# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1852 06 08_S166
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

166

Holiness' voice be Christ's voice, who acts and speaks through it." — Thus Luther speaks of the Pope in 1518; how he spoke of him later, all the world knows; read, for example, in the Smalcald Articles the fourth of the second part, where Luther declares the Pope most definitely to be the Antichrist and his (the Pope's) voice to be the roaring of the infernal lion.

Instead, however, that when one speaks of Luther's pure doctrine brought again to light, one should set aside the earlier developments of doctrine not yet wholly purged of the Roman leaven, and accept his later clear, purely evangelical confession, and present only this as Luther's true doctrine, one now frequently does the opposite. Not only do ignorant Romanists very often appeal to utterances of Luther from earlier times and say nothing of later ones; but even Protestants, even supposedly strict Lutherans, commit this hysteron proteron, and appeal to earlier utterances although later contrary declarations of Luther exist, or, where Luther recognized and rejected something belonging to the papacy early on, to later ones, in which he is alleged to have conceded it again.

Among others, the Buffalo "Informatorium" also makes itself guilty of this perversion and distortion of the Lutheran doctrine; whether knowingly and willingly or not, only the Searcher of hearts knows; according to charity we gladly assume the latter. For this time we shall, by way of warning, first give an example of how the "Informatorium" appeals, as to Lutheran doctrine, to utterances of Luther which he made in that earlier time, of which he himself speaks thus: "Therefore, Christian reader, thou wilt find in my first writings and books how many articles I at that time, with great humility, yielded and conceded to the Pope, which I afterward held to be the most dreadful blasphemy and abomination and have condemned, and will have condemned in eternity." (See the Preface to the 3rd Wittenberg Volume.) —

Thus it says, namely, in No. 14 of the "Informatorium," in an article entitled: False Freedom in the Church: "An unjust excommunication, if it should actually occur, is no false doctrine, and gives no right to separation. He who thinks himself unjustly excommunicated shall, according to Luther's doctrine (these words the "Informatorium" also has in spaced type) 'remain in the Church and there, in orderly and Christian manner, bring his proofs and seek his right. God will surely make it manifest. But an evil man seeks by hasty separation and withdrawal to conceal his wrong, John 3:20.'"

It is indeed true that when Luther still had a captive conscience and, as he himself expresses it, was terrified if he but heard the name of the Church, he did actually still teach something similar to what the anonymous author of that article ascribes to him. Thus it says, for example, in the "Sermon on the Power of the Ban" of the year 1518, in which Luther wrote the above-mentioned letter to the Pope: "An unjust ban is a precious merit; therefore one should gladly suffer it, where one will not grant place to thine excuse, which is to be made with humility and lowliness. For then thou canst say with the 109th Psalm: Let them curse, but bless thou. Only take heed thereto, that thou despise not the power of the Church . . . Yea, if we have a command from the LORD Christ to agree with our adversary in the way and be reconciled, how much more doth it behoove us to be at one with the Church, even though she chastise us through unworthy servants? For she remaineth nevertheless the most gracious, dearest mother, as long as she remaineth; but the Church remaineth, since Christ her Bridegroom remaineth in eternity," (See Luther's Werke, Halle ed., Tom. XIX., p. 1097, 98.)

But whoever knows Luther's writings even a little, knows how entirely differently Luther judged later, and how he then no longer feared the name and clamor: Church! Church! Holy office! Servant of God! Here is the temple of the LORD! Here is the temple of the LORD!" but rather knew for certain: that it is not the true Church, but the false, not the preachers as servants of Christ, but as enemies of Christ and servants of the devil, who carry out an "unjust ban" upon anyone; since Christ says plainly, not of His Church, but of the synagogue of Satan: "They shall put you out of the synagogues," namely you, my dear disciples and Christians (John 16:2). Therefore Christ, in the following verse, speaks not only of bodily killing, but also of unjust ban: "And these things will they do unto you, because they have not known the Father, nor me." Upon this saying Luther accordingly writes in the Kirchenpostille: "Although we also allow that the papists also exercise the offices of the Church, baptize, administer the sacrament, etc., if they do so according to Christ's ordinance. But where they would use such office against us (namely by unjust ban), this we pronounce, by this judgment of Christ, void and powerless, and hold them to be the true separated and apostates from the Church of Christ." (Let the reader read the whole sermon on this Gospel.)

Further it says concerning that text in the Hauspostille: "Therefore, whoever will rightly distinguish and judge these two churches, must not look at the office alone; for the false church also can have and exercise the office rightly, and is yet no church; as one sees that the false church most gloriously bears and boasts the name of God. To this one should pay no heed. For there standeth the other commandment and teacheth us that the name of God be also used in vain. Therefore we pray in the first petition, in the Lord's Prayer, that God's name be hallowed; which is surely a certain indication that the same name is profaned by many. Therefore, where the false church comes on and with the name of God and of the Church would ban and condemn, there it behoveth thee to take heed that thou let not thyself be frightened, but make a distinction, and say: I hear God's name well, I hear well that thou praisest the Church, but such things unbelievers can do also. Therefore one must seek the judgment otherwise, and first of all look whether one also rightly uses God's name and doth not abuse the glorious name of the Church." (See the sermon on Sunday Exaudi, New York ed., p. 314.)

Yet Luther in the year 1530 wrote a "Schrift von den Schlüsseln" of his own, a truly golden little book, which would well deserve to be published again, since in it, so to speak, the true quintessence of the dear Gospel is rendered so clearly and so comfortingly, so briefly and yet so thoroughly, so deeply and so powerfully, as, according to our slight experience, hardly in any other book. In it Luther now speaks also of the unjust ban, and indeed, among other things, the following:

"But what sayest thou to the saying of Gregory, indicated above: Our ban is to be feared, even if it be unjust? This I say thereto: Be the saying Gregory's or his mother's, the devil hath spoken it; I could still look cheerfully upon the doctor who would so teach that I should fear injustice and lies, even if it were an angel from heaven, and I might bid him take his dreadful ban and carry it off behind, and wipe their noses on it, where Adam's children sit. What, then, is the use of such shameful blasphemy, which shamelessly dares to command us Christians to fear open injustice and known lies, and to worship them for a god? If St. Gregory said such a thing, meant it, and did not repent of it: then he must be in the abyss of hell, there is no question of that. Yet I will not condemn Gregory . . . . Thou hearest here (Matt. 18:15-18) that there must be certain public sin, of certain known persons, where one brother seeth the other sinning; moreover, such sin as has first been brotherly rebuked and at last publicly proved before the congregation, therefore the bulls and letters of ban, wherein it standeth thus: Excommunicamus ipso facto, lata sententia, trina tamen monitione praemissa. Item: De plenitudine potestatis "(we hereby, after sentence passed, yet after a threefold admonition preceding, put under ban; likewise: By our plenitude of power, etc.)," the