# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1851 07 22_S188
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

188

further a change of the outward being. For where the heart, through a new light, gains a new understanding and new senses, there it cannot fail that the outward senses, being and walk are also changed. This is then a change which consists not in words, but in work and in power.

(Continuation follows.)

Who is to blame that the Protestant Church is so rent asunder?

To this question Luther has already given the answer; besides other passages which have already been communicated, in his Exposition of the Epistle of St. Paul to the Galatians. There he writes first on the words: Let us not be desirous of vain glory, provoking one another, envying one another." (5, 26.) The following:

"Here he (Paul) points out what is wont to follow at last from ambition. Whoever would bring forth something new and teach error cannot avoid it, he must provoke others. For when they not only do not accept his erroneous doctrine, but condemn it as error, he becomes angry about it, and will defend it as right. The others will not endure that; then it rises up . . When we would not yield to the fanatical spirits who assail the Lord's Supper of Christ, and would not approve their seductive errors, it went with us also thus. We have, God be praised! the advantage that we were not the first to provoke them; for we have spread no false doctrine in the world, but have rebuked the abuses in Christendom and faithfully planted the article which teaches how one must be justified before God, and have thus remained on the right path. This article those "(Zwingli and his like) "have let go and taught much ungodly stuff, which is flatly contrary to God's Word: of the Sacraments, of original sin, of the oral preaching *) etc. Should now the truth of the Gospel be preserved and not lost, we had to withstand them and condemn their harmful errors; thereupon they set themselves against us and wished to maintain their error as truth, as is the way of all factious spirits; have thus provoked us first, without our fault; have become bitter enemies to us besides, to which nothing moved them but ambition. For this was what they were concerned about, that they might utterly suppress us and hover above alone."

*) How unscriptural, among others, Zwingli's teaching of the Sacraments was, is well known. He went so far that even Calvin in September of the year 1542 writes of Zwingli to Viretus: "Perhaps toward the end of his life he took the matter up again and made good what had been overlooked. But as for his first writings, I remember how common and ungodly (profana) his doctrine of the Sacraments was." But, alas, Calvin could well know that Zwingli never recanted his rationalistic doctrine of the Sacraments, but, after repeated admonition, presented it only the more offensively. Had he not, shortly before his death, made the following confession: "I could wish very much that the word "Sacrament" had never been adopted by the Germans, except if it had been taken in its original genuine sense. For when people hear the word "Sacrament," they at once understand by it something "great and holy," which by its power sets the conscience free from sins." (De vera et falsa rel. P. II. Opp. p. 197.) Thus it was already repugnant to Zwingli that the name "Sacrament" brings people altogether to the thought that Baptism and the Lord's Supper must be something "great and holy"! Can the most hostile and most irreligious Rationalist write after this more contemptuously and profanely of the Sacraments than Zwingli wrote shortly before his death? — Of the other points named above by Luther Zwingli, moreover, writes no better and no more Christianly. Of original sin, namely, he writes in his Augsburg Confession: "Whether we will or not, we must admit that original sin, as it is in the children of Adam, is not properly sin . . it is properly only a sickness." Of the oral and visible Word, however, he writes in the same place: "The Holy Ghost needs no guide nor wagon . . . We see that among all nations the outward preaching of the Apostles and Evangelists or Bishops has preceded faith, which we nevertheless owe to the Holy Ghost alone; for we see, alas! not a few who indeed hear the outward preaching of the Gospel, but do not believe, because a lack of the Spirit occurs."

Gal. 6, 1: "Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness, ye which are spiritual."

"The Sacramentarians bring forward this saying, wish to conclude from it that we should bear with the brethren who are frail, have patience with them, and, though they may have erred somewhat in doctrine, let such error pass for love's sake, which believeth all things, hopeth all things, taketh all in good part. Especially because St. Paul here teaches in clear, plain words that the spiritual should instruct in the spirit of meekness those who are overtaken in a fault. They further pretend that the matter is not so great that for the sake of the single article of the Sacrament Christian unity should be broken, since Christendom has no finer, more useful thing than such unity, etc. They make, therefore, a great clamor how one should gladly forgive sins, and help up those who have fallen, etc. Because we do not do this, they charge us that we are far too obstinate, yielding not a hair's breadth to them, not bearing with their error, (which they yet do not confess) much less wishing to instruct them in the spirit of meekness, etc. Thus they know how to color and adorn their cause finely among the people, and to thrust all odium upon us.

Now my LORD Christ knows well that for many years nothing has pained me so much as this disunion in doctrine, of which disunion I am surely neither the cause nor the author, as the factious spirits themselves well know, if they would confess the true truth.

For I believe and teach, indeed, to this present day nothing otherwise than the very same which I believed and taught when I began these matters. For as I taught at first of the article of Christian righteousness, of the Sacraments, and all other articles of our holy Christian faith, thereby I abide to this present day; save only that, by God's grace, I am now more certain of them than I was in the beginning. This is the effect of my daily study, practice and experience, and also of many great, grievous and manifold trials, and I pray my LORD Christ every day that He would graciously preserve and strengthen me in such faith and confession until the day of His glorious coming, Amen.

Of this all Germany knows well, that the Gospel was at first assailed by no one but the Papists alone. But those who at that time received the doctrine of the Gospel were of one mind about all the articles; and such unity also continued so long until the factions came forth with their new whims and opinions, not only about the Sacraments, but also about other articles. These first confused the Christian congregations and broke their unity; since that time the factions have become more and more numerous. For when one error arises, others always follow, until one comes quite away from the truth. From this it has followed that the unity of hearts concerning the articles of faith is broken; every one will make of it what seems good and right to him. Therefore they do us great violence and wrong in charging us that we have broken Christian unity. It pains very much when an innocent person must suffer the punishment, especially in so great, high a cause.

Yet we could easily forget all this, receive them again, and instruct them in the spirit of meekness, if they would only turn to the right path, and walk orderly with us, that is, if they would hold and teach rightly and Christianly of the Lord's Supper and the other articles of the Christian doctrine, and would preach with us unanimously not their own whims and dreams, but Christ; that so the Son of God might be praised through us, and the Father through Him. But now they only deck out love and Christian unity, which one must not break; they make light, on the other hand, of the article of the Sacrament; as if it mattered little how we held of the Lord's Supper, as we pleased. That we cannot endure; but, as strongly as they press for the unity of life, so strongly do we press for the unity of doctrine and of faith. If they will let this remain to us unimpaired, we will then praise the unity of love as highly as they; yet always without injury to the unity of faith and of the Spirit. For if thou the