# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1852 03 30_S123
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

123

orthodox church. Heresy, to be sure, does not, as was said, make the Church visible to me, but is rather a mark of the sect; but the truth still present, the essential parts of the Gospel and the unmutilated Baptism, which the sect still has, lets me conclude that here also there are still children of God, that is, the so-called Church properly speaking, hidden; for not only does holy Baptism also here surely prove itself, in the poor little children, to be a laver of regeneration, but the truth still present can also prove so mighty in some hearts that they sincerely turn to God, recognize the error, and perhaps afterwards go out from the false church.

It follows from this that the invisible Church is to be sought in the totality of all the called, of all the baptized, thus to be sure only in and not outside the general visible Church, to which all Christian sects belong, so far as they still essentially have Word and Sacrament.

This is the doctrine of our godly, orthodox forefathers; in proof take only one passage from Luther: "Hear for thyself what St. Paul says, 2 Thess. 2, 4.: The Antichrist shall sit in the temple of God. Now if the Pope (as I believe no otherwise) is the true Antichrist, then he shall not sit and rule in the devil's stable, but in God's temple. Nay, he will not sit where there are only devils and unbelievers, or where there is no Christ or Christendom; for he is to be an Antichrist, therefore he must be among Christians. And since he is to sit and rule there, he must have Christians under him. For God's temple is not called a heap of stones, but the holy Christendom, 1 Cor. 3, 17., wherein he is to rule. Now if under the Pope there is Christendom, then it must truly be Christ's body and member. If it is his body, then it has the right Spirit, Gospel, faith, Baptism, Sacrament, keys, preaching office, prayer, Holy Scripture, and all that Christendom is to have."

But if anyone would conclude from this that all visible church fellowships are at bottom to be valued alike, because the true Church is hidden in all, this would be a false and most dangerous conclusion. For this would lead to the most abominable indifferentism, to fickleness and to arbitrariness in doctrine, which would at last remove all certainty of the truth, and open door and gate to unbelief. It dare therefore by no means be a matter of indifference to me to which church I attach myself, whether it be right or wrong in doctrine. For not only does the duty of confession require me to hold to those who preserve and confess the right faith without human addition or subtraction, and bear witness against all error and lies of Satan; but fellowship with a false-believing church is never without great peril to the soul. It is as when one sells wines, among which some are poisoned; if the buyer unfortunately gets a poisoned bottle, he is a dead man, while another, who has bought in the same shop, has received a noble, excellent drink. It is surely always better and safer to buy where one is secure from adulteration and poisoning. The orthodox church therefore has an indisputable advantage over the heterodox; for it has the Word of truth without addition, it possesses the mightiest power for the spiritual quickening of its members, it offers them the most wholesome pasture, preserves them from confusions perilous to the soul, and has the strongest weapons against the powers of darkness.

For this reason we would indeed prize our Lutheran Church, as the proven orthodox Church, whose doctrine and confession has never yet been overcome with the Holy Scripture, dear and high, cleave to her with heartfelt love as faithful, grateful sons, separate ourselves with our confession from all heterodox church fellowships, but only not from the children of God scattered throughout all the world, whether they lie captive under the tyranny of the Pope or elsewhere. Of such also holds the word of Christ: "Many shall come from the east and from the west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven;" but warning, on the other hand, is the following saying: "But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness" -- for those who remain in the outward fellowship of the orthodox church without the inner sanctification of the heart; who indeed have a name that they live, but are estranged from the true life from God and are dead. The judgment on that day will not take place according to the measure of knowledge, but according to the measure of fidelity with which we have applied the knowledge. Unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall much be sought; and to whom much is committed, of him will they ask the more.

A. Sch.

(Submitted)
What Is a Synod?
A Word to Those Who Are Afraid of It.

You must often hear from the mouth of those who hold themselves wise and prudent and wish to be regarded as the watchmen and defenders of freedom: that a synod is a dangerous thing, a kind of German consistory, a priestly domination, which aims to ensnare again under the servile yoke the poor Germans who have scarcely immigrated into the land of freedom. Yea, when this sort of people wish to bring forward something quite weighty and terrifying, they even say: a synod is a secret Jesuit college, your preacher is already in it, and is now set on drawing you yourselves, sooner or later, into the same dangerous net, in order then to be able to make over your church property to the synod. Such things you hear, and because it is not sufficiently known to you yourselves what and for what purpose a synod is, you cannot refute the dreadful stories of those wise ones; indeed, the matter appears to you, if you will be honest, itself questionable; you would not gladly lose your freedom and with it at the same time the property of your church, and so you cannot, with the best will, ward off a certain fear.

What, then, is a synod? A synod is a free union of congregations for churchly purposes, as for example the preservation and promotion of the unity of the pure confession, common defense against the sectarian mischief, the training of future preachers and teachers for the service of the Church, public examination and regular installation of the same into their offices, sending out of missionaries, support of poor congregations toward obtaining a regular ministration by a preacher, etc. Is there anything wrong in this? Must one fear that, must one guard against it? Is a free union of congregations a Jesuit college? What have "the wise ones" to answer to this?! --

Those congregations which have joined together into a synod have not done so from tedium or vain meddlesomeness, but the Word of God and the distress here has constrained them to it. And you stand in the same distress, even if you do not yet recognize it, and the Word of God speaks also to you and will also be heard and obeyed by you. Thus it says Eph. 4, 7.: "Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace!" Does the command concern one Christian or all, one congregation or all? Evidently all, you therefore also; you also are to be diligent, not indifferent, not slothful, but active, busy, zealous to keep unity in the Spirit. For God does not will that the individual Christians and the individual congregations stand apart from one another, care nothing about one another, each looking only to itself and going its own way in selfishness and self-will, without love and without humility. It is not allowable, it is manifest sin, if a congregation will care only for itself, will look only to this, that it has a preacher, a church, a school, that pure doctrine prevails among it and discipline and order are maintained; without also wishing at the same time to look on the things of others, without also caring for other congregations, without also being willing to bear in love their weal and woe. Only a Cain says: What does my brother concern me? "Am I my brother's keeper?" Christian congregations ought to concern themselves about one another, ought to be bound together in brotherly love, ought to stand in one spirit and one soul, and also by this part of the Christian life prove that they honor the Gospel of Christ and