# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1852 04 13_S129
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Der Lutheraner.
"God's Word and Luther's doctrine shall pass away nevermore." (Rev. John, Chap. 14, v. 6, 7.)
Published by the German Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Missouri, Ohio and other States.
Edited by C. F. W. Walther.
Year 8.  St. Louis, Mo., April 13, 1852.  No. 17.
Terms: Der Lutheraner appears once every two weeks at the annual subscription price of One Dollar for subscribers living at a distance, who are to pay it in advance and bear the postage. — In St. Louis each single number is sold for 5 cents. Only those letters which contain communications for the paper are to be sent to the editor; all others, which contain business matters, orders, cancellations, money, etc., are to be sent hither under the address Mr. F. W. Barthel, care of C. F. W. Walther, St. Louis, Mo.

Sermon,
delivered on Dominica Reminiscere 1852 at St. Louis, Mo.

Communicated at urgent request.

J. N. J.

God give you all much grace and peace through the knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

In Him, our dear Savior, heartily beloved hearers.

Among the manifold reproaches which men now make against Christians, one of the most general is that they are not men of progress but of retrogression; that is, that they do not advance with the times, but rather, while everything hurries forward, stand still, indeed go backward. And it is true: in what is now commonly called progress no Christian takes part who stands in the right knowledge. For what is it that is now commonly designated and praised as progress? — Here, in order not to be unjust, we must distinguish two classes of men of progress. The one class are those who call it the progress of our time that among Christians men no longer contend over difference in faith. These say, in former times men indeed often contended for long years for the sake of a single word in the Bible; this one is willing indeed to forgive our pious fathers, for their life fell in a time in which much superstition still prevailed, and in which therefore the spirit of love and tolerance was still lacking: but in more recent times men have advanced in knowledge, and even the last remnant of former prejudice has fallen; the time has therefore come when it can no longer be excused if one still wants to contend for the sake of faith. Long enough has religion been an apple of discord among the theologians; now at last the weapons must be laid down, the confessions which have hitherto separated Christians from one another must be torn down as weathered church walls, no one is any longer to be shunned and avoided as a heretic, but a great Union of all Christians is to be founded, a general church peace concluded, and a brotherly hand extended to all who confess the name of the Son of God with their lips. — But there are in our days, as said, still other so-called men of progress, who go considerably further, who namely call it progress that all religions be simply abolished. These say: Long enough has religion, and especially the Christian religion, been the cause that men have not enjoyed the earth and its joys, and have comforted themselves and put themselves off with heaven. Long enough has mankind been kept in ignorance and minority by the princes and by the priests of the Church. Before the sun of the Enlightenment of the nineteenth century those dark times have now vanished. The age of faith has been followed by the age of reason, the age of submission by the age of freedom. Now no enlightened man believes any longer what he cannot grasp with his reason, lay hold of with his hands, and see with his eyes. Down, such men therefore cry, with the kings from their thrones, away with all priests from their pulpits, out with the Bible from the schools, down with the churches from the face of the earth. Light, freedom and equality! that is our watchword. Behold, that is what is now commonly called progress and enlightenment. What then? Could a Christian really take part in such progress? Truly not! If he wished to go one way with the first class, with the Union men, he would have to let go the care and zeal for the purity of the divine Word; and if he wished to join the second class, the proclaimers of freedom from all bonds, he would have to renounce the Word of God altogether, yes, contradict even the loud voice in his own inner being, his very conscience. No, in this sense no Christian can be a man of progress; in this sense he must rather indeed go backward, and indeed back