# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1853 03 01_S87
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

87

trated antichristian power within the Church of Christ recognized and demonstrated; and the learned gentlemen of the fashionable, self-made Union of our time would do better to refute this demonstration thoroughly, if they are able, than to smile at it with scornful pity and haughty shrugging of the shoulders as Lutheran narrow-mindedness and to pronounce loftily upon it.

How peaceably, however, Unionism is disposed toward the Papacy, Mr. Schaff proves in the following sentence: "Even the Papacy is regarded by the greatest recent church historians, and likewise by secular historians such as Johann von Müller, Leo, Ranke, Macauley, as an institution thoroughly indispensable for that age and on the whole most beneficial, for the education of the Germanic nations, for the preservation of unity and for securing the freedom and independence of the Church from the secular power. Whatever one may judge, says the Protestant historian Ranke, of the popes of earlier times, they always had great interests before their eyes: the nurture of a suppressed religion, the struggle with heathenism, the spreading of Christianity over the northern nations, the founding of an independent hierarchical power; it belongs to the dignity of human existence that one should will and accomplish something great: these their tendencies the popes pursued with a higher momentum."

Be it granted, namely, that there was indeed a certain difference in the personal disposition of the popes, and that by this one and that one much good was done against the encroachments of the secular authorities upon the rights of the Church and for the Christian discipline and civilizing of the Germanic tribes then being converted, etc., it is and remains nevertheless the standing testimony of Holy Scripture and the continuous confirmation of history that the essential fundamental character and the ruling disposition of the Papacy has remained the same in the course of the centuries, and that it is just as unscientific and unhistorical as it is contrary to Scripture to lose sight so entirely of the antichristian fundamental character of the Papacy that one asserts, against all evangelical light, that the Papacy was "an institution thoroughly indispensable for that age (of the Middle Ages) and on the whole most beneficial," etc.

If a blind, fanatical Papist spoke thus, one might well make allowance for him; but when so-called Evangelicals speak thus, who moreover imagine that they stand upon the height of the culture of the age, and are, if possible, historians looking backward and prophets looking forward, then that is precisely an irrefutable proof how the delusion and jugglery of the false Union has so pitifully blunted the sharp and sound sense for distinguishing truth and lie.

Or, I ask Mr. Schaff, the teacher of the evangelical church, upon his evangelical conscience, whether the Papacy, as in its root, so in its whole appearing and conduct through the course of the centuries, is not a straightway anti-evangelical contrivance. For the learned Professor knows, indeed, better than I, from the indubitable records of history, that the Pope has exalted himself as the vicegerent of Christ and the visible head of the Church of God on earth, who by divine right, by means of the priesthood appointed by him, governs the same; to whom by virtue of this his office alone it belongs to determine the understanding of Scripture, since in the shrine of his heart, be he personally as godless as he will, by virtue of his official plenitude of power the Holy Ghost has his seat and dwelling; who therefore is also the infallible interpreter of the divine Word and of the so-called apostolic traditions, and the supreme, infallibly deciding judge in all controversies of faith and doctrine and over all church councils, and who has the power to command to Christendom new laws, ordinances and ceremonies binding the conscience and obliging to obedience, yes, to change the institutions of the LORD Christ Himself and, for example, to withdraw the cup from the so-called laity, to enjoin celibacy upon the clergy, and for all sins, past and future, to grant indulgence out of the fictitious treasury of the merits of Christ and of the saints?

I ask Professor Schaff upon his evangelical conscience — are these and other parts of the Papacy not shameful anti-evangelical and accordingly also antichristian abominations, since they are indeed essentially and truly against the voice of Christ in the Gospel, falsify the 3d Article of the Christian faith in the most ruinous manner, give churchly sanction to self-righteousness and work-righteousness, and on the other hand trample under foot and stifle Christ's alone and fully sufficient merit and the justifying faith which appropriates it, confuse Law and Gospel in a hopeless fashion, and, without special intervention of divine grace and the Holy Ghost, show themselves thoroughly ruinous to souls, yes, murderous of souls?

Should such a devil's contrivance, at any time, whether the Middle Ages or our own time, have been or perhaps still be "an indispensable and on the whole most beneficial institution," etc., and so, according to God's good and gracious will, have attained such power in the Church? Then truly Judas' betrayal was also an indispensable and for the Church altogether beneficial act; and it almost seems that the LORD Christ — may He forgive my righteous zeal for His honor this seeming blasphemy — judged unjustly when He says, "It had been good for that man if he had not been born," because indeed out of his betrayal and Christ's death upon the cross salvation has sprung up for the world. Yes, it almost appears as though the broad-hearted gentlemen Unionists wanted to make the devil himself pious; for since from his resistance against Christ and His kingdom, in doctrine and life, only good comes forth after all, and he only helps to build the kingdom of God — why should he be so ill judged, and why should there not be room for him also for conversion?

To such excellent conclusions, however, Professor Schaff and his learned authorities, those famous German historians, must necessarily come, if in judging the Papacy they do not, according to God's Word as well as the morality of natural reason, carefully hold apart what the Papacy is in itself, in its nature and its ruling disposition and manner of action, through the course of the centuries, and what it has incidentally and relatively wrought of good here and there, that is, what individual Roman bishops, so far as they were Christians (for in so far as they were popes they could hardly be true Christians), have done for the furtherance of the kingdom of God, how they have defended the rights of the Church against the encroachments of the secular arm, and the like.

But even in this latter respect it will first be revealed by the last day whether and how far faith and love were really contained in such, to all appearance, good and beneficent acts of individual popes, and whether it was not rather, in so far as they as popes cared for the spread of the Church, hypocritical work-righteousness, and in so far as they defended the Church against the emperors and other secular princes, spiritual pride and lust of dominion that were the driving motives?

Moreover, Mr. Schaff will hopefully not be of the opinion that, for example, in the evangelizing of the Germanic peoples in the Middle Ages the Papacy was the efficient cause, but will gladly testify with us that it was solely the Holy Ghost who gave to those monks of the cloisters of Ireland the love of Christ, and the irresistible impulse and the holy zeal for the conversion of our fathers. And even if here and there the popes lent assistance thereto, this was certainly not "thoroughly indispensable." Rather would Christianity, even without the mediation of the hand-servant popes, have been able to spread among the German tribes at that time just as well as in the time of the Apostles and the apostolic fathers in other parts of the earth. And certainly the Frisian and Hessian congregations founded by Boniface, for example, would have needed not the Papacy, but only the Holy Scripture, in order to come together, first among themselves and then with other orthodox congregations, partly in fellowship of faith, partly also in a church constitution corresponding to them. On the contrary, the Papacy has precisely here also been the hindrance and the drag, so that these congregations, like others, could attain to no evangelical form and constitution, and were kept down precisely by the recognition of the popes in legal bondage and spiritual immaturity.

To the friendly disposition of Unionis-