# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1851 05 27_S154
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

154

ran; and brings only disgrace upon the cause of the Lord.

1. The report is false. — It charges us with confusion of faith and of churches, while yet it itself shows the contrary. Is this the proof of their syncretism, that the Synod has expressly professed its adherence to all the Symbols; that it has several times decisively rejected the founding and building of union congregations and churches, and in a special resolution has given its members the direction to labor only as Lutheran preachers in (formerly founded) united congregations? True, there prevailed formerly great indecision in confession and practice among us, but Dr. Sihler knows that the Synod in these respects has for a good while thought and acted quite differently. How can he then, while it is known to him that it pursues the opposite direction, set up the false assertion that it is "unionistic," and reproach it with favoring "confusion of faith and of churches!"

2. It is unjust. — With all diligence the reporter covers up everything that could place the Synod in even a somewhat more favorable light. No one can recognize in his caricature the body which it is meant to represent. Even toward enemies we ought to be just; how much more toward brethren in the faith! Unjust is Dr. Sihler's assertion that the Ohio Synod "does not at all care to show fidelity to the Confession"; for it is known to him indeed as a fact that it "has passed resolutions to order its churchly conduct in accordance with the Confession. I point only to the resolutions against the founding of union congregations and the building of union churches; to the reprimand which the President, by commission of the Synod, gave to the licentiate Abele for teaching the Heidelberg Catechism alongside the Lutheran; and finally to the resolution that no member of the Synod teach and labor otherwise than only as a Lutheran pastor. All this he now seeks either to explain away, or he reviles the Synod as "an enemy of the Lutherans faithful to the Confession and a friend of the Unionists without confession." — Is that just? — Does he then think that all Lutheranism went out of the Ohio Synod with him?

3. The author of the "Denkwürdigkeit" has acted unlovingly. He will perhaps pretend that all sorts of fanatics appeal to Christian love and under it seek protection from the arrows of the truth. Nevertheless it is commanded, and therefore also a duty. While Paul warns us against false love, he describes the true as long-suffering and kind; he says: "it envieth not, vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, seeketh not after harm, rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth — beareth, believeth, hopeth, endureth all things." Has the author shown such love in his judgment of those who think otherwise? — Everywhere he sees only hypocrisy, man-pleasing and carnality. With him Christian love, as he has also sufficiently proved by his conduct toward us, publicly and privately, seems to belong among the adiaphora. At all times he is ready to fall upon others as a judge, of whom he often knows nothing, or only at second hand. In short, whatever is welcome to his embittered judicial temper, that is also without more ado already certain to him. Judge not, that ye be not judged; condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned." Above all

doctrine, without demanding that they at the same time reject the Reformed doctrine as false; and only thereby can the servants of the Lutheran Church be set at rest in their conscience, that the acknowledgment of the Lutheran doctrine as alone Scriptural on the part of the Reformed is honestly and earnestly meant, and does not flow from the customary and inherited indifference in regard to unity and purity of doctrine. Moreover these preachers, as before, leave the conscience of the Reformed either in suspense, whether they, in their constant partaking of the Lord's Supper from a Lutheran preacher and with a Lutheran congregation, are then really Lutheran or Reformed, or in the delusion that they are, as before, good Reformed, which is yet not true before God and men.

Is such neglect of consciences "to teach and labor as Lutheran pastors?" Mr. L. must have at least a very unclear conception of the tender conscientiousness of a confession-true, genuinely Lutheran pastor. And I ask further: is there not by such practice of the Lord's Supper actually and grossly sinned against the Confession, and the confusion of faith and of churches of our time promoted? This evil thing, however, was attacked by me, and shown to be conduct contrary to the Confession. But where has Mr. L. in this regard produced a synodical resolution which made it the duty of the synodical members to follow that practice of the Lord's Supper, which alone is correct in fact? Answer: no such resolution exists; consequently my charge of their practical Unionism is not false and unjust. For what does it help that the Ohio preachers shall not take up new mixed congregations, if they nevertheless retain the old ones, and do not, against all assaults of the fear of men and of care for the belly, make an honest and earnest attempt to form living, confession-true Lutheran congregations? But even that prohibition, to my knowledge, relates only to such congregations as are called united, and naturally also are, but not to such as are called Lutheran, but are not, inasmuch as perhaps more or fewer Reformed are found among them. These can naturally, according to the unrevoked old bad practice of the Lord's Supper, receive the holy Supper and also be members of the congregation. Thus, then, Union churches are still built as before, though not of wood and bricks. Or if this is not so, then let Mr. L. first furnish the proof that that procedure with the Reformed and with those of other faiths in general before the administration of the Holy Supper, reported again in No. 14 of the Lutheraner, p. 109, is not the one alone correct in fact.

As to 3. Since I am here accused of lovelessness, the impartial reader will observe that Mr. L. in this his judgment has hardly himself remained in love; for he furnishes not merely empty declamations, but also judges my heart's ground, whereas I have not presumed to do this, have stayed by the matter, have indeed rebuked this sharply and earnestly out of love, and have called the evil thing also by its right name. Let Mr. L. be so good as to name only one preacher of their body who has an "orderly call" from his congregation in hand, and whom his congregation does not, either tacitly or expressly, regard in such a way that it could "give him notice" after one, two or more years, and does not consider as its "hired" pastor. Such little fellows, however, are and remain, once for all, "hireling preachers," whether the word please them or not.

As to 4. Mr. L. continues here partly to declaim, partly to judge the dispositions of the heart, instead of keeping to the facts. Let him first prove that our earlier written and oral petitions (when we were still members of the Ohio Synod) for the abolition of the existing unionistic abuses were presumptions *), and not pressure of conscience, especially since our requests had also in form nothing presumptuous about them. Also my rebuke of the frivolous and unjust procedure of the Synod in the Gockelen-Heid case is no presumption and is naturally not in the least connected with my office in our Synod. Every honest Lutheran who learned of such procedure was and is entitled to testify against it and to rebuke it, be he a preacher or

*) Let Mr. L. be pleased to recall with what presumptuous conceit and scorn he, before others, although he was then still very immature in years, knowledge and experience, at the Synod at Lancaster in 18[illegible]5 dismissed our just petitions for the abolition of unionistic abuses contrary to the Confession and turned them into ridicule.