# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1852 10 12_S28
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

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appropriates Christ with true faith, had wholly vanished. Faith in general was regarded as something very slight, namely as no more than what the godless too can have; a faith that is only in the head and in the mouth and is unable to bring forth any living fruit, yea, can subsist even with open mortal sins. Love was not regarded as a fruit of faith, but as something infused by grace; hence the saving power was ascribed not to faith, but to love.

But also with respect to good works themselves the papistic doctrine was far removed from the sound doctrine of Holy Scripture. Men did not insist on the works commanded by God in the holy 10 Commandments; not on the works which are due from each one according to his station and calling; but on special rules which had sprung from human, self-chosen devotion. Hence so many orders and brotherhoods, which sought their holiness in special rules by which they lived, for which they had neither command nor example in Holy Scripture. These works, when, for example, a monk mortified himself, fasted, prayed so and so much, took certain vows upon himself, went about in special clothing, were held to be the right, good works; yea, men ascribed to them such holiness, power and goodness that even those who lived in common estates without such a rule could share in the same for their righteousness. It went so far that even princes had themselves buried in the cowl which a monk had worn, in order thereby to become partakers of his holiness. The works which a pious Christian, who remained in his ordinary calling in life, did according to the holy 10 Commandments; when the prince governed well; the father of the house did his own work diligently and honestly and brought up the children in the fear of God; when a husband showed his wife conjugal love and fidelity; when children honored their parents and did them good in old age: all these works were esteemed common worldly works. Let the son by all means leave his father in want and misery; if he went into the cloister and served God with monkish holiness, he believed he was doing a much more precious work. Marriage was forbidden to the priests as a common worldly estate, and yet in complete contradiction to this marriage was reckoned among the 7 sacraments. The rules of Christ, which he gives in his Sermon on the Mount concerning the right Christian life, for example, not to avenge oneself, to suffer wrong patiently, to love enemies, to repay hatred with kindness, to renounce oneself and one's lusts, to live in true self-denial; all these rules men gave out in the papacy as so-called evangelical counsels, which are not commanded to every Christian, but only prescribed to those who strive to attain a higher perfection.

How could anyone, amid this host of errors, obtain a clear, certain instruction concerning the way to salvation? Alas, how hard it must have been at that time to be saved! For out of this papistic doctrine of faith and good works there had to come either Pharisaical saints or despairing consciences. And yet we will believe that God also at that time, as in the time of Elijah, had his 7000 who had not bowed their knees to Baal, who from what was still taught rightly in the papistic church itself of Christ and his merit, through the light of the Holy Spirit grasped a certain comfort of faith, while the rest was consumed in them as straw and stubble in the fire of trial.

Among the most notable abuses of the papacy are also yet to be enumerated: the mutilation of the Sacrament, in that the cup was withheld from the laity and consequently only half the Sacrament was given to them, on account of which the Bohemians had already separated from the Roman Church before Luther; further the perversion of the Sacrament into a so-called sacrifice of the mass, to which was ascribed the power that it procures not only for the living forgiveness of sins, but also gives the dead in purgatory relief and release; further the invocation of the saints; the veneration of images and so many superstitious customs, to which men ascribed in part a sacramental character; so much spiritless singing and babbling, of which Christ said long before: "This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me. But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men." (Matt. 15:8, 9.)

Such a heap of errors and abuses had to be cleared away if a true reformation was to be effected in the Church. What man's strength could have accomplished that! And if the wisest and mightiest of the earth had expended all their wisdom and might upon it, they would have accomplished nothing, if the LORD himself, who sitteth at the right hand of God, had not resolved to put an end to this antichristian tyranny, to make the mystery of iniquity manifest and to provide his people a thorough help. The Reformation is not Luther's work, but the work of him who once, according to our text, spoke to the faithless shepherds of Israel: "Behold, I am against the shepherds; and I will require my flock at their hand, and cause them to cease from feeding the flock; neither shall the shepherds feed themselves any more; for I will deliver my flock from their mouth, that they may not be meat for them. For thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I, even I, will both search my sheep, and seek them out. As a shepherd seeketh out his flock, in the day that he is among his sheep that are scattered."

We will now finally consider yet one ground from which it appears that the Reformation was a work of God, and this is:

3.

because it was crowned with the most salutary and most blessed success.

It came to pass not only in spite of all resistance on the part of the papacy, but it was also of such a kind that the countless wounds of the Church were thoroughly healed. What the boldest expectations at Luther's first appearance could not hope for, that came to pass. Pope, Emperor and Empire had joined together to suppress the monk at Wittenberg and his doctrine, and they were not able. No ban, no outlawry, no fire and sword would help any more; it came to pass, the glorious Reformation of the Church! On Luther's side there was nothing but the Word, the mighty Word of Scripture; on the side of the opponents a power such as no mighty conqueror ever led into the field. On Luther's side there was nothing but the faith which defiantly faced the powers of hell, and cheerfully staked goods and blood, body and life for the truth; a faith which refused to accept help from any human arm, but trusted alone in the protection of the LORD of Hosts. On the side of the papacy all the arts of falsehood and wickedness and all the powers of darkness. O truly an unequal struggle in the eyes of men, a struggle of David with Goliath; yea, the most unequal of which history has ever told. And yet the victory had to fall to Luther's side, because the God of Sabaoth was with him; because Christ JESUS himself led the unequal strife through this his servant.

And how gloriously it came to pass! It was a reformation in the true sense of the word; not a mechanical restoration of something that had existed earlier; nor a violent overthrow of what exists — not a revolution which with wanton hand reaches into the rights of others. Yea, it is incomprehensible, and a sign of their blindness and ignorance, when the overthrowers of our day sometimes appeal to Luther's work to palliate their wantonness. No! it was a true reformation, that is: a living new shaping of the Church upon the ancient ground of the divine Word. The Scripture and nothing but the Scripture was the foundation of the glorious new building. By the Reformation it came to its full right, as the supreme and sole judge in all matters of faith. It no longer remained a dead treasure, which hid itself in the libraries of the cloisters, but it came into use and practice. Through the masterly translation of it into the German language, a work by which alone Dr. Luther earned immortal merit, and in which the special assistance of the Holy Spirit is quite plainly to be perceived, the Holy Scripture came into everyone's hands. This very thing it was which the Reforma-