# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1851 02 04_S89
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Der Lutheraner.

(Rev. John, chap. 14, vv. 6, 7.)

"God's Word and Luther's doctrine pure shall to eternity endure."

Published by the German Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Missouri, Ohio and other States.

Edited by C. F. W. Walther.

Year 7.  St. Louis, Mo., February 4, 1851.  No. 12.

Terms: Der Lutheraner appears once every two weeks, at the yearly subscription price of One Dollar for subscribers living at a distance, who are to pay the same in advance and to bear the postage. - In St. Louis each single number is sold for 5 cents.

Only the letters which contain communications for the paper are to be sent to the editor; all others, containing anything of a business nature, orders, cancellations, moneys, etc., are to be sent hither under the address Mr. F. W. Barthel, care of C. F. W. Walther, St. Louis, Mo.

(Sent in by Pastor Keyl.)

The Old Approved Measures of the Lutheran Church for the Abundant Exercise in the Word of God. *)

*) Only now do we furnish the conclusion of this treatise, after the author, at our request, has sent it in for a second time, the first manuscript sent us, which contained the conclusion, having been destroyed in the conflagration of which we have already given the readers notice. The Editor.

(Conclusion.)

Third Section.

It may perhaps have surprised some that the preceding section does not reach down to the present day; it is said that in the congregations here also things have grown better in the last ten years, and that in many places there is beginning to take the place of indifference in matters of faith at least a desire for true decision. We by no means fail to recognize this; but thereby the question at the close of the preceding section, what is now to be done, is brought not farther off but nearer to us, especially since in those observations, pleasing in themselves, there is also found much that makes us not easier but more anxious. For, to leave the preachers out of account for the present, a twofold evil is not seldom noticeable in the congregations. When, as is now the case with thousands, a man returns to an upright life in Christ only after a greater or lesser departure from his baptismal covenant, it does not go off without many violent convulsions, and in that interval there has always been formed in the man's thoughts and habits many a thing which does not come from the Spirit of Christ, nor departs from him with the swiftness of lightning, but in many ways stands in the way and hinders. To this is joined, however, the second evil, that such returning persons usually have no right knowledge left from their youth. They are smitten and seized by the Word of God, but they lack clear insight into the doctrine; and this condition, which is open to every delusion and every rashness, goes naturally hand in hand with the agitation just mentioned, out of which proceeds that Methodistic temper which now so readily shows itself under the preaching of the Word of God; at times, indeed, many a preacher, though quite unconsciously, has nourished this temper by preaching more to awaken than to teach, but often it shows itself also where it is worked against on the preacher's part; and so every upright preacher has the twofold task of leading the fallen children back to their mother, the Church, and of keeping with her those who have been brought to her.

Now if this aim could not be fully attained even in the time of the Reformation, since individual fallen sects, for instance the Socinians, would not let themselves be led back to the Church, and other members who had been led back, for instance the Anabaptists, founded a new sect, what wonder is it if even in our day the tares spring up beside the good seed of the Word of God, which the enemy sows secretly, and if just where the wholesome doctrine is preached most purely, the most false doctrines assert themselves, so that thereby many are kept from returning to the Church or from remaining in her!

What, then, is to be done under such circumstances?

One good counsel, as it is called, we must at once put away from us, for the very reason that it is not good, and it is this: not to be so harsh and strict, and especially not to condemn all other doctrine so unsparingly, for that, it is said, is contrary to Christian love. By no means, we answer, for St. Paul gives this also as a mark of Christian love, that it rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth. 1 Cor. 13, 6; in such love Christ has left us an example, that we should follow his steps, in that he not only bore with great patience the weak, such as his disciples in particular were, but also with great zeal rebuked all corrupters of the wholesome doctrine, yea, drove them out of the house of the LORD. Luke 19, 45. 46. He has commanded us his servants once for all: Teach them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you, and the slightest reflection shows that all excrescences in doctrine and life do not spring from an excess of the communication of the divine