# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1851 01 07_S75
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

75

which He shed for us, not merely signifies, or is set forth as through tokens, figures, pictures, or only as a remembrance of an absent thing, but that He is truly and certainly presented, given, appropriated, and offered, through the tokens (bread and wine), which are not mere signs, but always have in and with them truly and certainly that which God promises and gives, whether it be set before believers or unbelievers. But the manner in which the true body and the true blood of the LORD are united with the tokens, we say, is sacramental, that is, not only a figure or signification, but that truly and certainly, under the form of those things which we see, there is presented what God gives and offers with the tokens, namely that which we have just now mentioned (the true body and the true blood of Christ). From this it appears that we maintain and defend the presence of the body and blood of Christ in the Supper, and, if there is yet with pious and learned brethren a controversy or other dispute, it is not about the thing itself, but only about the manner of the presence, which is known to God alone, and about which we deem that men chiefly now contend. But as concerns the manner in which the tokens are given to us, we say that the same is natural; for we receive those visible and comprehensible things in a natural manner. But the manner in which the natural and true substance of Christ is truly and certainly imparted to us is not held by us to be natural, and we do not imagine (picture to ourselves) any local union, nor an extension and diffusion of the human nature of Christ, nor the gross, devilish transubstantiation or transformation, nor yet a gross intermingling of the substance of Christ with our substance, but we say it is a spiritual manner, which rests alone on the incomprehensible power of the Spirit of God, the Almighty, which power is revealed to us in these words of God: This is my body! — We beseech, however, and pray all brethren that they now put the affections aside and consider whether those also who thus hold and teach concerning the Sacraments of Christ must be proclaimed unbelievers and heretics, etc. —

"Upon this confession the evangelical theologians, Melanchthon, Brenz, Marbach, Mich. Dyllerus, Joh. Pistorius, Jak. Andreä, and Georg Karg held a conference with the French deputies and then handed them a written intercession to Duke Christopher of Württemberg, in which the Huguenot confession was declared in all articles to be in agreement with the Augsburg Confession, although one article was somewhat obscurely stated, wherein the people might be instructed by a Synod." The German theologians in this proceeded according to the principle of equity, which explains the obscure speech of another by that which corresponds to it and is clear, and to this they were entitled in this case so much the more, since the confession had to be laid not only before the Duke of Württemberg and the other Protestant princes of the Empire, but also before the French King, from whom an acquaintance with the artifices of Calvinistic terminology (mode of expression) could not be expected. But if one lifts out the clear passages of the confession and judges the others accordingly, it is altogether of the same content with the evangelical doctrine."

As soon as the honest Zurichers (Zwinglians) received word of this confession, they declared themselves frankly against it and charged its signers with hypocrisy and double-tonguedness. The fine Frenchmen fell thereby into such embarrassment that they confessed publicly: "They had needed a pious fraud for the deliverance of the brethren. They had secretly kept to themselves in their hearts, in that confession of theirs, those two little words: through faith and spiritually; but if one would think these in addition and understand them along with it, or add and express them, then the Zwinglian or Calvinistic confession was indeed contained therein.*) The later Calvinists would gladly roll the disgrace of Jesuitical deceit from their co-believers, and therefore asserted with brazen face that that confession had been prescribed to the French envoys by Melanchthon. — The deceived Duke of Württemberg, on another occasion, at their urgent entreaties sent the Huguenots a contribution, but with the added remark: Se dare illud non ipsorum religioni, sed paupertati et calamitati, that is, he sent this not for their religion, but on account of their poverty and sorrowful circumstances. Such occurrences were bound to warn the Evangelicals to be on their guard against the Reformed, and particularly to express their faith so definitely and plainly that Zwinglian opinions could not be hidden beneath it." So far Ströbel.

*) "Opus sibi fuisse bono dolo ad libarandos fratres. Se in sua illa confessione clam apud se in scrinio pectoris duas illas voculas: per fidem et spiritualiter, retimiisse, quibus subauditis, vel additis et expressis, constet Cingliana seu Calviniana confessio."

Let simple-minded Lutherans also of our day and of this land take the foregoing as a warning-board; for the spirit of knavery and deceit which has here been revealed is not yet extinct. Even now it is the way of most false teachers to introduce their soul-destroying errors under the cloak of orthodox phrases. The false spirit of union, poured out in our time over millions, has promoted this manner of proceeding; yea, it has at present set many thousand pens themselves in motion to represent the holiest conflicts of our fathers as vain wranglings about words, and to make the world and the Church believe that at bottom men had always been agreed, and that only sinful contentiousness had raised a partition wall between dear brethren and stirred up a blind uproar; that now at last, in a more believing and loving(!) time, the hour had struck when those who had only been estranged from one another should at last, recognizing their kinship, extend the hand of brotherhood and impose silence upon the uninvited disturbers of the peace. May God have mercy on His poor despised little flock, that also in these last afflicted times it may keep that which is committed to it, "that, when the Lord shall now be revealed in His glory, we may have confidence and not be ashamed before Him at His coming." John 2. 28.

New Free Congregation in St. Louis.

We cannot refrain from reporting to our dear readers that the enlightened among our German countrymen here have lately firmly resolved at last also to advance with the times. To be sure, there had already existed here for several years a congregation which, for the purpose of promoting dear enlightenment, had called a certain Mr. Picker, who up to that time had already made successful attempts at the clearing of the dark American forests, to itself out of his modest seclusion. He had also promised everything good. But this way, though certainly most reasonable, has unfortunately! not led to the desired goal. Mr. Picker, namely, a family man, moreover suffering from a certain natural aversion to too much water-drinking and other mortifications, was naturally obliged, in accordance with his paternal duties and the holy law of self-love, to be intent upon opening to himself, besides the office of an enlightener, which brought him in very little indeed, still other more profitable sources of income. Knowing well that precisely the less enlightened are as a rule more willing to give a faithful laborer in the field of religion his deserved wages, and being moreover far removed from all intolerance and scrupulosity, he therefore thought it fitting to accommodate himself to certain religious prejudices, in which still many less enlightened Germans here are entangled. Mr. Picker therefore condescended so far as to take up the observance of certain ceremonies into the worship of his enlightened congregation, to give them the old Christian names "Baptism and Lord's Supper," and to collect the customary stole fees. Yea, still more, in order that also those who from a pardonable weakness have not the courage to break entirely with the antiquated Christianity, that also to those the entrance among the contributing members of his enlightened Con