# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1853 02 01_S79
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

79

made. The conversations held with him yielded no other result than that it became quite evident how deeply he was confused in head and heart by the false doctrine of the Roman Church. On the day after his arrival in Breslau he was asked whether he had already taken steps to join the Roman Church. He confessed that this had already happened three weeks before. Thereupon he was suspended that very day, and on the following day he laid down his office . . . . . "Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall!"

Extract

from the Proceedings of the Conference of the District of N. York, assembled at Philadelphia.

On Tuesday, the 12th of Octbr. 1852, the members of the Conference of the District of New York, namely the pastors Keyl, Brohm, Fleischmann, Hoyer, Sommer and Nordmann, assembled at Philadelphia and held their conference sessions there during the days from the 12th to the 15th of Decbr. (inclusive).

Among the questions which came up for discussion was

I. that concerning the sense of the passage Mark 9, 43-50. It is this: Just as it is better to have the hand and the foot cut off and the eye plucked out, if the preservation of the body becomes possible thereby, than to keep the former and be obliged to give up the whole body for it, so you must sacrifice everything that becomes a hindrance to your entering and remaining in the kingdom of God, even if it should seem indispensable to you and be very dear and precious to you. But if you would now present yourself to God as a sacrifice, which is living, holy and acceptable unto God (Rom. 6, 13. 12, 1.), know that you cannot do this of yourself, but your sacrifice must, just as the sacrifice in the O. T. was figuratively seasoned with salt, that it might as it were become savory, likewise be seasoned with fire and salt, that is: with the Word of God and with the cross that comes with it. This seasoning has a power and consecration like fire and salt, so that burning and corroding it consumes at once everything that hinders the entrance into the kingdom of God, and thereafter also keeps away everything that could cause apostasy. So take heed, my disciples, that you do not lose the Word, for without it the sacrifices are not acceptable to God. But help one another also with it, and since (as Luther says) the salt bites, there is need to have patience and peace in the salt; carry on your office in love. —

II. Concerning the validity of the Old Testament prohibitions of marriage for the Christian Church. — Following the example of Brenzius, who distinguishes between the Mosaic and the civil law in the prohibitions of marriage, the distinction between these two laws must be maintained and decisions made accordingly. The Mosaic law on the prohibitions of marriage, however, has binding force for the Christian Church, because it belongs to the moral law; and the civil or secular law has its validity from Rom. 13. — The following rules therefore result in the matter of the prohibitions of marriage.

1. When the Mosaic law and the civil law agree in forbidding a marriage, it cannot take place.

2. When the two laws do not agree:

a. if according to the Mosaic law a marriage is permitted, but according to the civil law forbidden, it cannot take place, because according to Rom. 13 it holds, "Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers;"

b. if according to the civil law a marriage is left free which Moses forbids, the Mosaic law is to be followed, because the marriage laws belong to the moral law. In connection with this question there stood

III. that concerning divorce. For the Christian, marriage is the form of the highest and most perfect personal communion on earth, and indeed a communion entered into for all circumstances and relations of life, — a communion between two. The dissolution of such a communion a Christian may only desire and have carried out — through the lawful authority — when, without fault of his own, he has experienced malicious desertion according to 1 Cor. 7, 15., or adultery according to Matt. 5, 32; 19, 9; or finally the withholding of conjugal duty according to 1 Cor. 7, 4. 5., and the innocent party may, after public divorce has taken place, be permitted by the competent authority to marry again. Yet the dissolution of the marriage covenant is not a duty for the Christian in such cases, but is only permitted to him. He will therefore, mindful of his own deficiency and his faults — compare especially John 8, 3-11. — feel constrained, according to Scripture and in his conscience, not to refuse the guilty party the request for forgiveness of the sin committed and for readmission, and to give ear to the promise of amendment. —

To this question there was joined

IV. that which asks: How can one picture to oneself the polygamy of David and Solomon as so little punished and giving so little offense? — First, it is to be noted that the concubines — Luther's opinion — were poor women whose husbands had fallen in war, and who after their death betook themselves to their relatives and lived with them. — Then, also in Solomon's case polygamy was severely punished; for since he had sinned, according to 1 Kings 11, 1-8, against Deut. 17, 14 ff. and especially against Deut. 17, 17, the LORD says to him, among other things, 1 Kings 11, 11, "I will surely rend the kingdom from thee, and will give it to thy servant."

V. individual questions concerning private confession were answered thus: It must be wished that private confession be recommended more and more urgently than perhaps happens, since, first, it affords the afflicted a greater certainty of comfort than public confession, or — as a Lutheran Catechism of the year 1579 expresses itself on the question why private confession is retained in our Church — "because the erring, the troubled and the melancholy can obtain counsel and comfort in it, and chiefly because we become the more certain of the forgiveness of sins; for what is said to me alone, that touches and moves the heart more than what one hears in common" —, then, however, also because even for the secure and the spiritually proud it by no means seldom has the blessing that it awakens in them, since by the private confessing of their sin they learn to understand the reproving address of the law, "Thou art the man," a longing for absolution. The word of absolution, however, is the chief part in private confession. The announcements for confession can therefore not be regarded as a substitute for private confession.

(To be continued.)

(Submitted.)

Reply

to the "Open Letter to Johannes Bundenthal"

in the "Deutschen Journal," Dayton, O., of the 13th of Novr. 1852.

Mr. Hertzsch! Since you say in the letter mentioned above that I only "lent my name in order to offend several members of your congregation and especially you;" and further below: "That you do not consider me capable of having either devised (for so it should properly read) or written the article designated ("Lutheraner," Jahrg. 9, p. 21.)" etc.: let it serve you for an answer, since you have first of all asserted something for which you have furnished not the slightest proofs, and also cannot furnish, I declare you, on the contrary, to be the one who has both devised and written this empty assertion. Your further assertion of my "total incapacity" does not surprise me, since even the Pharisees declared: "This people who knoweth not the law are cursed." John 7, 49. As for your sympathy and your pitying me, I must answer you with Luke 23, 28. and Sir. 22, 11-13., and should I ever, by God's permission, really "fall into the hands of a hypocrite," I beseech God that He at least not let me fall into yours. With regard to your boastful offer I refer you to Prov. 16, 19. Sir. 22, 14. 2 Cor. 10, 12. Gal. 6, 3. 1 Tim. 4, 7. 6, 5. 2 Tim. 2, 23. Had you made me a less boastful offer, I would perhaps have accepted it, but as it is I must give you Acts 8, 20. Sir. 19, 19-21. to take to heart. Cordially