# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1851 06 10_S166
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

166

even if they have come to the place of judgment trusting in the safe-conduct assured to them, and otherwise would not have come; and that he who has given the promise, having done what is in his power, is under no further obligation." (Consil. Constantiens. sess. 19. p. 1615. ed. Colon.) That in that age, when the tyranny and power of the Pope had risen so high, and when this Man of Sin had subjected to his antichristian throne almost all the powers of the earth, it was possible for such a devil's decree to be issued, is not to be wondered at; but it is dreadful that at all times, especially among the Jesuits, there have been, and still are, devil's advocates who were and are so devoid of all shame, even natural shame, that they have defended, and still defend, this decree and the shameful principle declared in it. The notorious Dr. Eck once wanted also to persuade Emperor Charles V at Worms to deal with Luther, to whom the same had likewise assured a safe-conduct there and back, with letter and seal, as with Huss and Jerome of Prague; but to this Charles spoke the truly imperial word: "Though faith and honesty were extinct in all the world besides, yet they must still be found with the Emperor." In like manner, in the assembly of the princes, some of whom also advised that the safe-conduct assured to Luther should not be kept, Count Palatine Louis answered, namely: "It is by no means to be tolerated that Germany, to gratify the priests, should bear the stain of a public breach of faith." (cf. Pet. Suavis lib. I. Hist. Conc. Trid. p. 16.) — In accordance with the principles above indicated, the Jesuits also once labored to the end that the treaties of peace concluded in 1555 with the Lutherans by the Catholic princes should not be kept, which at length brought upon all Germany the misery of the Thirty Years' War.

For the "Lutheraner."
A Rejoinder.

The 18th number of the Lutheraner contained an article whose purpose was to show, by way of example, from two articles in the first number of a Bible-hating paper published in St. Louis, called "Freie Blätter. Ein Organ für religiöse Aufklärung," how in that paper, in spite of the clamor about light, enlightenment, etc., a good measure of ignorance and stupidity confronts one; and this again in order to make one and another aware that the opinion that whoever ventures to oppose the Word of God must be at least a very clever and learned man is an error.

The publisher of that paper and author of those articles, a certain Mr. Schmidt, now gives, in the ninth number of his paper, under the heading "Give Merit Its Crown," a rejoinder to that article of the Lutheraner. We leave it, however, to the judgment of everyone who cares to get to the bottom of the matter, be he a so-called church-believer or not, provided only that he have understanding enough to grasp the article in the Lutheraner and Mr. Schmidt's rejoinder to it, and honesty enough to let what is true be true, we leave it to the judgment of every such person to decide whether Mr. Schmidt, in his rejoinder, has not proceeded in such a way that he has passed over some points in the article of the Lutheraner, misunderstood others (we leave it undecided whether intentionally or unintentionally), and distorted and twisted the rest, and, after he had thus gained ground for himself, has brought in his witticisms.*) Mr. Schmidt surely counted on it that his readers would not get to see the Lutheraner, otherwise he would hardly have exposed himself so greatly before them. For besides that he has not cleared himself of the reproach made to him, that he displayed ignorance and stupidity in those articles, he makes himself contemptible, and moreover ridiculous, by distorting and twisting the words of another: for thereby he not only admits in fact that his cause stands ill, but does the same as that woeful knight who told his people of an enemy that had come upon him, whom he intended, however, to dispatch before the eyes of them all, and who thereupon, unobserved, set up a bugbear of straw, swung himself upon his nag, rode at his own handiwork, ran his old blunt rusty lance through its body, and then cried Victoria. Such are the heroes of "religious enlightenment."

*) Note. Of the above we do indeed except one point, yet only so far that we, after what he has now said about it, gladly concede to Mr. Schmidt a longer acquaintance with the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus.

Letter
of Dr. Martin Luther
on the Appointment of Church Ministers
to the Council at Prague in Bohemia
of the Year 1523.
Translated from the Latin by
Paulus Speratus,
Author of the hymn: "Salvation unto us has come."

This well-known writing of Luther's the local German Ev. Lutheran congregation of the unaltered Augsburg Confession had reprinted some months ago, as the title says, "as a word in season for the rescue of the precious doctrine of the spiritual priesthood of all believing Christians." We cannot refrain from calling the attention of all our Christian readers to this writing and recommending it to them most urgently.

One must now hear so often that those whom one calls "Old Lutherans" are half Papists; that so-called Old Lutheranism leads straight to Rome. And it is, alas! not to be denied that in our days there has indeed manifested itself here and there, even among those who are commonly counted with the Old Lutherans, a tendency which undeniably rests upon principles on which the system of the Roman Church is built. There is indeed, both in Germany and in America, a class of so-called Old Lutherans against whom the reproach is made, not without reason, that, particularly in the doctrine of the Church and of church power, they incline strongly to the Roman doctrine and speak in favor of a most soul-endangering hierarchy (priestly dominion). Many unreflecting people therefore now think that this is just what distinguishes Old Lutheranism from the other parties in Protestantism, that it has retained much of Popery and stands nearest to it of all; and many dishonest people use this prejudice, by fostering it, to make the old true Lutheran doctrine suspected and hated. Whoever, then, wishes to convince himself what the true old Lutheran Church has really taught from time to time, and still teaches, concerning those points, concerning the Church, church power and the church office, will find in the little book of Dr. Martin Luther here announced, which is hereby offered to him, the best opportunity.

Whoever, to be sure, seeks fine words in the books which he chooses for his reading will lay this writing down from his hands unsatisfied, the more so as the German copy is only an old translation. Or whoever measures the worth of a writing by what sweet feelings and sensations it excites in him on a cursory reading, he too will not find his account in it. Or whoever, finally, clings so to preconceived human opinions that he does not intend to yield even to the clear, simple Word of God, and clings to "long-held custom," to him Luther says at once at the beginning of the little book: "Let them know that it concerns them not at all what I shall treat of in this little book. I will grant them that they may wait upon their clergy, yea, upon their superstition, however common, old and highly renowned it be, as long as they please. But we seek the pure and upright manner which is set before us in Scripture; we trouble ourselves not much what custom and the fathers have given or held in the matter. Since we have long ago learned sufficiently that we are not bound, nor must nor will be subject to human ordinances, but we will, as it shall please us, out of Christian liberty be lords over them, as it is written, 1 Cor. 3:21, 22: 'All things are yours, whether Peter or Paul; but ye are Christ's.'"

Is it, however, dear reader, earnestly your concern to be in-