# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1851 05 13_S151
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

151

with him for their sins; when, for the sake of the sin of the world, which he had taken upon himself, he was condemned by God and at last cast into the debtors' prison of death, it was not otherwise than as if the whole world of sinners were condemned in him and cast into the dungeon; and when at last God the Father said to Christ: "Come forth, thou art free"! and he rose, full of heavenly radiance, from the grave, then there rose in him, loosed and free from their guilt, the whole world of sinners, whose surety and substitute the Son of God had been. Therefore the holy apostle writes not only: We thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead"; but he adds also in another place: "As by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life". That every man now may also truly be saved, only one thing is therefore still needed, namely, that man also recognize and accept the grace, freedom and redemption obtained for him by the Son and sealed by the Father, that he now also go forth out of the opened dungeon of fear, of unbelief and of damnation, and rejoice and glory in the grace obtained.

O hear it, therefore, ye who take offense at the joyful confession of the Christians: how can it astonish you that we Christians confess, we are in grace with God? We do not, indeed, wish to be better than other people; we wish only not to despise, as ye do, the grace which has come to you and to us; we wish only not to make God a liar, as ye do through our unbelief, God who has raised up your surety and ours and crowned him with praise and honor. Not we, not we are it, but the eternal mercy of God, his truth and the victory of the Lord of glory is it, of which we boast.

Well then, ye Christians, strengthen yourselves today at the open grave of Jesus, over which he, the Captain of our salvation, clothed with glory, calls to you: "I have overcome, but yours is the victory"! Let yourselves be strengthened thereby, even in this time of apostasy and blasphemy, to confess your faith joyfully before friend and foe, and even in the midst of the cross to sing the songs of victory which are now to resound day and night in the tabernacles of the righteous *). And as often as your heart, struck and wounded by the arrows of the scoffers or of the anguish of sin, would fain despair again, hasten to the grave of the Risen One, and ye shall always find that Christ's grave is an unfailing fountain of life and of strengthening.

*) A proof how vividly the Christians of the first time perceived what the resurrection of the Lord had brought them, is that they, as Tertullian writes, held it unbecoming to fast or to pray kneeling on Sunday, as the day of remembrance of the resurrection of their LORD. ("Die dominico jejunium nefas ducimus, vel de geniculis adorare". De cor. mil. c. 3.)

But ye who still refuse to the Risen One the glory of being your God and Saviour and the only way to the Father, consider what ye do. God the Father has done more than to aver with an oath that JEsus Christ is his only-begotten Son and that in him alone is salvation: God has, as he preaches who formerly denied him, in fact by the raising from the dead "made him both Lord and Christ". Therefore resist him no longer; wait not until the day of the last revelation of his glory. Here he takes his enemies, who plead for mercy, into the arms of his compassion, there he lays them as the footstool of his feet. Here, therefore, cry with Thomas: "My LORD and my God"! so shall ye also there stand with him at his right hand and triumph with him and with all his own for ever and ever. Amen! Amen!

"Der lutherische Herold".

Under this title a new religious periodical has been appearing since the beginning of April. Mr. H. Ludwig in New York edits it. It appears twice every month. The annual subscription price is $ 1,00.

Mr. Ludwig promises to edit his paper in conformity with the confession of our Church. In the third number he writes: "We expect little sympathy from the Old Lutherans; but it shall always be our endeavor to exclude from our columns everything that could only enlarge the breach, for in doctrine we are indeed agreed, we differ only in the form of the garment, or in the practice, and in the manner and way of spreading the doctrine". We have all respect for Mr. Ludwig, as a man of distinguished knowledge and ability in his business and of the best will. But judging from what already lies before the public, we cannot refrain from expressing our conviction that the dear Mr. Ludwig deceives himself when he, as he writes, thinks he possesses "not only the will, but also the requisite resources, to furnish a good Lutheran paper." Apart from the fact that he uses his paper to offer for sale books which are plainly unLutheran, that is, unscriptural, Mr. Ludwig has already now admitted a plainly unLutheran, highly unchristian communication, whether knowingly, or by oversight, or from lack of knowledge of the pure doctrine? we do not know. Thus it says, for example, in the third number in the essay: "Something about Christian Books of Entertainment for Young and Old:"

"What are the deep and significant words: repentance, sanctification and regeneration to the child, who, like the people of Israel in the O. T., is first to be trained by what is visible, who has as his first task the preface of the Holy Scripture, the visible creation in constant connection with the Creator? Only then, when it has, as it were, lived through the first article without disturbance and interruption. when, without anticipations which always confuse what is simple, as it were the spring opens its sprouts and buds, the unfolding of the blossom has received its time, when the Creator of heaven and earth sets before the young soul his omnipotence, wisdom and providence, recognizable in every bit of bread, in every plant as in the animal, when it has learned to esteem and recognize itself as the highest wonder, when it can thank and worship; in short, when it has lived through the first task undisturbed, when trust and love, together with holy fear before the Creator of heaven and earth, stammer in unlearned words gratitude, praise and honor to the Creator, when trust and hope in Him (?) have grown up and are cherished — only then can the second task, the second article with its infinite love, fruitfully find its summer time etc.

We find no words to express our abhorrence of principles of education such as are here pronounced. It is as if one were reading in Rosseau's Emile.

We are willing to believe that it does not enter Mr. Ludwig's mind seriously to recommend to the Lutherans as genuinely Lutheran an education of the lambs of the good Shepherd, whom he has purchased and bought with his blood, according to such abominable principles. But since even such an essay has nevertheless been able to find its way into the "lutherische Herold" under Mr. Ludwig's editorship, he will not take it amiss of us if we express the wish that the paper might be committed to the responsibility of a theologian as capable as he is faithful; if then the paper should, notwithstanding, advocate another "form of the garment" than that in which we appear, we should nevertheless, if it testified sincerely with us for the same "doctrine" and watched over it with us, greet it brotherly with the most sincere joy and not look askance, if it should soon accomplish its work so vigorously and powerfully that the poor "Lutheraner" would vanish behind it. In America, to be sure, one seems never to be able to rise to the belief that there are still men who in their censure of others ought to be guided not by low interests, but solely by love of the truth and of immortal souls; that, however, cannot keep us from bearing witness to the truth and, unconcerned about man's day, looking solely to that day when the counsel of the hearts shall be made manifest. 1 Cor. 4, 3 — 5.

Might we venture to make Mr. Ludwig a proposal whereby nothing less than the way to put out his pound at usury will be cut off from him, it would be this,