# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1852 03 30_S125
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

125

But pray — do not be alarmed! At a synodical session nothing new, nothing transgressing the limits of the constitution, can be resolved upon, unless the congregations themselves have first been informed of it and have given their free and joyful consent thereto. — The business at a synodical assembly is of manifold kinds, as: conscientious examination of candidates for the pastoral and school offices, provision for congregations without pastors that apply to the Synod, the rendering of theological opinions and judgments, requested settlement of disputes, regulation of the mission work, etc. — Now, is there anything wrong at such synodical sessions? Is it not a fine, good, Christian order? —

For your further reassurance, hear also the principle that prevails among us in regard to such Lutheran congregations as have not yet joined the Synod. The principle is that of Christian liberty. No congregation is in any way forced to enter the Synod. By no means! Did the LORD Christ force anyone into heaven, and are we now to force anyone into the Synod? No! Never! Whoever does not come from inward impulse, real need, joyful conviction, — in a word, whoever does not come out of freedom, let him by all means stay away, otherwise he harms only himself and the Synod, both alike. In the second place, every congregation that belongs to the Synod may, without any outward harm or disadvantage, withdraw from the Synod again at any moment.

Whence, then, comes your fear of a Synod? Whence else than from the lies of the enemies of the truth, and from your own ignorance. Those "wise ones" treat you like children, like foolish children; they would frighten and terrify you with a specter, and this specter must now be the Synod, this dangerous thing that devours everything, your spiritual and bodily goods, your freedom and your church property. — Well then, you have heard above what a Synod is in truth; will you now still longer let yourselves be treated like children, be lied to like fools? I think you would put off the children's shoes, and with them also the fear of the synodical specter! —

B—.

(Submitted.)

Whether the Mission (that is, the spreading of the kingdom of grace of Jesus Christ on earth) is still necessary at the present day?

Already Solomon complained, nearly three thousand years ago, that "of making many books there is no end"; what would he say if he saw the book-making and newspaper-writing of our days and of our country? — And yet it is not always advisable to keep silent. So I too cannot refrain from claiming your attention, my dear reader, for a few moments, although otherwise I lack both time and inclination for "book-making." — For the "kirchliche Informatorium," from its first appearance and ever since, has undertaken the sad business of demonstrating that "the mission is no longer necessary at the present day." This is a very sad business; for every Christian heart ought rightly to rejoice and praise God that His grace embraces all men of all times; that He has them all invited, until His coming again, to turn from the false gods to the living God, that they may not at that day fall to eternal darkness, where there is eternal wailing and gnashing of teeth. Besides, it is a very foolish undertaking to want to prove the needlessness, yea, the unlawfulness of the mission, which is so clearly commanded in the Word of God for all times. But since error is more easily taught and more easily learned than the truth, these lines would warn precisely against this error, confess the truth, and calmly let God rule.

The "Informatorium" makes use, for this sad business, of the words of some long departed theologians of the Lutheran Church, in order to lend the matter the proper emphasis. But we will wage no war with the dead. We will not quarrel with the divines who fell asleep long ago, if in their time they erred in this or that point of the truth. *) But it is sad when at the present day men imitate not the faith of the fathers but their weaknesses! — If only the "Informatorium" had taken to heart the cited words of E. B. Loescher, when he says: "It were indeed heartily to be wished that God, according to His holy good pleasure, would awaken the hearts of the rulers and chief teachers of His Church to procure for the blind heathen more access to the means of grace; and this work, provided it be begun and conducted in an orderly manner, is in and of itself certainly highly to be praised, and the persons who labor therein will then rightly deserve their great praise." — If only the "Informatorium" had taken these words to heart and had examined itself before God's holy and all-knowing eye, whether it also has a heart for the poor heathen, at least of this country, who are so greatly in need of Christian love, after having been so long trodden down and robbed by the covetousness of so-called Christians, and in part still being so; and whether it has also stirred a hand or a foot on that account? "If thou meet thine enemy's ox or his ass going astray, thou shalt surely bring it back to him again!" saith the LORD (Exod. 23, 4). But when we see the souls of our highest Benefactor, our God's dearly bought souls, go astray and proceed upon the way of eternal perdition, we let them go quietly on, and meanwhile philosophize over the question "whether missions are still necessary at the present day?" Woe! Woe! — In "an orderly manner" this holy work of spreading the kingdom of Christ on earth, called simply "Mission," should indeed be "begun and conducted"; and we are quite and wholly unwilling to approve the doings of all sorts of sects on the mission field. We know very well that many preach to the heathen not Christ the Crucified, but the conceit of their own heart, and we expect from such servants of darkness nothing further than what almighty God is able to accomplish in spite of their doings. But by this the command of the LORD: "Go ye into all the world and teach all nations!" is by no means abrogated. Neither is this command given only to the apostles; as it is also vain labor to try to prove this from the cited words: "The signs, however, that shall follow are these: in my name they shall speak with new tongues." Nor is it written anywhere that God poured the knowledge of the language down from heaven into all those who in the apostolic age wished to preach the Gospel to peoples of a foreign tongue, which would be wholly contrary to God's economy. Besides, the words are incorrectly cited. For it reads there (Mark 16, 17): "And these signs shall follow them that believe: in my name shall they cast out devils, they shall speak with new tongues," etc., and these signs were by no means given only to the apostles and other preachers of the Word, as is already plainly evident from the words "them that believe," and is also confirmed in 1 Cor. 12, 8 — 10.

*) We too share this sentiment of our dear co-laborer; yet it is sometimes very beneficial to the weak to become better acquainted with the persons who have zealously opposed a good cause. Hence here at least one brief notice. The most zealous opponent of the missions to the heathen was Dr. Sam. Schelwig, without doubt chiefly for the reason that in his time the mission was carried on by the "Pietists" so hateful to him, such as the godly Aug. H. Franke and others. But what Schelwig's fight against the so-called Pietists was like, may be seen among other things from this, that when the Pietists pressed so earnestly for denial of the world and of self, and rebuked ambition and the desire to grow rich, he sought to refute them and asserted: it was right and belonged to Christian liberty to go to the theater, to play at dice, "to seek honor among men and riches," etc. What a mind does he betray who is driven to defend such things, but on the other hand to reject the institutions for the conversion of the poor heathen? Who does not tremble when he thinks of such a state of soul? Who is not reminded here of the lament of the holy Apostle: 1 Thess. 2, 15. 16.? After this, is it any wonder that Schelwig also defended with all earnestness the proposition: "that an ungodly preacher, provided he only understands the Word of God literally and sets it forth rightly, is not only an instrument, but also a workshop of the Holy Ghost?" (All this is found in Schelwig's "Übersicht der Streitigkeiten, welche unter dem Vorwande der Frömmigkeit erregt worden sind.")

The Editors.

But that the command of Christ, the Gospel