# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1852 10 26_S34
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

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obtain, so long as God is angry with him as a despiser and blasphemer of the truth? But no, he does not think of that; his lovingly Unionist pastor's heart looks only to the suffering neighbor, loves him more than God, cares for him first, if only Florencourt comes to peace; the truth, God's Word, God's honor may remain injured and despised, that does not matter much to him, — and rather ten thousand Florencourts should go to hell all in a heap, than that God should be blasphemed and made a liar in His Word. —

We also have a heart for a soul so poor, bewildered and led astray by the sad condition of the Unionist church, but such a Hengstenbergian prayer we dare not bring before the LORD, because we know beforehand that it is displeasing to Him, and that He will not hear it; for He has taught us that no one shall come into the kingdom of heaven, to peace, unless he have first done repentance. Therefore we also hope that the merciful Savior may draw near to this unhappy man, but first, in order to let the lightning of His Law shine into his darkened soul, that he may recognize the abomination of his sin, that he may be terrified that he has despised the Son of God, whom alone to hear has been commanded him by God the Father, that he may recognize that whoever contradicts the Son of God is the devil, even if it were the most holy Pope in Rome, that he may recognize that he has put wretched human ordinances on a level with God's will, yes, above it, and so has fallen into the great and grievous sin of having shamefully injured God's honor and grievously offended God's children. And then may the merciful Savior further give him strength to confess his sin also, not to be ashamed of being publicly exposed, not to fear scorn and disgrace, and so to remove again the offense given. And finally, having attained by God's compassionate grace to the knowledge of truth and falsehood, may he, for God's sake, not unite both, truth and falsehood, with one another, for God's sake not follow this ungodly counsel of Hengstenberg, namely to become a wretched hypocrite, who loves the truth, but does not hate the lie, who confesses the truth, but does not reject the lie, who follows Christ, but does not forsake Belial, who "attaches himself to that which is Christian, which his present church offers him in agreement with the one he has forsaken," but does not cut himself off from the great, abominable remainder of the still remaining un-Christian, who halts between two sides, who is neither cold nor hot, whom the LORD spews out of His mouth. — What must Hengstenberg think of a Luther, who also would gladly have "made his pilgrimage to Jerusalem with comforted heart," but not only attached himself to that which is Christian in the Catholic Church, but unrelentingly, as an incorruptible, noble champion of God, publicly uncovered, repudiated and fought down everything un-Christian in it, and tore himself and his own from the Catholic Church and delivered them from the "Babylonian captivity." Must not Luther be, to Hengstenberg, an insatiable, impatient schismatic? But what judgment Luther has upon a Hengstenberg, a teacher who keeps silent about errors, and yet wants to be a true teacher, we can hear from Luther's own words: (Conversation with Dr. Georg Major. XIV, 1477.) "He who holds his doctrine, faith and confession to be true, right and certain, cannot stand in one stable with others who teach false doctrine, or are devoted to it, nor give good words ever and always to the devil and his hangers-on. A teacher who keeps silent about the errors, and yet wants to be a true teacher, is worse than an open fanatic, and does greater harm with his hypocrisy than a heretic, and is not to be trusted; he is a wolf and a fox, a hireling and a belly-servant, etc., and dares to despise and abandon doctrine, Word, faith, sacrament, churches and schools; he either lies secretly under one cover with the enemies, or is a doubter and weathercock, and wants to see which way it will turn out, whether Christ or the devil will prevail, or is wholly and altogether uncertain in himself, and not worthy to be called a pupil, to say nothing of a teacher, and wants to anger no one, nor to speak for Christ His Word, nor to do woe to the devil and the world." —

The Roman Catholic Church is a murderess, a false prophetess, not, of course, the Christian element that may possibly be extracted from the Roman Catholic Church, for that is precisely not the Roman Catholic Church, but the actual Roman Catholic Church, as it sets itself forth in its confessions, this drop of truth in an ocean of lies, this mass leavened throughout, not by little, but by much leaven, — this Roman Catholic Church is a murderess, a false prophetess. The Son of God says: "Beware of false prophets!" and the Apostle: "Depart from them!" "Come out from among them, and be ye separate," and our Confessions, Smalcald Articles, Appendix: "All Christians shall take heed most diligently not to become partakers of such ungodly doctrine, blasphemy and unjust fury, but shall depart from the Pope and his members or adherents, as from the kingdom of Antichrist, and curse it, as Christ has commanded: Beware of false prophets. And Paul commands that false preachers be shunned and cursed as an abomination." But this Unionist Dr. of Theology knows better, puts, as Luther expresses it, his hand into the mouth of the LORD Christ, says: By no means beware of false prophets, but remain with them and hear them, it does no harm, if only you use caution and do not swallow the whole leavened mass, but first experiment a little, separate the leaven from the leavened mass, and take this preparation to yourselves. God says: "Depart, come out, be ye separate!" But Hengstenberg, the great Hengstenberg in Berlin: depart not, come not out, be not separate! O the godfearing, pious, Unionist theologians and chemists of separation of our time! —

So Florencourt is to "attach himself to that which is Christian, which his present church offers him in agreement with the one he has forsaken." A fine practical counsel, that! How, in all the world, does the German professor imagine it, how is poor, poor Florencourt to set about it? If he, for example, to touch only the nearest cases, goes into the church, shall he sprinkle himself there with the glorious holy water or not? Which would be the agreeing Christian element there, to which he would have to attach himself? And when now the mass begins, this shameful idolatry, what is the man to do there? Alternately stop his eyes and ears with his hands and open them again, according as truth or lie, idolatry or divine service comes, or shall he let everything pass by him quietly like a gentleman and meanwhile pray a silent pater noster, or shall he rather, to avoid these inconveniences, not go to church at all, and become a saint on his own account? But he might yet, going along the street by chance, meet a passing Corpus Christi spectacle, the unhappy man! how is he now to behave? Stand upright, or kneel down, or best of all unite both and stand bowed? — No, no, this mild, well-meant counsel is a heartily bad one; to hope such a thing of a misled, bewildered man is, in fact, unloving and unmerciful! It remains so: if the love of God is not genuine, the love of one's neighbor is worth nothing at all. — So it goes with the Union, as with all fixed ideas that rest neither on a command nor a promise of God, and yet want to build the Church of God; they are as much against God as against the neighbor, and serve Satan! —

Such utterances of a Hengstenberg, of a head and leader of the Union, lead us to a few remarks on the present "stage" of the Union in general. As all phenomena of the times have their time, so also the Union, but this has had its time; for even if the distinguished and wise men of it hope and prophesy ever so brilliant and far-reaching things, it is nevertheless now quite manifest and undeniable that the individual church streams now no longer, as still a few years ago, flow into the exceedingly narrow and confining bed of the Union, but press themselves out of it. For this reason also they have found themselves obliged to widen the river bed, and now no longer call it Uni-