# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1852 02 03_S93
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

93

lutheran and unchurchly conduct of Pastor Stohlmann in this matter becomes manifest.

As for Kossuth's personal disposition, the ruling bent of his soul toward God and men, this, in its inmost nature, is of course known to God alone, the Searcher of hearts, before whom the most secret stirrings even of his soul lie open as an unfolded book.

But as regards the manifestation of his disposition in his prevailing manner of acting, since he became a historical person as the leader of the Hungarian uprising against the Emperor of Austria, I think that one would pass an unjust judgment upon him if one simply placed him in one class with the most prominent German agitators and stirrers-up of the people against princes. For most of these latter, indeed, appear at the same time quite openly as avowed unbelievers and godless men, yes, partly as gross deniers of God and deifiers of man, who, blinded by the will-o'-the-wisp of the devil, in their demonic lust for freedom are really striving after the thorough overthrow of all divine and human order, of the Church, of the government, of marriage, of property, in order to erect upon the ruins of the same the dominion of the liar and murderer from the beginning, a hellish and devilish liberty, equality and fraternity, to renew the Reign of Terror of the French Revolution, and, under the semblance of the liberation of the peoples, really to bring only their own tyranny to dominion and authority, and unwittingly, as grand dignitaries of His infernal Majesty, as new Marats, Dantons and Robespierres, to drown everything in blood. And since, in disposition, they are sworn and embittered enemies of the LORD and His Anointed, as also of the Word and the Church of God, they would, as soon as they had the outward power, very quickly throw off the mask and wage a bloody war of extermination against the believers of the LORD in all churches.

To count Kossuth among these would be, as said, a decided injustice, arising from hostile blind party hatred and fleshly zeal. For to our knowledge there is no historical fact in existence which in any way would entitle one to such a judgment.

On the other hand, however, we must most decidedly deny, although Kossuth himself in the church at Brooklyn called himself a "Lutheran," that he is a Bible-clear and Bible-firm, confession-true and sound son of the Lutheran Church. For had he really been this in the year 1848, had the Bible been to him in deed and in truth "the book of life," as he has lately declared to the printers who presented it to him, then he would not have been entangled in the Hungarian uprising against Austria, much less have become its head.

For a sound Lutheran Christian knows once for all from God's Word that a people, so far as it wishes not merely to be called Christian but also to be and to act Christian, never and nowhere has a right before God to set itself with armed hand against the authority which for the time being has power over it. And let the same be ever so unfatherly and unjust, let it ever so violently destroy old chartered privileges, ever so tyrannically burden the subjects with taxes and almost intolerable loads, trample right and justice underfoot in many cases, unlawfully favor the mighty and the rich, and overburden the poorer working classes beyond measure: yet the subjects (be they in a nearer or remoter obligation of obedience to the ruling government, let it bear what name it will) never act as Christians, that is, according to God's Word, out of faith and with a good conscience, when, after all manner of fruitless attempts at amicable representation of their just grievances and petition for their removal, they at last seek by insurrection, with the force of arms, to procure right for themselves.

For it stands written once for all, Rom. 13: "Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation.

These words of the LORD, then, written by St. Paul moreover at a time when Emperor Nero, a cruel and almost frenzied monster, was Roman Emperor, these words are clear enough for everyone who reads them without colored spectacles, that is, without a humanly preconceived opinion; they speak simply of authority, without any closer description, whether it be just or unjust, whether it has obtained its commanding, its legislative and executive power by violence or not, whether it has brought this or that country and people under itself by war and victory, or has come into possession by hereditary succession, or whether these have voluntarily subordinated themselves to it, conditionally or unconditionally, whether it governs in a limited or unlimited manner, whether it administers its power justly or unjustly according to outward right; for however godless it may be and act, according to its ruling disposition, its station and office is ordained of God; and if it but leaves God's Word, faith and conscience free, and commands nothing that conflicts with the Ten Commandments and the Christian faith — since Christians indeed must obey God rather than men — then these, if they would be followers of Christ and children of God, must rather suffer and endure everything, goods and chattels, skin and hair, body and life, than that they should set themselves violently against the authority, fall into the office of judge and avenger belonging to God, and by riot and rebellion with armed hand help themselves.

Subjects, as Christians, have against even the most godless and unjust authority absolutely no other weapons than modest representation and humble petition, in which it must grieve them more that the rulers do wrong than that they, the ruled, suffer wrong. If such petitioning avails nothing, but the pressure afterward becomes harder rather than lighter, they are to commit the matter to God, who has said: Avenge not yourselves, dearly beloved, but rather give place unto wrath (of God); for it is written: "Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the LORD." And if they continue therein and further exercise themselves, in faith and in the love of Christ, to make intercession for their blinded and infatuated rulers, then God will before long do one of the two: either He will convert their godless and unjust rulers, or, if they continue to withstand Him, He will cast them down, as He who putteth down the mighty from their seat and is terrible to the kings of the earth and giveth the kingdoms to whom He will.

Moreover, godly Christians under the pressure of hard and unjust princes should also consider this, that God has set the same as a scourge, according to His wholesome order of chastisement, against the perverse and crooked generation, of which the majority in every state is at all times composed, much as He sends other common plagues, famine, sword and pestilence, into the lands and among the peoples, that the impenitent may be converted and seek the LORD their God. But the believers, as they willingly accept and bear these and other afflictions of the land as the dear cross of Christ, in order, by the daily mortification of the old man and daily quickening of the new man, to become ever more thorough Christians and not merely confessors but also followers of their LORD and Saviour, so they let evil princes also serve them to this end, by whom they, against their knowledge and will, become ever more fit to be the true free citizens of the kingdom of heaven; for as the devil with all his craft and power can do nothing else than work constantly into the hands of the LORD Christ, so his servants, the godless princes, can likewise do nothing else than, by their ever so wicked raging and madness, ever further build the kingdom of God.

True Christians, then, who thus, as just now indicated, conduct themselves also toward unjust authority, those are upright Lutherans, namely people who do not show the Bible a merely outward respect in general, but such passages as touch the sore spot either leave behind, or, according to human conceit, impose upon them a strange sense, but who with unfeigned reverence submit themselves to every recognized clear and authoritative word of God, tear their dearest delusion out of the heart, yes, rather cut off the right hand and pluck out the right eye, all objections of fleshly reason, all the dazzling show of ruling opinions of the time, all jugglery and fanaticism of the children of the day,