# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1851 11 11_S43
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

43

be called in right German and our mother tongue: a Christian congregation or assembly, or, best and plainest of all, a holy Christendom.

Thus also the word Communio, which is attached to it, ought not to be called Gemeinschaft, but Gemeine, and is nothing else than the gloss or interpretation of someone who wished to explain what the Christian Church is called: for this our people, who knew neither Latin nor German, have made: Gemeinschaft der Heiligen, though no German speech speaks or understands it so. But to speak right German, it ought to be called: eine Gemeine der Heiligen, that is, a congregation in which there are none but saints, or still more plainly: a holy congregation. This I say in order that one may understand the words, since it has so become the custom that it can hardly be torn out again, and it is soon to be heresy if one changes a word.

But this is the meaning and sum of this addition: I believe that there is a holy little flock and congregation on earth of none but saints, under One Head, Christ, called together by the Holy Ghost, in One faith, mind and understanding, with manifold gifts, yet harmonious in love, without sects and schism. Of the same I also am a part and member, a partaker and joint-sharer of all the goods which it has, brought thither and incorporated by the Holy Ghost, through this, that I have heard and still hear God's Word, which is the beginning of entering in. For formerly, before we came to this, we were altogether the devil's, as those who knew nothing of God and of Christ. So the Holy Ghost abides with the holy congregation or Christendom until the last day, whereby He fetches us, and uses it to carry on and drive the Word, whereby He works and increases sanctification, so that it may daily grow and become strong in faith and in the fruits which He produces."

3. From the Polemic against Aleveld.
(Vol. 18, col. 1208 and 1210, Walch edition.)

"The Scripture speaks of Christendom quite simply, and in one way only; over against which they have brought two others into use. The first way according to the Scripture is that Christendom is called an assembly of all believers in Christ upon earth; as we pray in the Creed: I believe in the Holy Ghost, a communion of saints. This congregation or assembly is called the assembly of all those who live in right faith, love and hope, so that the being, life and nature of Christendom is not a bodily assembly, but an assembly of hearts in one faith, as Paul says, Eph. 4, 5: One baptism, one faith, one LORD. Thus, though they be bodily divided from one another a thousand miles, they are nevertheless called an assembly in the Spirit, since each one preaches, believes, hopes, loves and lives like the other. As we sing of the Holy Ghost: Thou who hast gathered all manner of tongues into the unity of the faith. That is now properly a spiritual unity, from which men are called a congregation of saints: which unity alone is enough to make a Christendom, without which no unity, be it of place, time, person, work or whatever it may be, makes a Christendom.

Here we must now hear Christ's word, who, being asked by Pilate concerning His kingdom, answers thus: My kingdom is not of this world, John 18, v. 36. That is surely a clear saying, whereby Christendom is drawn out from all worldly communities, that it be not bodily. And this blind Romanist makes of it a bodily community, like the others. He says still more plainly, Luke 17, 20. 21: The kingdom of God cometh not with outward show, neither shall they say: Lo here, or lo there. For behold, the kingdom of God is within you. —

Therefore, whoever says that an outward assembly or unity makes a Christendom, speaks his own with violence; and whoever draws the Scripture to this, leads the divine truth over to his lies, and makes God a false witness." —

4. From the Polemic against Emser.
(Vol. 18, col. 1652.)

"Thy bare Rationes I will not have either; they are too rotten and are good for nothing. That I will show thee by one which seemed to thee the very finest. When I had called the Christian Church a spiritual assembly, thou mockest me, as though I would build a church, as Plato a city that was nowhere; and thou lettest thy conceit please thee heartily, as if thou hadst hit it right well. Thou sayest: Would not that be a fine city, having spiritual walls, spiritual towers, spiritual guns, spiritual horses, and everything spiritual? And thy final opinion is, that the Christian Church cannot subsist without a bodily city, space and goods.

I answer: Dear Murnar, shall I, for the sake of reason, deny the Scripture, and set thee above God? Why dost thou not answer my texts? Such as: Non est respectus personarum apud Deum (with Him there is no respect of persons), Eph. 6, 9. Et Regnum Dei intra vos est. Et Regnum Dei non venit cum observatione. Nec dicent: Ecce hic aut illic est (the kingdom of God is within you, and cometh not with outward show. Neither shall they say: Lo here, or lo there) Luke 17, 20. 21. And Christ, John 3, 6: That which is born of the Spirit is spirit. I think surely thou callest the kingdom of God the Christian Church, or us, in whom God lives and reigns? How then shall I follow thy reason, and deny Christ, who here plainly says: There is no place, space, nor outward manner in the kingdom of God, and it is not here or there; but a Spirit in our inward parts? But thou sayest, it is here and there."

5. From the Writing on Councils and Churches.
(Vol. 16, col. 2777 ff.)

Just as they write about the Fathers and Councils and do not know what Fathers and Councils are, and seek merely with the bare letters to deafen us; so also they cry about the Church. But that they should say what, who, and where the Church is, in that they would do so little service, either to the Church or to God, that they would ask or care about it. They like it well that men should hold them for the Church, such as Pope, Cardinals, Bishops, and would let them, under this name, be none but disciples of the devil, who would practice nothing but knavery and wickedness. Well then, setting aside the manifold writings and divisions of the word Church, we will this time remain simply with the children's Creed, which says: I believe one holy Christian Church, the communion of saints. There the Creed plainly declares what the Church is, namely a communion of saints, that is: a multitude or gathering of such people as are Christians and holy; that is called a Christian holy multitude, or Kirchen. But this word Kirche is with us altogether un-German, and does not give the sense or thought which one must take from the Article.

For in Acts 19, 39. 40. the town clerk calls Ecclesiam the congregation or the people who had run together to the market-place, and says: It may be settled in a lawful assembly. Likewise, when he had said this, he let the assembly go. In these and more places Ecclesia or Church means nothing else than an assembled people, though they were heathen and not Christians: just as the councilmen summon their assembly to the town hall. Now there are in the world manifold peoples; but the Christians are a peculiar called people, and are not simply called Ecclesia, Churches or people, but Sancta, Catholica, Christiana, that is, a Christian, holy people, which believes in Christ, wherefore it is called a Christian people, and has the Holy Ghost, who sanctifies it daily, not only through the forgiveness of sins, which Christ obtained for them (as the Antinomians dream), but also through the putting away, sweeping out and mortifying of sins, whence they are called a holy people. And the holy Christian Church is now as much as a people which is Christian and holy, or as one is wont to say, the holy Christendom: likewise the whole Christendom. In the Old Testament it is called God's people. Isa. 1, 11. 12. 43. etc.

And if such words had been used in the children's Creed, I believe that there is a Christian holy people, all the misery would easily have been avoided which has broken in under the blind, unintelligible word (Kirche). For the words: Christian, holy people, would plainly have