# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1852 11 23_S51
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

51

its Church, and Cain had to go out with his own. When, later, in the time of Noah, the children of God united themselves with the children of men, that is, with those who had forsaken God's pure Word, the Church suffered such great distress that God, in order to preserve the orthodox Church of Noah, had to destroy the whole rest of the world. Again, when the orthodox Church of Shem had dwindled down to the family of Abraham, and false worship had arisen everywhere, Abraham at last received the express command to separate himself from the false church, to which his father also belonged; God said to him: "Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee." And what was the whole leading of the people of Israel but God's constant endeavor to separate the orthodox Israelitish Church from all false churches in the world and to keep it pure? What were all the preaching of the holy Prophets of the Old Covenant but constant admonitions to Israel to separate themselves strictly from all who set up false worship? — And if we go further into the New Testament, is not this also again full of divine commands that the orthodox Christians shall separate themselves from the heterodox? So first Christ Himself says: "Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves." But can he say that he beware of the false prophets who even holds with the parties which they have founded? Christ says further: "Then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there; believe it not. For there shall arise false Christs and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect. Behold, I have told you before. Wherefore if they shall say unto you, Behold, He is in the desert; go not forth: behold, He is in the secret chambers; believe it not." Further the holy Apostle Paul writes, Rom. 16: "Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them." And in the 6th chapter of the 2nd Epistle to the Corinthians he writes, when many Corinthians had intimate intercourse partly with heathen idolaters, partly with heretical men: "Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be My sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty." Finally the same Apostle writes: "If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord JESUS Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness, he is darkened. From such withdraw thyself. A heretical man" (that is, a man who by false doctrine causes division) "avoid, after the first and second admonition." From this you see, my hearers, it is God's clear prohibition that the orthodox Christians enter into fellowship with the heterodox. Whoever does it, therefore sins against an express prohibition of the LORD, and whoever does it knowingly and willingly sins thereby grievously, yea, mortally.

But fellowship with the heterodox is sinful not only because it runs against a clear prohibition of God, and so one sins thereby oneself, but also because one thereby makes oneself a partaker of other men's sins.

All heterodox communions, in the first place, have their origin already in sin. Had the founders of the heterodox congregations remained in the common Christian faith and in brotherly love, there would also have arisen in Christendom no such countless parties and sects. The departure from the common Christian faith and the rending of the bond of brotherly love has given existence to all the other churches beside the orthodox. Therefore, too, the continued existence of the heterodox churches or sects is nothing else than a continuing and progressive sinning against faith and against love. The heterodox churches are, as such, armies which false teachers have gathered to maintain and spread their false doctrine, but to suppress the pure doctrine and not let it arise, and to fight against the orthodox Church, to rend it asunder and, if possible, to destroy it utterly. What, therefore, does he do who joins a heterodox church? He makes himself a partaker of all its sins. He is a soldier enlisted by a false teacher, who has placed himself in rank and file with those, and strengthens those, who falsify the faith and break love, who defend the false doctrine as their own stronghold, and fight against the orthodox Church and seek its downfall. What the citizens in a republic do who let themselves be enlisted by a factious man, who uses them to fight against the constitution of a free state and to bring about rebellion and factions in it: that is what a Christian does in the Church who joins a heterodox communion in Christendom.

He must not think that he is of a better mind than many members of his sect, and will therefore be as little a partaker of the sins of his sect as a member of the orthodox Church is of the sins of its members. He is in a wholly different case. In the orthodox Church also there is, to be sure, erring and sinning, but there error counts as error, sin as sin; but in the false church its peculiar error counts as truth, its sin of schism as right. If a Christian therefore believes better than the sect to which he knowingly adheres, so much the worse for him. As to him who knowingly and willingly joins the rebels, the authorities impute all the robberies and murders which are committed by the members of the rebellious band, even though he himself has not personally robbed and murdered with them: so also to him who knowingly and willingly adheres to a heterodox church, all the errors and sins of the whole heterodox communion are imputed by God, even though he does not personally cherish them. Therefore the holy John, the disciple of love, says in his second Epistle in warning earnestness: "If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed. For he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds."

How? Must it not then be the holy duty of him who would belong to the invisible Church of the children of God to separate himself from those who falsify God's Word and obstinately persist in their errors, since he thereby not only acts against God's express prohibition himself, but also makes himself a partaker of so many strange sins? — Who will deny that? —

But, my dear friends, apart from the fact that a Christian has this duty because fellowship with the heterodox is so sinful, he has this duty also for this reason: because it is also so dangerous, so harmful and so ruinous, both for himself and for others.

That it is perilous to the soul and ruinous for a Christian to join a sect which openly rejects God's Word and denies all the mysteries of the Christian faith, everyone certainly sees who has made even the slightest beginning in Christian knowledge. But when the errors of a sect are not so gross and manifest, many think, what harm could it do them if they held to it, which, after all, still has the chief doctrines of Christianity! Yea, because such heterodox communions often have a great appearance of special love, kindliness, humility, meekness and zeal, some think they had in such communions not only no harm to fear, but even more blessing and edification than among the orthodox Christians,