# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1850 12 10_S60
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60

two periods, from the year 1536 to Luther's death and from then on to Mel.'s death. In the first period the traces of these departures were not so frequent, nor so strong and manifest, and therefore also not of so widely spread a harmful influence, as in the second period; on the contrary, Mel., so long as Luther lived and stood at his side, still gave from time to time gratifying proofs of his agreement with him also in the doctrine of the Lord's Supper, which he later, when he was deprived of this support, did ever more seldom. From this it is to be explained that Luther and others, with regard to Mel., though sometimes hovering in anxious misgivings, yet had not sufficient ground to testify publicly against him, as became necessary after Luther's death. It was also quite natural that one had to look with other eyes upon many epistolary and oral utterances of Mel., which had formerly not been known, or at least not held suspicious, after his departures became ever more manifest.

We will now adduce some proofs of the fickle disposition of Mel., which he showed from the year 1536 to Luther's death, in that he declared himself now in favor of the Reformed and against L.'s doctrine, now again, as it were rousing himself, against the Reformed and in favor of the Lutheran doctrine.

Soon afterward, when he had, in company with Luther, concluded the Wittenberg Concord, the Landgrave of Hesse invited him together with Bucer to Cassel, to learn from each the opinion of his co-religionists concerning that Concord. Concerning this Mel. expressed himself thus in a letter to Camerarius: "What my opinion may be, you will not now desire to know from me, for I have been the messenger of a strange opinion, although I shall not conceal my opinion when I have heard what ours answer." Does not Mel. thereby give clearly to understand that he had indeed outwardly joined in concluding the Concord, but had cherished a quite different opinion about it from his co-religionists? —

In the year 1537 he subscribed the Smalcald Articles, in which, as is well known, a short but decided confession of the Sacrament of the Altar is made; he also wrote in the same year to the Elector of Saxony that with the Zwinglians it was only presumption, wantonness and the delusion of reason, whereby one could not stand before God.

In the year 1538 he wrote that one should not rend Christ asunder, as if He were with us only according to the Godhead, but not also according to the manhood; Christ is rather present bodily in the Holy Supper.

(To be concluded.)

(Submitted.)

Letter to a Church Officer. *)

*) From an American Lutheran preacher to the head of a vacant Union congregation. Ed.

Dear Sir!

You have answered me in your esteemed letter of — to my last letter that, as concerns the church usages and separation from your "Reformed brethren," a Lutheran pastor will not be welcome to you. Since you nevertheless accept the Lutheran Book of Concord, you are in contradiction with yourself. To show you this in Christian sincerity and love is the purpose for which I write to you once more. But first I remark that it has by no means surprised me to receive such an answer from you, because unfortunately the principles which you express are only too current in our days. On the contrary, your frankness pleases me, and if you will examine the present letter in equal love of truth and not look upon everything with distrustful eyes for the very reason that it does not accord with your habits, then I hope that by God's grace you will yet in time attain to the acknowledgment of the full truth, as it is confessed in the Lutheran Church, and, what is closely connected with it, will no longer have such a dread as hitherto of the rejection of every doctrine which stands in contradiction to the truth, even of the Reformed.

The LORD be pleased to grant me grace that in the manner in which I speak to you through this letter I may err in nothing and be well understood by you.

I. Of the Church Usages.

You share with many Protestants of our day, neglected in knowledge, the error that the Lutheran ceremonies or church usages are nothing more than a remnant of Popery, and you reckon among them especially the sign of the holy Cross and the absolving of individuals in the confessional. According to this it comes out as if Luther had either himself still been stuck in many a papistic error and therefore remained with many so-called "Catholic" ceremonies, or had, for the sake of the people, not yet so far enlightened, retained much leaven of the papistic system. Now, from an age which knows Luther as little as the present, one can expect nothing better. Indeed, there is hardly a genuine biography of this man of God besides "Luther's Life by Meurer *)." Whoever has come to know the blessed man to some extent from a book like the one named can only be angry or smile with pity at such an opinion, which would make our Luther, so highly enlightened by the Holy Ghost through God's Word and so courageous in faith, into a blockhead or hypocrite. Was the Luther who had read and pondered God's Word more than any other man not to have perceived better than our enlightened ones of today what belongs to Popery and what does not? Was the Luther who for truth's sake cared not for the curse of the whole world to have kept behind the mountain with a few church usages? No, dear friend! Luther retained nothing from the "Catholic Church" out of mere yieldingness toward the time then, still less out of his own pleasure therein. In rejecting Popery, and just as well in retaining what is not papistic but truly Catholic, God's Word guided him. For this forbids no church usage, unless thereby a false doctrine be countenanced. The apostle Paul circumcised Timothy, shaved his head in Cenchrea, and fulfilled a vow in the temple. These were all church usages that are far more offensive than any Lutheran ceremony. Yet it was not forbidden the apostle to observe them; he had liberty thereto, so far as it was serviceable to him, according to his principle declared in 1 Cor. 9, 19 — 23, for the spreading of the Gospel. He had indeed also at his baptism renounced the Jewish law, knew and confessed that we are justified not by the works of the law, but by faith alone (Phil. 3, 9.)! Yet he observes these Jewish usages, not as though he would thereby be saved, but because according to Christian liberty every ceremony is open to him, if he thereby assents to no false doctrine. As we now see from such single examples that the Christian, without breaking his baptismal vow thereby, may observe manifold usages of divine service, if only they stand in connection with no false doctrine, so the history of the apostolic Church shows us that the whole Christian congregation from the beginning followed this principle and observed certain ceremonies in divine service. These were not expressly commanded to it; — for that would be just as much against Christian liberty as a prohibition of them; but the Christians chose for themselves, as those who had power thereto, such ceremonies as they perceived to "become" them, according to the principle which the Holy Ghost had prescribed to them in 1 Cor. 11, 15. Examples we find among others in 1 Cor. 11. 4 — 6, 14. 15. 14, 34. 35.

**) Which has also been translated into English and is to be had under the title "Life of Martin Luther by Meurer" in New-York of H. Ludwig, Verey street No. 70, for 2 Dollars.

In accordance with this principle, that the church usages or ceremonies fall under Christian liberty, being neither forbidden nor commanded in particular, Dr. M. Luther did not, like Carlstadt and the Reformed, abolish all ceremonies, but in a truly Christian manner retained all usages of the Church which "become" (according to 1 Cor. 11, 13), which serve for good order (according to 1 Cor. 14, 40) and for mutual edification (according to 1 Cor. 14. 26), and which promote no false doctrine. What a senseless thing it would also have been, al-