

I. O, I think it is clear as day. You may not confess the Triune God for the sake of your Jewish brethren; did you not say so?

S. Well yes, it is so, they would otherwise decline to have anything to do with the societies.

I. And what vow did you make at your baptism, what is the covenant which you made with God, the Triune? Is it not this, that you renounced the devil, and all his works and all his ways, and swore yourselves to the Triune God as His abiding possession, whom you would confess, in defiance of all devils and without fear of any creature? Are you not therefore, according to your covenant, bound to confess the Triune God, who is a terror to the devils and to Jews and heathen an object of blasphemy, before all the world, with words and works, at all times and in every situation, and to allow no other god beside Him, even if it cost body and life? Did you not make such a covenant with God? — And now, what do you do! You deny your faith, and your God, to please men, and call upon the Indian idol, that as brethren of the Jews and deniers of Christ you may pray together with them.

S. Have the Jews another God than we?

I. In any case, for they blaspheme JESUS Christ, whom we worship.

S. Is JESUS Christ then God?

I. What? This question you could ask, who are baptized in His name, who have eaten His flesh and drunk His blood, who have called me to be a preacher of His Word and Gospel? Yea, a thousand times Yea and Amen; JESUS Christ is God. In defiance of all devils, in defiance of death, in defiance of hell!

S. What then is the Father?

I. Aha! there it lies. Now I first perceive what you are driving at. You imagine that the Jew also worships a piece of our God, namely the Father. Did you not yourselves just now cite the passage: God is a Spirit? If He is a Spirit, then one can cut no pieces from Him. He who has Him not whole, has Him not at all. He that knoweth not the Son, knoweth not the Father also; and he that honoureth not the Son, honoureth not the Father. And, may I go on? he that blasphemeth the Son, blasphemeth also the Father. From this it follows that the Jews not only know nothing of the true God, but even blaspheme Him.

S. Do you then mean to assert that all Jews are damned?

I. How do you come to ask me things which concern neither me nor you? God is just, that I know; He will do wrong to no one, that is certain.

S. Is not the Jew also our brother?

I. Yes, if I can help him in any need, even if I pray for him; but not if I am to pray with him.

S. Why should I not be allowed to pray with him?

I. Because either the Jew must worship my LORD JESUS with me (which he will not wish to do), or I must blaspheme Christ with him; otherwise we shall not be at one.

S. But the Jew can worship his God, I mine.

I. Hear, friend, if anyone reviles your father and calls your mother a harlot, will you choose him for a bosom friend before many others? Will you do nothing rather than laugh, jest and pass the time with him? Or do you not rather avoid him, like an evil, ravening beast, from afar? And him who blasphemes your Savior, can you, in your opinion, not meet with kindness enough? He who not only insults your father or your mother, but robs your God and LORD of honor and majesty and represents Him as a lying god, with him you would by all means pray? Yes, if you could only do it without making yourself guilty of his blasphemy. But imagine, while you are praying together, the LORD should come, the great separation should take place. Of two lying on one bed, the one shall be taken, the other left. Of two grinding at a mill, the one shall be taken, the other left. There lies a blasphemer of Christ and beside him you; he has blasphemed Christ, and you were present and have suffered it, have had no displeasure at it, and have even prayed blasphemously with him. Which of you shall be taken? Probably neither; you will probably both be left, as people of like kind. You must confess your God, and if you do it not, you are a wretched, fallen creature. So did not the Apostles, so not the holy martyrs; rather they suffered all torments, and death besides, than depart from the confession of their God.

S. You would be right, Pastor, if the secret societies had anything to do with religion. But now that is not the case at all.

I. That I gladly believe, that the societies do not concern themselves particularly much with religion. But have they not their special clergymen, who have to call upon the Great Spirit, and do you not pray together?

S. Yes, but that has nothing at all to do with religion.

I. With what then, for heaven's sake! Is not prayer, and especially common prayer, a religious act, is there nothing of religion in it?

S. No, that is nothing of religion.

I. I know not how I feel, what is the matter with me; am I mad, or are you mad. I thought, indeed, four men had come to me, I believed I saw men too, and now I hear childish folly spoken. Tell me, I pray, what man do I call religious? Surely him, among others, who prays much?

X. Not exactly him who prays much, for one must not always merely pray, but also work.

I. How then must one pray, teach me.

X. As is right.

I. Well, so be it. He who prays, then, as is right, do I call him religious or not?

X. Yes, him one calls so.

I. Does prayer belong, then, to the things of religion or not?

P. O. X. Yes! — Yes! — Yes! It belongs, to be sure, to religion also.

I. Now thank God that this darkness is past! It was to me just as if I sat in a dark cave, where one must grope with the hands, and where one can feel the darkness. How can you now say that the secret societies have nothing at all to do with religion, since they have their special prophet, call upon their special god, the Great Spirit of the Indians, and pray together to him? Or how can you maintain that I am not right, that you all deny your God therein and are apostate creatures, if the societies have anything to do with religion? I know well how you seek to wriggle out. The societies have not religion for their purpose, you think. But what can that help you, if you yet deny, in common acts of religion, your God, the only true God, the Triune? — A proper army, too, has not the purpose of robbing and plundering, but everywhere of protecting the right, of defending land and people. If now the soldiers nevertheless rob and plunder, and practise all ungodliness and cruelty, does all that become good by this, that the army in itself had not this infernal, ungodly purpose, did not march out with this intention?

S. Upon my word, if you come to the purpose of the societies, there we are armored and invincible; the purpose is undeniably good.

I. You would first have to confess yourselves and your brethren as fallen Christians, before we go further; but come, let us for once look more closely at the noble purpose of the secret societies!

S. Good, to support widows and orphans, that is our purpose, nothing else.

I. Are these strange widows and orphans, or your own?

S. Our own.

I. Are these also already widows and orphans, or must they first become so?

S. They might become so.

I. Will you then in any case die sooner or later than your wives and children?