# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1851 06 10_S163
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

163

as a work wrought by God through Word and Sacrament, but as a work which man accomplishes by his own strength without the grace of God. For in the lie there is no rest, no standing still possible, but it must proceed from one error to another; its word eats as doth a canker, 2 Tim. 2, 17, until at last the whole of Methodism becomes a merely external, Pharisaical, hypocritical sham, which in part it already is now. It is remarkable with what fondness they even now cherish and cultivate the lie of perfect love and entire sanctification, as though man could attain here below to a perfect sinlessness of his nature: a lie wherewith none other than the entire and perfect devil mocks and fools them, by the righteous judgment of God, because they received not the love of the whole truth, 2 Thess. 2, 10. And yet it says so clear as the sun: If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 1 John 1, 8, whereby the whole hypocritical lie of the devil concerning Methodist entire sanctification is entirely and completely refuted.

But while we reject Methodism as a heretical, fanatical false doctrine, we always distinguish the children of God, the Lutherans, who are held captive in the Methodist Babel, from the real Methodists. Those who hear only Christ's voice and keep themselves unspotted in heart from the fanaticism of Methodism, we love as our brethren in Christ; but these, who consistently and obstinately carry out the lying principle of Methodism and seek with their poison of lies to infect others also, we combat with the Word of God. For these are the greatest adversaries of the true Christians who are found in the Methodist sect.

For the "Lutheraner."

Esteemed Mr. Editor!

Although on the one hand I scarcely dare to presume that you will admit into your esteemed paper articles which deal with such matters as are found in a certain paper entitled "Freie Blätter," published by a Mr. Schmidt, inasmuch as in the latter enmity against the Word of God, in league with folly and insolent arbitrariness, has its being; yet even in ancient times the Fathers, called for that reason Apologists, did not think it too small a thing, for the benefit especially of the unlearned and the weak, to put to shame the written opponents of Christianity, however paltry their attacks might be; wherefore perhaps you will also grant my poor following words a place in your paper.

In the second number of those papers Mr. Schmidt makes, on the ground of an apocryphal Gospel, called of Thomas, which he communicated in the preceding number, remarks in regard to the Bible.

He says there: "our Gospel of Thomas is mentioned in the writings of the old Church Fathers as early as any one of those contained in the N. Testament, so that with the help of the Church Fathers the assertion cannot be proved that the Gospel of Thomas is younger, i.e., written later, than the Gospels given out as 'God's Word.'" Now it is indeed of no consequence at all whether the Gospel of Thomas was written at the same time as, or later than, the 4 Gospels; it remains an apocryphal one nevertheless; for what makes a writing apocryphal is not that it was written later than another, but that it is not inspired by the Holy Ghost. — But is it indeed the case that the Gospel of Thomas is mentioned as early in the writings of the old Church Fathers as any one of those contained in the N. Testament? The first Church Father who, as is well known, mentions the Gospel of Thomas (and indeed, like all the later Church Fathers, as a heretical one) is Origen about the year 225 A.D. — On the other hand, the Gospel of St. Matthew and St. Mark is mentioned by Papias, a disciple of the Apostle John, who lived about the year 125, thus about 100 years before Origen; the Gospel of St. John by Theophilus of Antioch about the year 175, thus about 50 years before Origen; and all 4 Gospels by Irenaeus of Lugdunum (Lyons) and Clement of Alexandria about the year 200, thus about 25 years before Origen, and likewise by Tertullian of Carthage about 15 years before Origen.

Let the reader now judge for himself what is to be thought of Mr. Schmidt's words and of himself as the author of them.*)

*) We believe we must excuse Mr. Schmidt. One must consider, what the esteemed Mr. Correspondent takes no account of, that Mr. Schmidt is here laboring in a field that is strange to him, and into which sheer necessity, like so many an immigrant, has flung him. As we learn, Mr. Schmidt has lately obtained a schoolmaster's place. Perhaps, therefore, he may soon be relieved of the necessity of earning his bit of bread by such unaccustomed labor as hitherto.
The Ed.

In another place Mr. S. shows still more clearly what his readers have to expect of him; yea, he paints himself right well there. But as he does this in a picture which lies perhaps a little too remote for one or another, we take the liberty, for the benefit of the readers, of bringing it a little nearer, and in the following manner. Mr. S. sees a prudent, thrifty householder look at a bank note, and thereupon tear it in pieces and throw it away. "Ha," thinks Mr. S., "a great change has come over that man; his understanding and his thrift have departed from him!" and as thought, so now also believed, and trumpeted into all the world: the householder is no longer the old man, he has indeed destroyed a bank note. It does not occur to Mr. S., namely, that the bank note was a counterfeit, and that the householder therefore tore it and threw it away after he had looked at it and recognized it. What sensible people think of this, we need not say. As a man of so little mother wit and withal so much confidence in his own cleverness Mr. S. paints himself, however, when he says, "that the Church rejected the Gospel of Thomas has its reason in this, that at the time when the Gospel came into circulation, enough of the marvelous could not be told of the 'only-begotten Son of God': At the time, on the contrary, when the priestly caste now picked out a series of writings to set them forth as the inspiration of God —: at that time the people's passion for wonders had already cooled quite perceptibly," etc. For a distinction between apocryphal and canonical books Mr. S. cannot grasp, just as not everyone is able to distinguish a false bank note from a genuine one; therefore apocryphal and canonical books count the same to him; and instead of reflecting that it may well lie with him if he cannot see why the Church rejects the one while she acknowledges the others, and now rather letting himself be instructed, or keeping silence, he forthwith hatches a reason, and thinks and proclaims now that a great change has taken place in the Church, that at the beginning she had pleasure in miracles, but afterwards lost the taste for them, an assertion which is not only taken purely out of the air, but is in manifest contradiction with Church history, inasmuch as at the beginning the Christian Church did indeed rejoice in miracles as a testimony which God gave to the preaching of Christ, but afterwards, with other corruption, a passion for wonders also crept into her here and there. "Yes, the householder has looked at a bank note and thrown it away, therefore he is no longer the same; his understanding and his thrift have forsaken him!"

A striking sample of the degree of his ability to write on more serious matters, which require some judgment and some so-called learned knowledge, Mr. S. gives yet at the end of his article, where it says: "These apostolic names, which were put upon the New Testament writings, were and were meant to be — as has been proved — nothing more than a kind of letters of recommendation, which was given to these writings on their way into the world." One should indeed think that it would occur to no one to believe the like, any more than that Luther's Large and Small Catechism are not by Luther; but Mr. S. says "as has been proved," so he must have had it proved to him, or rather have had it made believe to him; and what can we do further than reflect that there are always men who have mad notions, and besides, simpletons who let such mad notions be palmed off on them as truths. But what shall we say, when