# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1852 07 17_S181
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

181

It came at last to this, that it seemed as though God had founded the Church only so that the priests and bishops might have a kingdom in which they would be worshipped, and might enjoy here all the glory of the earth and yonder all the glory of heaven. It came at last to this, that even admirers of the Pope declared that, had Luther not come, the priests would at length have gathered all the goods of the world to themselves and made all Christians their vassals and serfs.*) It came at last to this, that even the people faithfully devoted to the Roman Church, as the papistical historian Surius relates, had the proverb in their mouths: "What a state of things is this now? We cannot get well for the priests;" yea, that even an archbishop, Matthew Lang, at Augsburg in the year 1530, answered Melanchthon, on his proposals: "Ah, what would you reform in us priests! The priests have never been good."

*) The blessed Spener writes in his Glaubenstrost: "I know of distinguished Papists who, even in the presence of distinguished clergy of their own, acknowledged that they had just as much to thank Luther for; for if he had not come, the clergy would at length have forced the nobility, the citizens and the peasants to eat oat-straw!" (Part 2, page 522.)

Ah, my dear friends, whoever therefore would convince himself whither priestly dominion leads at last, let him read the history of the Papacy; and he will see with horror that nothing has wrought such dreadful harm, nothing has more turned the Church of grace and of life into a den of murderers, nothing has more robbed Christendom of the fruits of redemption, nothing has more rooted out Christ and dragged millions with it into the abyss of hell, whom Christ has purchased with His God-blood and baptized, than the dominion of the priests, worthy of all the curses of God and of men.

3.

But, my dear friends, we now turn away from this horrible picture, and for a conclusion take yet a look also at the help which God provided, 300 years ago, for the enslaved, tormented Christians, bleeding and sighing in body and soul under the blows of their spiritual tyrants, while I set before you in a few words how, through the Reformation, this ungodly, tyrannical church government was overthrown again, how Christians won back their freedom, and how this has now become a precious jewel of our Church.

There has never been a time, my dear friends, in which the Papacy was not assailed. Many emperors, kings and princes, many teachers in churches and schools and other witnesses of the truth, yea, whole general councils of the Church undertook to shake and to break the ever more formidable power of the Roman hierarchy. But always all assaults upon this thousand-year-old structure had been in vain. Under all the onsets and stormings which it had suffered, it had, like a poison-tree, only taken ever deeper root from century to century, and had grown and at last become a monster with millions of arms and a thousand heads, which crushed and devoured everyone who approached it in attack, while millions, for fear of striving against God, against the holy Church and the divine office, and of forfeiting eternal salvation, did not venture to speak so much as a little word against their spiritual oppressors.

What then did Luther do, the poor, wretched, defenceless monk? In the bitter distresses of his soul wrestling with despair, he had at last sought his refuge in the merit of JEsus Christ alone, and had found therein comfort, certainty, rest, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. And this he now preached into the misery of his time with a loud, undaunted voice. "All is yours," he cried, taught by his own blessed experience, with Paul, to all believers. Already in the 37th of those well-known 95 Theses he testified to Christendom: "Every true Christian, whether living or dead, is partaker of all the goods of Christ and of the Church, by God's gift, even without letters of indulgence." And this doctrine of righteousness and salvation by faith alone he now laid as the foundation of all other doctrines; by this doctrine he now tested everything; by this doctrine he abode, and he preached it with every year ever more clearly, ever more plainly, ever more mightily and powerfully. And behold! he himself had not dreamed what a life-giving fire, and at the same time one consuming all that is ungodly, he had kindled therewith. With the word: "All is yours," ye that believe! he had found not only the true bread of life, the true glad tidings, which straightway penetrated into millions of troubled, tormented, sighing and languishing hearts, the almighty call of God, which straightway called millions of dead into life, strengthened millions of weak, made millions of doubters certain, and filled millions standing on the brink of despair with comfort and the hope of eternal life: the article, "All is yours," ye that believe! was at the same time the golden ring by which Luther drew forth again the whole great chain of the pure evangelical doctrine; the word, "All is yours," ye that believe! was the light in whose rays the mystery of iniquity, hidden for long centuries, lay bare and uncovered before the eyes of all who would but see; this word was the stone from the sling of David, the sling of the Word of God, which smote the giant who had so long defied Christian Israel, and as with one stroke overthrew his tyrannical dominion over the hearts, souls and consciences of Christians, and gave back to Christians their blessed Christian liberty. "All is yours," ye that believe! this was the thunder of God, before which the priests, who until then, with their official privileges, like a cherub with a flaming sword, had stood before the gate of the paradise of grace and had thrust themselves in between Christ and Christians, had to flee in terror. And behold, so the word: "All is Yours," ye that believe! has become the short sum of our Confession of the Church; in shining letters it gleams upon the flag of our evangelical ship of the Church.

Well then, my dear brethren in the office, let this word be and remain also our watchword. Let nothing move us to give up again this jewel of our Church and to forsake this banner of our fathers. Though thousands and again thousands abuse the Christian liberty here preached, in wilful misunderstanding, to their own destruction, let that not move us, any more than the holy Paul, to keep from true Christians what they possess in Christ. And though our opponents accuse us that we thereby lend aid to the freedom-swindle of this country, we do this just as little as Paul strengthened the heathen in their life of sin when he proclaimed to them the free grace of God in Christ, and then had to hear from the profligate: Let us do evil, that good may come!

But to you, dear brethren and sisters in the faith, I cry: know what ye have in Christ; and were it possible that we, your preachers, could be unfaithful with this jewel, then make confident use of the rights so dearly purchased for you; for, even if the world should burst thereat and the hierarchs cry out murder thereat, it is and remains eternally true, and will and must be preached to all true believers to the honor of Christ: "All is yours; and ye are Christ's!" Therefore stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made you free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage. Amen.

True Stories from the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Prussia.
(Liegnitzer Kirchenblatt ꝛc. 1851. No. 6.)

The more seldom, in our feeble time, the self-sacrifice that denies all for the sake of the Lord and His holy Word has become, so much the more gladdening is it to find, in instruments of God's grace that are sometimes quite weak and frail, a courage of faith paired with the strength of a lion, such as one would not have suspected in them, and which fills us with the joyful hope that the Lord, who gave His members in the first time strength to bear the most dreadful martyrdoms courageously, will strengthen also the Church of the present time again, to enter upon her last way to Golgotha with courage joyful in faith and with joy courageous in faith.

An edifying history of this kind, from my most recent experience in office, I would impart to my dear brethren in the faith, near and far, for the strengthening of the heart.

In the night from the 14th Sunday after Trinity.