# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1851 11 25_S51
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

51

nal says the following of them: "Because of the hired preachers one ought to take heed, since they with their lies stain the Church and make it ridiculous. The sermons which for the sake of their dignity belong to the prelates ought not to be left to so many and such wretched hired preachers and beggars."

To these "lies," now, of which the Cardinal speaks, belonged especially all manner of fables or legends of the saints, concerning which the learned preaching-friar Jacobus Echard at Paris writes thus: "All the monastic orders have their fables, which by length of time are so established that some make it a matter of conscience to give them no credence."

Instead of the true history of the LORD Christ, which awakens faith and makes blessed, the only Holy and Righteous One, these miserable hirelings told the poor deceived people lying legends of so-called saints, which fed superstition, led to works-righteousness and led away from Christ; instead of awakening the impenitent and the spiritually dead with the thunder of the divine Word, of mightily alarming them with the curse of the Law and the wrath of God, and powerfully shaking them with the eternity of the pains of hell, they prattled to them only of the heat of an imaginary purgatory, out of which, however, purchased soul masses would rescue them; instead of painting before the eyes of the souls that had been thoroughly crushed by the hammer of the Law, hungering for salvation and thirsting for grace, Christ, who was also crucified and raised for them, as their sin-bearer, debt-payer and curse-bearer, in the Gospel, and of comfortingly drawing them to the believing appropriation of His all-sufficient and all-availing merit, which takes away the sin-guilt of the whole world, they understood nothing but to praise the glory of the papal indulgence, through which to all sinners, out of the treasure of the superabundant sufferings and works and of the overflowing merit of the saints, which the Pope alone has to administer, forgiveness flows, as well for sins committed as for sins yet to be committed. Instead of then fatherly exhorting the believing and justified to follow Christ, that by the power of the Holy Ghost, who now dwells in them and gives life, they, having their will set free from the dominion of the devil and of their flesh and a new spiritual being planted in them, should exercise their faith in new obedience through love and all manner of fruit of the Spirit and good works, and so show themselves toward their neighbor as Christ before had shown Himself toward them — instead of this they deceived the people with the lie of the meritorious works of praying, fasting and almsgiving, etc., as also in general of outward obedience to the ordinances of the Pope, that is, of the Church. And whereas they were thus altogether silent of Christ, first as the only Justifier and Savior, and then as the most glorious pattern of holy and perfect love to God and man, they presented Him at best as a stern judge, whose wrath and judgment could be appeased only through the intercession of the holy Virgin Mary, His mother, the holy apostles and other saints, for which reason these were to be invoked as intercessors and to be venerated.

And in connection with this they went still further and fabled further that also the bones that were found and other (alleged) relics of the saints and their images must be publicly exhibited in the churches and venerated, and that through touching them a miracle-working power streams forth from them.

Their chief labor, however, was that they read soul masses for money, in order thereby, as they juggled, to redeem the souls out of purgatory, concerning which the pious Papist Alvarus Pelagius and others further write thus: "Nowadays many masses are read, whether it be for the sake of gain, or out of custom, or out of complaisance, or for the covering of knavish tricks, or for one's own righteousness."

Since matters stood thus with the doctrine and life of the higher and lower shepherds, it cannot astonish us when that papistical bishop already mentioned above, Martin Cromerus, as a truthful witness, declares the following: "It is a wonder that the common man does not trample the Christian religion under foot and hiss it off, since it is so far from the case that the priests, even the chief ones, are able to instruct the ignorant or to lead the erring into the way, that some scarcely know why they are called Christians and wherein the Christian religion consists. What wonder is it that those do not feed who know neither the sheep, nor the pasture, nor the office of a shepherd? Day and night we have to do with our rents and tithes, and have driven the Holy Scripture far from us into exile. The people certainly learn more evil than good from the priests nowadays."

Since, then, the precious, pure and bright Word of God, whereby the LORD governs His Church by means of His and her servants, was so obscured and buried and covered up under human ordinances and papistical inventions, and since the teachers, as stated above, knew and could do nothing else than publicly to set before the people these papistical commandments and fictions of men, it could naturally not come to pass through such service and labor that true repentance toward God, or true faith in our LORD Jesus Christ, or the true, God-pleasing works of the Spirit and of faith should be produced in the people; but rather a twofold corruption must needs result from it, as the history of that time also plainly shows.

The educated and learned, namely, who moreover in the second half of the 15th century were made friends and familiar with the writings of heathen wisdom and learning of the Greeks and Romans of antiquity, despised and mocked the fables and fictions of the papistical priests and preaching-friars; they scourged their folly and stupidity with witty writings, but fell, in laughing at the superstition, so much the deeper into unbelief; they threw away with the papistical chaff and rubbish also the seeds of divine truth that were still hidden under it, rejected, as a new edition of the old Epicureans and Sadducees, with the Papacy also the Church of God, which bore the cross under it, and cast off with the servile yoke of the Antichrist at Rome also the easy yoke of their LORD Christ.

(Conclusion to follow)

(Communicated.)

On Sorcery.

(Conclusion.)

Chr. You mean, then, that if people knew no other help any more, they might also resort to sorcery?

Mich. Yes, that is my opinion.

Chr. It seems to me a dangerous opinion; for it opens a back door to sin. According to your view, people in sicknesses, when they have applied all remedies, prayed without ceasing, and called upon their pastor and the congregation's intercession, and it had helped nothing, might take refuge in unlawful means, such as sorcery or charming are? You think at least it would be pardonable in them if they did so? But I think not so; I believe rather that when all ordinary means, medicine, prayer, intercession, help nothing, the people should think: God does not will it. It is a punishment which I must bear, it is a tribulation through which I must pass to my salvation. "Not my, but Thy will be done," prayed our Savior, and so should we also pray in all bodily evils.

Mich. Yes, that would be well indeed, if all people had such a mind of the Savior; but there are not many such.

Chr. You are right; but why do most lack this mind of the Savior, tell me why? Because they do not believe. The faith that cannot be patient in tribulation, that is not willing therein to submit to God's will — that I do not buy dear.

Mich. If I understand rightly, Christian, you would also count the people who resort to sorcerers, charmers, conjurers and cunning folk among the unbelievers.

Chr. Certainly; for granting that they have a faith in the sorcerer's help, that is still superstition and not the true faith in God; had they that, they would hold fast to the promise: "That to them that love God all things work together for good;" but because they do not trust this promise of God, they do not see that the sickness with which