# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1851 02 18_S99
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

99

spirit, who preaches another Gospel than the holy Paul and the other holy Apostles have preached. My faith, like that of all upright Lutherans, does not stand on screws, but is as sure as God's Word itself — yea, a divine work, wrought in me by God Himself through His simple Word, and according to His Word; that is right. Everything else that contradicts it must be false from the very first, call it what one will, and extol it as one will. — This, to be sure, is called a stiff-necked Lutheran, but what else should a Christian be than stiff-necked? There must surely be a difference between a child of God and a jumping-jack or weathercock. Now tell me, Martin, hast thou not everything too? Is not everything sure and certain? Hast thou not everything plainly and clearly grounded on God's Word? What in all the world can move thee to listen after something else, as though that too might still be truth, if it does not agree with what thou hast recognized from God's Word as unshakable truth? Let them first prove that the Lutheran Church teaches falsely according to God's Word, then we will hear what they bring. As long as they do not do that, and that they cannot, else God's Word itself would have to be false, they must at least keep off my neck with their little inventions. I know beforehand that there can be nothing behind it but lies and deceit. And if thou wilt but bethink thyself rightly, thou wilt marvel how the devil has fooled thee again. But thou hast it in thee, once for all, that thy thoughts fly apart at once, like a flock of pigeons when someone merely cries "Shoo, shoo."

But thou sayest: "it is written: 'Prove all things and hold fast that which is good,' so one cannot well break off everything out of hand, as thou dost." Now, Martin, I think the saying need not stand in our way. It surely cannot mean that thou must sniff and rummage through every bit of curds and dirt which an impudent rascal brings into thy house and passes off for marzipan, in order that thou mayest say with a good conscience and full conviction that it is not marzipan but real dirt and curds, which thou knewest, to be sure, before the examination, but it is meant to say just this: do not let everything be palmed off on you as truth that has even the appearance of truth, but, as becomes spiritual priests who have the heart firmly grounded in the truth, or, which is the same, in God's Word, and so have a sure, certain, genuine touchstone, and so can test, even what orthodox, pious teachers preach and proclaim to you, or, as it says in that passage, "prophesy," or expound Scripture, prove whether it is also like the faith. For thou knowest, Martin, that one may also build upon the right foundation, at times, straw, wood, stubble, etc., instead of gold and precious stones. We are to beware of false prophets, which truly does not mean receiving all false prophets, and, as though one had not the truth, being always of the thought, who knows, this man or that man has it: then we should have to ask after the religion of the Chinese and Hottentots too, for they surely belong also under the "everything," as thou takest it. But what announces itself from the very first as something other than what I have as the truth, that I need not, nay, may not even examine, but if a wanton rascal has thrown it into my house, I take the broom and sweep it out again.

But here thou fallest into my speech again in thy letter, and sayest: "There is the knot, however; the Evangelicals say indeed that they have nothing different from us!" Well, to that I will answer thee later; for now only this: "Why do they not remain or become Lutheran, why do they make such a new, smeared-together heap? They might as well have called the Reformed Reformed, and let them stay together, and so also the Lutherans; it would not have been worth the trouble to stir up so much strife and fuss; for that the Union has caused shameful discord and brought forth shameful offences, more than the separation of the Reformed from the true Church at the time of the Reformation, that is known even to a poor handworker who has troubled himself a little about the kingdom of God. Thou canst feel it in pitch darkness that it is not only a lie, but a downright stupid lie; these people, who, God knows, were born in this unhappy time of apostasy and ignorance, and have just now come to the glimmer of Christian truth, they would maintain that there is no difference between the Lutheran and the Reformed doctrine, whereas for 3 centuries both parties have openly confessed that there was a difference, and earlier sought with great earnestness to remove the difference according to God's Word, in later times at least to paste it over against God's Word. They say themselves, too, that there must be a higher truth which unites the two different doctrines, or, as the Herr Pfarrer calls it, into which these two truths (as they call them) must merge. Now, my friend, let the artist first come who has found the truth with which, for example, two men would be satisfied, of whom one asserted the Negro was black, the other, white. Meanwhile I will smoke my pipe, and thank God that I know where I stand. Shall I tell thee how the people seem to me, though it may not quite fit, and may come out somewhat rough? Thou rememberest, surely, the festival frolic that took place at the peace celebration in the year 15 in our little town; there they had a pig, too, whose tail was well greased with soap, and the boys ran after it and tried to catch it, but they were allowed to seize it only by the tail, and then it was theirs. Often a boy cried: I have it, I have it! but what had he? A handful of soft soap, and the laughter besides; the higher truth, I meant to say, the pig itself, was already far off, and grunted right merrily. Let them but first find the higher truth in which the one truth and error merge, then they may come again, we will hear them; but I fear that in the meantime the gentlemen who are engaged in this dangerous game, and will not be told, but moreover seduce many simple hearts, will fall into the pit, and those with them who, despite all warning, join in the mad chase."

My dear Martin, all prattle about piety, Christ, love, etc., helps nothing, nor long faces and halos, but: "If ye continue in my word, saith the Lord, then are ye my disciples indeed," etc. He who has once truly experienced the misery in which he lies by nature, and has tasted the Word as his only comfort and his help, does not esteem the Word so lightly as to pick at it with his foolish understanding, and fancy and seek and quibble, but he has a respect for it, fears it, and takes it simply as it is written, and has a horror of all people who want to palm off something special on him. With this enough for this time; if it pleases thee, I will write thee next time something further about the "Friedensbote" itself; I have only wished to tell thee in general that I ask no more after all the prattle. I have the truth, I live in it, through it. I seek nothing more than to become more perfect in it, but novelties I will no longer let be forced upon me. With this, God be with thee.

Thy Hans.

(Submitted for the Lutheraner.)

Der deutsche Kirchenfreund and Dr. Guericke.

In the January number of this year of the "Deutscher Kirchenfreund" there is found the following note to a passage in an article entitled "Erinnerungen an Neander":

"Of the latter (Guericke, Professor of Theology at Halle) I (the author of that article) heard him (Neander) speak very seldom and then always quite in passing and with contempt, as of an ungrateful copyist who misuses the hard labor of others for his ultra-Lutheran dogmatism and fanaticism. The unworthy relation of dependence of Guericke's "Kirchengeschichte" upon the works of Neander, Hase and others, of his "Symbolik" upon Ullmann's college notebooks (which, as Ullmann himself told me, he copied in the general part almost word for word, page by page and chapter by chapter, without the slightest acknowledgment of the source), of his "Einleitung" upon several corresponding but uncited books, among others also upon Ger-