# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1852 02 03_S94
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

94

trample underfoot, and rather let themselves be called narrow-hearted, short-sighted, limited and rusted Old Lutherans, than depart so much as a finger's breadth from such a word of God to the right hand or to the left; for every single word of God is dearer to them than all the might and pomp of the world, than all favor, honor and esteem among men, yes, than their own heart with its dearest desire and inclination.

Now were Kossuth's heart and conscience thus blessedly captive and bound in God's Word, that is, had he really been a sound Lutheran Christian, then God's Word in Rom. 13 would have restrained him from pursuing, in a fleshly manner contrary to Scripture, the liberation of his people from the yoke of Austria.

But since he nevertheless did this, called his people to arms against his lord, the Emperor, and made war upon him, this proves, to speak in the mildest terms, that he had no knowledge of the divine Word relating to this matter, that he therefore began and continued the same against God's gracious will, and, in the best case, as one still unenlightened by the light of the divine truth of the written Word and by true faith in the Lord Christ, began his cause in a fanatical delusion under divine forbearance. And hence it is impossible that these and those signs of a certain religiosity, which indeed here and there meet one in his course of life for about the last four years, were evidences of true Christian piety and of sound Lutheran faith.

Had he possessed this, together with the inward illumination of the Holy Ghost out of justifying faith in Christ, really before his rising against Austria, then this would have been not only a transgression of the divine law and especially of the first, fourth and fifth commandments, which it is in any case, but it would necessarily presuppose a decided apostasy from the faith, a contempt of God and His Word, a denial of Christ in Kossuth's heart, which however is highly improbable, since it is hardly conceivable that he then possessed the inwardly experienced heart's faith in Christ together with the illumination of the Holy Ghost. It is therefore on that account that his undertaking and beginning has been, in the best case, connected, and still is connected, with a certain pious delusion and self-made fanatical conceit of fleshly reason, as if the uprising against Austria and the liberation of Hungary thereby effected were a work well-pleasing to God, much as the Crusades in the Middle Ages sprang from a similar root. For as in that time of the obscuring of evangelical knowledge in Church and State it was generally held that it was a holy and meritorious work to wrest the holy sepulchre of the LORD and the promised land from the hands of the unbelievers, so it is now, with a similar obscuring of the Gospel, the case in many hearts and heads, which are by no means on principle decided enemies of God and His Word, that in pious delusion and fanaticism they hold it to be a holy cause and a meritorious work well-pleasing to God that the European peoples should tear off the fetters of their so-called despots and attain to a freedom and self-government such as the people of the United States of North America possesses according to its constitution.

But where is God's Word that such violent self-liberation is God's good gracious will and a "holy" cause, and that the fanatical delusion of the promoters or favorers or praisers of this self-liberation, with manifold appeal to, indeed actual abuse of, the divine name, is really Christian truth and sound evangelical faith?

It might indeed be possible that the limited "Lutheraner" has not yet discovered such a guiding star of the divine Word, and he therefore herewith begs the learned Dr. Kurtz together with Pastor Stohlmann for help, that they would point him to the word of Holy Scripture in which such self-liberation is even only approved and permitted, let alone commanded, and not rather most decidedly forbidden. May they be so kind as to relieve the short-sightedness of the narrow-hearted "Lutheraner" in a friendly manner and to show him from Holy Scripture the word by which that divine word, which in his view gives the rule and plumb-line for the conduct of Christian men toward their present authorities in Rom. 13, 1-7, compare John 19, 10. 11. 1 Pet. 2, 13. 14. Tit. 3, 1. 1 Tim. 2, 1. 2. Matt. 26, 52, is overturned and abolished. Until then (and it is hardly likely that this requested proof will be furnished) "the Lutheraner," together with all its sober readers, not intoxicated by the delusions of the time, who have a simple eye of faith and unfeigned reverence for God's Word, is bound in its heart and conscience to hold fast to the above Word of God as the true light for the formation of a right Christian judgment also concerning Kossuth and his cause.

And if the two gentlemen named, together with the "Lutherischer Herold" besides, which blows the same trumpet of praise over Kossuth, despite all its zeal for true Lutheranism, if all three cannot furnish the proof from Holy Scripture that Kossuth's attempts at the violent self-liberation of Hungary were made on the ground of the divine Word and out of faith in Christ, out of love of God and of the neighbor, and to the honor of the LORD and to the profit and benefit of his fellow Christians, then they also cannot assert that Kossuth's undertakings of the year 1848 were a "holy" cause, or even works of faith of a second Gideon and Jephthah, and that he himself was a sound evangelical Christian in this his manner of acting. For in this "the Lutheraner" certainly presupposes the tacit agreement of these three praisers of Kossuth, that they too hold that the same man, who moreover quite expressly professes the God of the Bible, may not, as it were, play two different parts, namely at one time the Christian and at another time the freeman, according to persons and circumstances; rather it is presumably their heart's opinion also that every single act of the citizen, in word and deed, is yet essentially and exclusively penetrated and sanctified by the disposition of the Christian, and thus proceeds from faith and is done to the honor of God, to one's own sanctification and to the service of the neighbor.

As is the case with the individual, who is at the same time Christian and citizen or subject, so it holds likewise in the large and the whole with entire nations who at the same time wish to be Christians; and accordingly their entire conduct toward the authorities also is to be penetrated and animated by the Christian disposition. If they go to church on Sunday and begin a rebellion on Monday, they are certainly hypocrites, but not Christians; for as has been said, so far as they wish to be Christian subjects, they have, even against unjust and tyrannical authority, after amicable representation has availed nothing, no other weapons than God's Word and prayer. With the former the preachers especially are to chastise the godless authorities sharply and earnestly through God's law, if they are indeed Christ's servants and not belly-servants and lackeys of princes, as the prophets of the LORD did the wicked kings of Israel and John did Herod; and all the afflicted and oppressed are to draw from the Gospel, this fountain of comfort, strengthening of faith and of patience, especially if they diligently take as their example the story of Christ's passion, and the edifying application of it in the epistles of the apostles. With prayer they are also, in their civil distresses, diligently to call upon the LORD and press into His fatherly heart, partly for themselves, partly for their godless and unjust authorities; for themselves, that the LORD may strengthen their faith and patience and preserve them in Christian love and intercession for the wicked princes and lords, and on the other hand may mightily subdue and keep down wrath and hatred, vindictiveness and malice, which they, according to the old man, still feel much within themselves.

In sum: Before the judgment seat of the divine Word in Rom. 13, Kossuth's and Hungary's violent rising against Austria, to wring from it by force of arms a political independence and self-reliance, is and remains a deed of the flesh contrary to God and Scripture, but not of true Christianity, and it would remain essentially the same sin even if it had succeeded outwardly; for never and at no time are the actions, as of individual Christians so of whole Christian nations, to be judged from God's Word according to the result, but according to the ruling disposition and the impelling motive of the doer or doers. If the deed is in accordance with the divine law and proceeds in the doer from faith,