# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1851 04 01_S121
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Der Lutheraner.
"God's Word and Luther's doctrine pass not away now or evermore." (Rev. John chap. 14, v. 6, 7.)
Published by the German Ev. Luth. Synod of Missouri, Ohio and other States.
Edited by C. F. W. Walther.
Volume 7.  St. Louis, Mo., the 1st of April 1851.  No. 16.
Terms: Der Lutheraner appears once every two weeks, at the yearly subscription price of One Dollar for out-of-town subscribers, who pay in advance and bear the postage. — In St. Louis each single number is sold for 5 cents.
Only those letters which contain communications for the paper are to be sent to the editor; all others, which contain business matters, orders, cancellations, money, etc., are to be sent hither under the address: Mr. F. W. Barthel, care of C. F. W. Walther, St. Louis, Mo.

The Doctrine of the Holy Trinity and of the Person of Christ
set forth by Dr. M. Luther.

Among the signs of the times which a Christian observes with horror, there belongs without doubt above all the dreadful unbelief which at present has penetrated into so-called Christendom like an all-flooding ocean. Unbelief has plainly reached in our days a universality and a height among the baptized Christians such as never before, as long as there have been Christians. Yes, — who can deny it? — Christendom has now sunk deeper than even the heathenism of old. Whole throngs within the bosom of the Christian Church, [illegible] confess it now by mouth and in writing, without shame or shyness: "There is no God!" whereas once the blind heathen people turned away with abhorrence from the deniers of God, as from wicked, desperate men, so-called Christendom of our day for the most part shouts approval to them as its spokesmen and favorites. However many a Christian in our days may still shrink back from this abyss of unbelief, atheism, it nevertheless belongs to the present signs of the times also this: that not only [illegible] parties in Christendom are indifferent precisely toward the most important doctrines of Christianity, which Christendom of all centuries has held fast and confessed as the highest jewels of divine revelation, as though not much depended upon them; but that even many such parties as strive to spread about themselves a special appearance of holiness, and wish by all means to pass for truly Christian, deny and oppose those chief articles of the Christian religion. One such fundamental doctrine is, among others, the doctrine of the most holy Trinity. With horror we have been obliged in most recent times repeatedly to convince ourselves that, for example, German Baptists (Anabaptists) so impudently deny and scoff at the mystery of the holy Trinity as otherwise only the most hardened Jew or the crudest rationalist did. With horror we have had to see that of late even the unchristian Swedenborgian sect has attempted, not without success, to make proselytes among our German people here, and that even such persons have let themselves be drawn into this sect as had in former times not been without all experience of the power of the Word. With horror we have lately had to learn that even so-called "believers" are so dulled that they do not shrink back even from the open denial of the first article of faith of the whole Christian Church of all times and places, but are deceived already by the slightest show of the most miserable pretended holiness and enlightenment, and let themselves be robbed of all ground of faith and so of soul and salvation. The worst wolf, who comes along frankly and freely with the soul-murdering claws of the most open unbelief, if only he has hung about himself a few rags of the sheep's clothing of hypocritical piety, now easily gets a little flock of sheep among the so-called "believers," on whom he can quietly still his thirst for the blood of souls. God! what a judgment upon an ungrateful Christendom, which has not known the time of its visitation! "Because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness." 2 Thess. 2, 10. 11.

Since it is necessary to stand precisely before those parts of the wall and of the foundation where the enemy wants to break through, we purpose to communicate to our dear readers, in several installments, a precious testimony of Luther, concerning the most holy Trinity and the Person of Jesus Christ. We do this also because we have found by experience that many among Christians think they have the right conception, agreeing with God's Word, of this mystery of faith, whereas their knowledge is not only very defective precisely in this, but also clouded by many false notions; which naturally has a most harmful influence upon their whole Christianity. May there be no reader of this paper who, upon reading this, now loses the desire to read further, because in the exposition of the doctrine of the holy Trinity he expects only something exceedingly dry, which he has either long since learned, or which yet in his practical