# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1853 04 26_S118
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

118

I: I forget what is behind, and reach forth unto those things which are before, and press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. (Phil. 3, 12–14.")

Now, dear brother! I think it will be nearly enough for this time. I hope that you are of one mind with me. In this perilous time, when unbelief and the disesteem of the saving truth, like a cancer, spread ever more mightily, and the furnace in which the dear God purifies his believers and makes them elect grows ever hotter, do not by any means let yourself be ensnared and lured out of your fortress. Bear ever in mind that you carry the treasure which the LORD Christ has won for you and bestowed on you on the day of your baptism in an earthen vessel, which may easily, very easily, be broken. Provide your lamp betimes with oil, that it go not out, when all at once, ere we think of it, it shall be said: the Bridegroom cometh, arise and go forth to meet him! —

God's grace and blessed peace be with you and with your whole house. I remain in hearty love

Your faithful brother Heinrich.

Why is the Confession: I believe in the Bible! not sufficient?

(Conclusion.)

See, dear reader, if you do not wish to be thrown together with such over-wise word-twisters, it cannot be enough for you to make such a confession. Over against all those people who pretend to believe in the Bible, yet in the meantime interpret everything as they please, we Lutherans hold high our Small Catechism and the other Confessional writings and say: As it is briefly composed and comprehended herein, and simply drawn from God's Word, so do we believe in the Bible; therein, in the beautiful Confessional writings, it is said right straightforwardly and plainly how God's Word is to be understood in the right faith. There nothing is twisted and quibbled over, but simply and great it stands there, and if you only say to me: I believe what is summed up in my Small Catechism according to God's Word, then I know enough. Then you confess with me: "I believe that Jesus Christ, true God, begotten of the Father from eternity, and also true man, born of the Virgin Mary, is my Lord" et cetera. — Then you answer with me to the question: What is the Sacrament of the Altar? — "It is the true body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, and so forth. — in short, then it is done with the twisting of words and the quibbling, and there is a firm word and a firm faith and a firm confession.

Therefore it is not enough, in the second place, merely to say: I believe in the Bible, but it must also be said how you believe in the Bible.

In the third place let one thing more be adduced, which hangs closely together with the foregoing. It is not enough merely to say: I believe in the Bible, — because, if everyone who teaches God's Word in school and church may interpret the same according to his own opinion, the poor Christian congregations will never obtain a firm faith.

Just think once how it stands among us. How many kinds of faith have been preached in your church alone, dear reader, since you can remember?*) Surely as many kinds of faith as there have been pastors standing up there on the pulpit. There comes into a Lutheran congregation once a preacher who says: I believe in the Bible, but is Reformed and teaches therefore the Reformed faith. Then comes one who calls himself evangelical or united, and maintains that he believes in the Bible and preaches as it comes into his mind, now Lutheran, now Reformed, now Christian, now unchristian; wavers to and fro like a reed in the wind! —

*) The writer speaks here of how it goes in the German congregations, where the symbolical books are no longer held valid and the preachers are no longer made to swear to them. D. R.

Then comes one who preaches of God's Son, of one Redeemer, who died for us, of faith and grace and justification, but interprets these highly important words quite otherwise than Holy Scripture and the Lutheran Church would have them understood. Then comes again another, who makes sugary, fine speeches, so that the old women weep every Sunday in church, but hear nothing at all of faith in the end. After that comes another, who holds moral sermons and tells the people always what they should do, — but whence they are to take strength for the doing and comfort for their sins, of that he says nothing. And by chance, — no, not by chance, but by God's grace there comes then also once a truly Lutheran pastor into the pulpit, who preaches the right faith, as it ought always to have been preached by right, — but then it has by that time become so bad with unbelief that the people scold and rail at the sharp, Lutheran preachers. But the gentlemen who have destroyed the Lutheran faith from the pulpit all say: we believe in the Bible! — Do you see now what is said thereby? Nothing at all; we still do not know how we really stand with such a man; we must have a definite confession absolutely.

And just so as in the church, it goes also in the school; there also, among 20 teachers hardly once does one come into a Lutheran congregation who teaches the right faith.

Now I ask you, dear reader, what is to become of the poor congregations? Is it to be wondered at, under such management, that it is so bad? — With the old hymn we must lament:

Ah God from heaven, look down and see
And let it move thy pity,
How few are thy saints left to thee,
Forsaken we poor wretches!
Thy Word men suffer not to stand,
The faith is also quenched in the land
Among all the children of men.

It cannot be otherwise, however, since the preachers and teachers do not preach one and the same faith, but now so, now otherwise, according to their opinion. So it has come to this through the fault of the preachers and teachers, who themselves had not the Lutheran faith, — "through the false prophets," as an old farmer in my congregation calls them, that the congregation no longer has a firm ground of faith, — and hence comes all our misery and misfortune.

If it is to go better with us, the Word must again be preached pure and clear, and the people instructed and brought up in the true and in one and the same faith. It must again come to this, that a Lutheran congregation absolutely gets and accepts no teacher and pastor who is not good Lutheran and earnestly promises to set forth good Lutheran doctrine also.

If now a teacher or pastor is to be appointed in your congregation, — I mean here in a Lutheran congregation — then it is duty to send only one who is himself Lutheran and not merely so called. If the authorities do not do this, then it is the duty of the congregation to go to the pastor or teacher and to ask: What is your faith? If he says, as will mostly happen: I believe in the Bible! — then we know already what we have in the answer. With that we are not yet satisfied, for the German-Catholics and Friends of Light tell us that too, but we want to know more exactly. — Are you Lutheran, — or Reformed, — or what. Do you believe the Small Catechism from beginning to end, and will you preach and teach faithfully according to it and not depart from it by a single little word?" — If he says to this a hearty and sincere yes, and promises faithfully so to do, — good, then the man is right and we know what we have to expect. But if we get no definite answer and it says again: I believe in the Bible! — then the man is not Lutheran, — but has some other faith or also unbelief, — and so he can by God's and right's law never and nevermore become teacher or preacher in a Lutheran congregation. Against such people all Lutheran congregations should step in, and should by no means suffer the tares of false doctrine to be sown in the congregation. Such faithfulness the Lord requires of us (Rev. 2, 10).