# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1851 04 29_S143
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

143

men the only saving Church, and the Old Lutheran preachers assert the same; — the former assert that the word of a man is of equal authority in matters of faith with God's Word, and the latter do likewise; — the former believe that men can forgive sins and shut heaven and hell, the latter believe it also; — the former teach that auricular confession is necessary, the latter also; — the former teach that the sacraments save, provided one remain in the Church, the latter teach likewise; — the former think that making the sign of the cross contains a miraculous power, and that the burning of candles is an essential part of divine service, and the latter think so also, etc." He says of the preachers of our communion, "that they introduce auricular confession here and assert that they can, in the place of the eternal Judge, pronounce blessed or condemned; . . . . they assert in sermons and writings that Luther's word is as infallible and unerring as the unchangeable Word of the eternal God, but in deed and application they place Luther's words even above God's Word; further, they are not ashamed to teach: that their constitution, which they call the only genuine Lutheran one, is 'the only saving Church.'"

In the "Lutheraner" it has already been shown often and most clearly that we teach neither in a papistical nor in a Methodistical manner concerning the Church, the holy Sacraments, Absolution, the ceremonies, etc., but that we have on these matters the pure doctrine which results of itself from God's Word. Every reader who loves the truth will acknowledge with us that the above accusations and slanders are altogether pure inventions. Accordingly we hereby declare Mr. Ahrens an infamous liar and slanderer, and will not withdraw this declaration until he acknowledges his base lies and begs our pardon.

But ye, dear evangelical Lutheran fellow-believers, beware of the Methodistical enthusiasts and false teachers. "By their fruits ye shall know them," our dear Lord JESUS commands us, Matt. 7, 16, and their fruits are manifest, namely lying, slander and blasphemy. With the Word of God they cannot refute our doctrine, that they know, for our doctrine is founded on God's Word; therefore they now combat us with the weapons of lying; for lying is the proper spirit of Methodism.

Hermann Fick.

The Power of Candid Testimony.

From the "Pilger aus Sachsen."

To a pious countryman in Baden the following history happened, which he himself communicated in a Christian people's paper published at Karlsruhe, and which on the one hand bears witness to the great blindness of the people and to the estrangement from God that is now everywhere to be found, but on the other hand also to the power of the Word of God, and how God blesses it when one is not ashamed to confess His Word freely before the world. This worthy countryman relates as follows:

Toward the end of the year 1848 I journeyed from my place to Pforzheim. Since I could not make my journey on foot on account of baggage, I resolved to go by an omnibus. On getting into it I at once heard from the passengers political conversations, especially to the effect that it was time to drive away all princes and kings from the throne. These speakers were townsmen, and they lamented that the country people were not yet sufficiently enlightened. This conversation lasted about an hour; at last one of these gentlemen said: "One will surely come at last who will help;" another said: "Many would have to come, one could not help." Then I said: "Yes indeed, gentlemen, One can help, if the people turn to Him." Upon this one of the gentlemen remarked: "You surely mean Him above us." I said: "Yes indeed, Him I mean." Then he said, without letting me speak further: "If He could help us, He would have helped long ago; I say, said he: Whoever relies on Him is forsaken; our Lord God is an old man and feeble-minded, He can do nothing more, His power is long since antiquated." A Württemberg lady sat also in the carriage; she said: "Do you know what they say in Stuttgart? Our Lord God is just also a gentleman, therefore He helps the gentlemen also, and the peasants He does not help."—Now it had come to the utmost with me; I stood up and said with a strong voice: "It is now in the last time!" Without letting me speak further, one said: "Whether I believe also in a last time; that would be our last time, when we die." I said: "Let me have the word, I say it is in the last time, and for this reason, because the Holy Scripture says: 'In the last time there shall come scoffers!' You, sir, said I, are one of them, you are a scoffer and a blasphemer, and this lady also; you say: God is antiquated and feeble-minded; this lady said: He is a gentleman, and therefore He helps the gentlemen; you both have attacked the majesty of God and mocked at it; it will one day be hard for you to stand before the living God and to see that He is the Judge of the quick and the dead, when you must see that He is not feeble-minded, but that He has eyes like flames of fire and knows all the thoughts of our heart!" I then said still more about the Word of God. Thereupon my fellow-travellers became silent; the LORD had let them feel the power of His Word. Whereas I had always expected that they would throw me out of the carriage, they all kept silent, and I saw by them that they were ashamed of their godless talk, and felt in their inmost souls unrest and torment of hell.

Heart-changing Power of the Word of the Bible.

A remarkable example of the power of the Bible's Word is Franciscus Junius, who died as professor of theology at Leyden in 1602. When he was studying law at Lyons, and here read Cicero's books on the Nature of the Gods, and at the same time learned from them Epicurus's objections against the possibility of a divine providence, and also at this time became acquainted and soon intimate with a certain dissolute atheist, the poison of the most downright atheism at last penetrated also into his heart. With deep affliction Junius's father perceived his son's pitiable change. All the remonstrances which he made to the deeply fallen one were in vain; he seemed to have fallen under the judgment of hardening, and to be irretrievably lost. The father did not fail nevertheless to call upon God for the rescue of his son's wandering soul, and when the latter was one day absent, he secretly laid the New Testament, which the unhappy man had not taken into his hands again for some time, on his writing-desk. What happened thereupon the latter himself relates in the following words: "When I came home again, and was undecided what to undertake or with what reading to occupy myself, I saw the New Testament lying before me on my writing-desk. I opened it and happened upon the first chapter of the Gospel of John. I read, and had scarcely come to the half of the chapter when, in reading, I was so touched and moved that I very soon felt the divine power of the Word penetrating my heart, and perceived how far the majestic simplicity of the discourse itself surpasses the highest degree of human eloquence. My whole body trembled, my mind was deeply shaken, and the whole day I was so taken up and bewildered that I did not know what was happening to me. — Thou hadst mercy upon me, O my God, and didst lead me, a lost sheep, back again to Thy fold! — From this time on, since God had so mightily seized me by the power of His Spirit, I began to read and to pursue all other things with less taste and diligence, but those which have godliness more as their immediate aim, to ponder with more strenuous zeal and diligence and to exercise myself in them. And how joyfully was the heart of my tender father moved when he perceived this changed bent of mine and my new disposition! His joy at my return to the fear of the LORD was just as great as his affliction at my unbelief and my departure from the right way had been." (Vita Franciski Junii ab ipso scripta. Lugd. Bat. 1595.)

Church Notice.

Whereas the Rev. Pastor Reißner, formerly at Perryville, by the Evangelical Lutheran congregation at Staunton, Macoupin Co., Ill., by Mr.