# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1852 07 27_S185
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Der Lutheraner.
(Revelation of John, chap. 14, v. 6, 7.)
"God's Word and Luther's doctrine pure shall to eternity endure."
Published by the German Ev. Lutheran Synod of Missouri, Ohio and other States.
Edited by C. F. W. Walther.
Vol. 8.  St. Louis, Mo., July 27, 1852.  No. 24.
Terms: Der Lutheraner appears once every two weeks at the annual subscription price of One Dollar for out-of-town subscribers, who are to pay the same in advance and to 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.

Voice of the Church of God against the Seductive Deniers of God and Deifiers of the Flesh of Our Time.
(Written for Der Lutheraner by Dr. S.)

In that I raise my testimony against you in the name of God, who is also your Lord — although you reject Him — I would first of all guard myself against being thought to address herein the poor souls whom you have led astray by your deceit: for among these there are naturally also such as are not yet declared enemies of God with an evil will, as you are, but who are still held captive in pitiable ignorance concerning the being and will of God and concerning the nature of man — poor, neglected and erring souls, who, alas, have in Germany often had — be it hereby lamented to the hearty sorrow, repentance and grief of the Church of God! — only apostate belly-servers, blind leaders of the blind, hireling shepherds, yea, thieves and murderers, but no spiritual fathers in Christ, no servants of the Church faithful to the Confession, for their teachers and guardians.

With these poor misled ones, who know neither right nor left, and who moreover are bewildered by the motley mass of the sects here and as it were intoxicated by the enjoyment of the civil liberty here, and ignorant how to use it aright — with these I have not to speak on this occasion.

But against you, the seducers, I have to testify, and especially against you, writers of the godless papers in these lands, which indeed are blown away by the wind of the time as swiftly as the withered leaves of the trees by the storms of autumn, yet in their short one-day life do harm enough, in that they plunge the spiritually ignorant still deeper into this darkness, or blind them with the false dazzling light of the spirit of lies, and strengthen in the wilfully wicked the wickedness of their hearts.

Against you I will raise testimony out of God's Word and out of your own conscience, which you seek to crush and to stifle by the deceit of the devil and by your evil heart and will; and truly in many of you it is perhaps already so dead that he foams out his filth and uncleanness with relish and delight, like the raging sea that hath no peace, and that he, according to God's righteous judgment, brings to market, through the blinding of the arch-liar, as new wisdom only senseless and foolish thoughts which contend even against the natural light of heathen reason.

Against you I will also contend out of yourselves, who promise everyone liberty and yet are yourselves servants of corruption, and who cry out against God and the Lord Christ to your fellows: "Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us! We will not have this man to reign over us."

"But He that dwelleth in the heavens shall laugh at you, and the Lord shall have you in derision; He will one day speak unto you in His wrath, and vex you in His sore displeasure."

Therefore I testify now in the first place over and against you, that you rage and rave in vain, against your own reason and conscience, against the rock of the truth unto salvation, the written Word of God. I affirm directly, at your peril, that in the inmost depth of your conscience you do not hold that to be true which your mouth utters, that this holy book is a "book of dreams, lies and fables of the wretched priests, to keep the people in superstition and stupidity and at the same time to have advantage, honor and enjoyment thereby." For well do you know, first of all from the history of the Bible, at least this much, that this holy book — in the Old Testament alone for over 3000 years — stands immutably fast as a rock, which the storms and currents of the changeable spirit of the age, the craft and violence of Satan, the hatred and the sham wisdom of your brothers, the godless children of the world, have neither overthrown, nor shaken, nor undermined, nor even chipped away.

One generation after another has passed away, one mighty people after another with all its glory has sunk down, one human wisdom after another, which promised the knowledge of God, has been made manifest as folly and thereby powerless — but the rock of the truth, the Word of the living God, has survived unharmed all these changing times, generations, peoples and doctrines of men; the hand of Almighty God, against whom indeed all His enemies are as chaff before the wind, has wondrously preserved it. Well do you know how in the last bloody con-