# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1852 08 04_S199
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

199

foretold. "Then I found," he writes himself in a book on the Talmud published by him later, "such a light that I have good reason to thank God for it." He was overcome by the truth. He went therefore to Halberstadt, where he received instruction for a year from a godly preacher and thereupon had himself baptized. But after God had shown mercy to him and had so graciously rescued him out of great hellish darkness, there arose in him the desire to become an instrument through which others also might become partakers of this grace. He therefore studied theology at Helmstädt, taught many persons of rank in the Hebrew language, which he thoroughly understood, published several writings for the exposure of the errors of the Jews, and died at last as pastor in the principality of Anhalt, on the 25th of September, 1627.

Nicolaus Selneccer

to those who declare the doctrine of the Holy Supper to be a trifling matter, about which one ought not to begin a strife.

But as for the answer to some who say that it is a trifling matter, none other is fitting than that which is written in the Epistle of Jude, verse 9, where Michael the archangel, contending with the devil, disputed about the body of Moses and said: "The Lord rebuke thee!"—Is it a trifling matter when the LORD Christ says, commands, ordains, institutes, testifies, confirms, enjoins, upholds anything? O ye unchristian Christians, what are you thinking or saying? Who will trust you or believe you? What emperor, what prince and lord, yea, what common householder can think anything of you? For as the centurion says: "I have faithful servants, and when I say to one: Do this! so he does it; Come here! so he comes;" and as every government thus wants its command to be obeyed: what would a master say if the counselor or servant should speak: Pshaw, it is a trifling thing, even if my master has commanded it; it is a small matter to do, it will go otherwise (as one finds many such unfaithful ones); there is no need for any one to trouble himself much about this command! There, truly, a proper master would show his earnestness against such despisers of his express command. But what is that compared with the words of the divine Majesty! When Christ commands anything, says and ordains it, heaven and earth, and all that is therein, shall bend and bow before it, as Isaiah says: "Hear, O ye heavens, and give ear, O earth: for the Lord hath spoken." Heaven and earth shall pass away, but God's Word abideth forever, almighty and true, firm and unmoved. Yea, a little word, a syllable, a letter that goes out of the mouth of the LORD Christ is stronger, mightier, more powerful, more enduring and steadfast than all created heavens, earth, and other creatures. (See Warnung vor den Sacramentariis.)

Andreas von Meyendorf

who died in 1583, was a true pattern of an upright householder and lord of an estate. Spangenberg writes of him in his Adelsspiegel: "He imposed upon his subjects at Ummendorf in the Stift of Magdeburg the duty of learning the Catechism, the old as well as the young, that the one as well as the other might know and have the ground of salvation. But when the old people objected to this and offered rather to give something handsome instead, because they counted it a disgrace that they should be questioned and examined in church like children, Herr von Meyendorf stepped forward and was the first of all who, together with his housewife, had himself questioned out of Luther's Catechism, as much as the pastor had assigned them, and examined publicly before the congregation; and thus he brought his subjects to it, so that they followed him and afterward could not thank him enough for it with their children, and also freely confessed that they would not now take any great thing for it."

Since in Meyendorf's time there was great strife among the Lutheran theologians, and he feared that his children and subjects might be led away from the pure doctrine in these disputes, he himself drew up a very comprehensive, glorious confession of faith on all points of Christian doctrine, had it examined by a great number of orthodox theologians, and published it with their approbation. In this book one finds him in a picture, kneeling before a crucifix, with the inscription: "Ah God, be merciful to me a poor sinner!"—God grant us many such laymen, fathers, and lords!

Reason and the Mysteries of Faith.

Thus Melanchthon wrote as late as the year 1529 to the Sacramentarian Oecolampadius:

"You collect many absurdities which are said to follow from this faith" (of the essential presence of the body and blood of JEsus Christ in the Holy Supper). "You collect also some sayings of the ancients which seem to speak for you. But absurdities will be less offensive to him who bears in mind that one must judge of heavenly things according to God's Word, and not according to the principles of geometry, and who has learned in temptation that there is no reason that can sufficiently instruct the conscience if he has departed from the Word of God."

Would that the dear Melanchthon had always himself held this fast, how much misery and distress he would thereby have spared the poor Church!

Bonifacius.

Herr Pastor Grabau makes it a reproach to the "Lutheraner," in all seriousness, that it has communicated a description, in part commendatory, of the missionary activity of Bonifacius. Yea, Herr Pastor Grabau goes so far as to write: "Herr Walther must also highly praise, and have highly praised, the arch-papist, the ignorant, superstitious Winfried (Bonifacius, who otherwise had indeed some excellent gifts,) as the apostle and missionary of the Germans (750 A.D.), so that he may imitate him in persecuting Lutheran pastors and destroying their congregations in this country, and in all papistical tyranny. God in mercy convert this Missourian wolf-apostle," etc. Herr Pastor Grabau knows very well that at the time when the article on Bonifacius was admitted into the Lutheraner we were not at all in America!—Since the gentleman named has, as it seems, a particularly good confidence in V. E. Löscher, let a judgment of this theologian concerning Bonifacius find a place here. Löscher writes namely:

"Of Bonifacius it is observed that he had indeed good intentions, but yet, out of respect for the Roman See, or from the superstition thereby clinging to him, deviated a little here and there from the straight way. Wherefore we, with Philip Melanchthon, justly lament that this Bonifacius followed the doctrine and example of Gregory. But we thank the Most High God for all the good which he has let befall the Germans then sitting in heathen darkness through this instrument, though not wholly purified." Unschuldige Nachrichten. Jahrgang 1713. Page 760.

Christians, Spiritual Priests.

The papist Weislinger says in his libelous writing: "Friß Vogel, oder stirb!" page 531, as follows: "When the people had learned from Luther's Gospel that all Christians are priests, they despised the Predicanten (preachers); Lutherus himself confesses that they said without shame: Swineherds, shepherds, and knackers one must have in towns and villages, but Predicanten one does not need." To this the godly Fresenius replies: "That all Christians are priests is not Dr. Luther's, but God's evangelical doctrine, 1 Peter 2:5, 9, Rev. 1:6, whereby the regular office of teaching is nevertheless not abolished. Eph. 4:11. 1 Cor. 12:28-30. Were not Christ and the apostles also despised?"

Here, then, Herr Pastor Grabau and those of like mind have the short answer to their accusation that our doctrine of the spiritual priesthood is a new "Missourian" doctrine, and that it is to blame that already some congregations have chased preachers of our Synod away. On the whole, those