# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1852 12 07_S60
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

60

gated. But the peace of the whole Church has never yet been furthered by any indifferentizing.†) The history of the past and of the present confirms that the confessions dwell peacefully only after secured boundaries.

†) That is, the declaration that any difference in the divine doctrine is a matter of indifference. The Editor.

"Oh that I might hear what God the LORD would speak, that He would speak peace unto His people, and to His saints, that they turn not again to folly!"

(Submitted.)

Preserve Us, Lord, by Thy Word.

(Extract from: Koch's Geschichte des Kirchenliedes.)

Our father in the faith, Dr. Martin Luther, composed this hymn in the year 1542, thus not long before his death, so that believing youth might have a sure, short and earnest prayer against the Pope and the Turk. He himself called it "A Children's Hymn, to be sung against the two arch-enemies of Christ and of His holy Church, the Pope and the Turk." His children in the faith, however, the Lutheran Church, have held this hymn in high honor, and have fixed in the old church orders that it be sung not only at all services, but especially also at the ringing of the prayer-bell in the morning and evening. Would it not be good if we, too, used it diligently in churches, schools and homes?

"Preserve us, Lord, by Thy Word," is a lofty hymn of confession of our Lutheran Church, a strong defense and weapon of Christendom and especially of the Lutheran little flock of the Church, now sorely oppressed. In this hymn the first three petitions of the Lord's Prayer are described in good order: in the 1st verse we pray to God the Father for the true and right doctrine, in the 2nd to God the Son for the kingdom and the power of Christ, in the 3rd to God the Holy Ghost for the unity of the godly in this life, until they shall attain to eternal concord. When thou singest: "Preserve us, Lord, by Thy Word," it is well to ask: Hast thou it, then? — Yes; in the church, in the book, but also in the heart? — It is good that it resounds in the church, from the pulpit; God preserve it! But the heart must possess it also; there it belongs (Hos. 4:1). Furthermore: if God is to preserve His Word, we too must set much store by it. And when thou singest: Give Thy people one mind on earth. — Ah, who still knows aright what spiritual fellowship is? how cold is everything, how confused! — Seest thou, Christian, thou mayest well learn repentance from this hymn, so that thou mayest also draw courage from it for the right confession.

It is told of this hymn as follows: When the Turkish emperor, one of the arch-enemies of Christendom, once wished to go to war against the Christians, he called his learned men together and asked whether he would also have good fortune against the Christians. Then the learned men answered: in the field, where he would contend with his people against them as men against men, he would have good fortune, but there were yet many little children in Germany who kept twittering: "Preserve us, Lord, by Thy Word, and curb the murderous rage of Pope and Turk," and these would strike him and drive him back without any defense or weapons. — This story is, to be sure, probably a legend, but the lesson in it is quite right, and it is certain that this lofty hymn has often made the other arch-enemy of Christendom, the Pope and his companions, very anxious and therefore very angry. A Roman Catholic duke once said to his courtiers: Gorge, guzzle, whore and rake as you will, only do not become Lutheran and do not sing that blasphemous hymn: Preserve us, Lord, by Thy Word. In the year 1548 it was forbidden to be sung in Strasbourg on pain of bodily punishment, likewise under heavy penalty in the year 1662 in the principality of Oels and in 1713 in all Silesia. When Tilly on the 10th of May 1631 took the city of Magdeburg by storm and his soldiers murdered and burned, the school children of the place marched in order across the market-place and sang the hymn. Enraged at this, Tilly had all these children cut down by his Croats. "Preserve us, Lord, by Thy Word" has a whole crowd of witnesses, even martyrs, around it.

But the Lutherans of the present time no longer like to sing the hymn as Dr. Luther sang it and as it is printed in our hymnal. They think it is really too coarse, that line: And curb the murderous rage of Pope and Turk: is it not so? The confession against the Pope they may at most have in the book, but to sing it aloud, to call the Pope publicly a murderer, that sounds too crude and intolerant for our enlightened times. But just hear how our fathers did it. — At the court of the Lutheran confessor Duke Ernst of Brunswick there stayed in the year 1558 the ambassador of a great Catholic prince, and he often attended church with the courtiers and the other ambassadors. There they frequently sang: Preserve us, Lord, by Thy Word, and curb the murderous rage of Pope and Turk. This vexed the Catholic gentleman; he went to Duke Ernst and demanded of him that he forbid the singing of that hymn. The duke replied: My preacher is not called to this, that I should tell him what he should preach and sing, but he is called to this, that in God's stead he should tell me and mine out of His Word what we are to believe and do, that we may be saved; him we are to hear and to obey as God and Christ Himself; Matt. 15 and 18, Luke 10. Therefore I know to let him sing this hymn, not to forbid it; if ye will not hear it, then stay out of the church or go home.

But it seems to you perhaps strange to call upon God's help against the Turk, since the Turk, at least here in this land, can do us no more harm and has been made altogether harmless in Europe also. Yet you must well consider that by the Turk is meant an arch-enemy of Christendom itself, who accordingly brings false doctrine. The Turk spread the doctrine of the false prophet Mohammed, that is, the doctrine that the Lord Christ is nothing more than a prophet like Moses and lesser than Mohammed, that blessedness consists in mere carnal joys and unceasing voluptuousness, and the like. Now let me ask you, do not many people round about you preach such doctrine? The so-called rationalists, the Free Men and the like, teach just as the Turks do concerning the Lord Christ, and murder many a poor soul. Is it not therefore well done to pray to God even now against the Turk? When you sing: And curb the murderous rage of Pope and Turk, you call upon God for aid, first, against all those false teachers who would take from us the pure doctrine of justification by grace alone, through Christ's merit; second, against all those teachers who would rob us of Jesus Christ, true God and true man, and degrade Him to a prophet like Moses. Therefore sing diligently: Preserve us, Lord, by Thy Word, and curb the murderous rage of Pope and Turk.

At Reichenberg in Bohemia, the eighty-three-year-old servant of God, Andr. Hirsch, had already been in the 53rd year of his evangelical ministry. Then in the year 1624 all the evangelical preachers of the land were banished at once; Hirsch had to yield church and parsonage to a Roman mass-priest, while all the bells were rung and the Catholics held a solemn procession. Trembling, the bowed old man tottered on his walking-staff out through the gate, but more than 2000 people gave him escort amid weeping and lamentation as far as the Hunnersdorf height. There they stood still; Hirsch preached on Acts 20:17-38 and exhorted them to steadfastness and fidelity toward their Lord Christ, and prayed with them; then they all joined in with great sobbing: Preserve us, Lord, by Thy Word, and departed.

Dr. Jakob Weller, a faithful servant of the Lord, who from 1646 to 1664 preached the pure Word of God at the court of the Elector John George of Saxony, lay on his deathbed in the year 1664. At parting from his colleagues in office he declared that he would persevere in the doctrine which he had publicly urged out of God's Word until his blessed end, and with it appear with joy before the judgment-seat of Jesus Christ; he had committed his soul to the whole holy Trinity and wished in true faith in Jesus Christ thus to depart in blessedness. Shortly before his end he had his family still hold the hour of prayer, kneeling before his bed, then said: "I shall now sleep softly until the last