# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1853 07 05_S156
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

156

sius, awakened, to develop these assaulted fundamental doctrines of the truth unto salvation, according to the side of the attack, the more exactly out of God's Word, and to set them, over against the opposed heresies — which have always been the snuffers of the light of the pure doctrine of the Church — in so much the clearer light. And this took place and always takes place thus, that the orthodox Church, which is at all times grounded in the love of the truth and in the truth of love, does two things; first, that it excludes and rejects in the sharpest and strictest manner the false and Scripture-contradicting element which the conceited arrogance of the heretics, through the devil's blinding, carries into the pure doctrine, mostly from the opposite side, and thereby obscures and falsifies it; then also, that it, as it were, gathers again and unites the ancient saving truth, shining forth anew the clearer and more articulated by such exclusion of the appended error, from the mostly opposite sides of the attack; and precisely in this process, combating the alien, the errors, and uniting the kindred, that is, the different sides of the truth, the orthodox Church has been from of old the true Union, outside of which there was no other, is none, and will be none.

Compare, for example, the Nicene and still more the Athanasian Creed with the so-called Apostles', and one will see from it how those two only develop more exactly and determine more closely the truth already contained in this, as an answer to God's Word, against the opposed heresies of the Antitrinitarians of every sort and color.

It was therefore quite natural that at that time, in the first centuries of the Christian Church, the fundamental doctrines of the triune God and of the person of Christ came especially to the fore on account of the attacks of the heretics; and that the Lutheran Church, as the orthodox Church of our time, esteemed this noble, rich treasure of doctrine highly and dearly, she proves, as said, precisely thereby, that she places the Apostolic, Nicene and Athanasian Creed before the Augsburg Confession and confesses herself to them.

But I ask, is she therefore less churchly and less truly catholic, because Luther and his fellow laborers and later witnesses, through the semi-Pelagian-papistical heresies of that time, which afterwards in the Council of Trent were still established and confirmed as church law, were compelled to put those two no less important fundamental doctrines, of the Holy Scripture and of justifying faith, the more decidedly to the front?

Moreover, this latter article of faith, of the justification of the sinner before God, is also as essential a fundamental doctrine as those two, of the triune God and of the person of Christ; for what would the purity of these two points of doctrine help us, if that which concerns the appropriation of salvation in Christ unto the forgiveness of sins and the salvation of souls out of the Gospel, solely by means of faith, in its evangelical purity and sincerity, is by the pernicious admixture of the divine Law and its works, or even of human commandments and their fulfilment, as cooperating to salvation, in the most harmful and dangerous manner defiled and falsified, as is done alike by the Papists and the fanatics?

Finally, however, this also is certainly not to be denied, that, so far as the doctrine of justifying faith, so thoroughly and on all sides worked out in the Lutheran Church and presented in right connection with the related points of doctrine, is also inwardly lived and experienced — as a sound Lutheran with right lives and moves therein — a peculiar enlightenment concerning the sense and connection of the Holy Scripture is thereby, through the grace of the Holy Spirit, also connected with it. Hence comes, for example, in Luther's writings, as chiefly in his larger exposition of the Epistle of St. Paul to the Galatians, in his exposition of the 14th, 15th and 16th chapters of the Gospel of St. John, and of one of his favorite books of the Holy Scripture, namely the 1st Book of Moses, the sound and thorough understanding of Scripture, especially with respect to the fatherly disposition of God toward the children of men and particularly His believers, to the entire depravity and impotence of human nature in consequence of Adam's fall, to the distinction between Law and Gospel, to the power and glory of faith, which appropriates God's gracious promise in Christ through the Gospel, to the exercise of this faith through love, to the comfort in this faith under all manner of cross and trial, to the sonship of God and the future glory out of this faith, through which alone even here below the true Christians are in God and God in them. And the same thoroughly evangelical spirit one finds also in the Lutheran books of sermons, hymns, edification and prayer of the 16th and 17th centuries — a spirit which one would hardly find so consistently in its purity, power and unction, in its sound application to heart and life, to doing and suffering, even in the pure teachers of the first centuries, among whom here and there a, as it seems, semi-legal sanctification hindered and obscured the clear and thorough knowledge and experience of justifying faith and of the joyful and blessed state of grace of the children of God resulting therefrom.

The Eastern Evang. Luther. District Synod of Ohio.

Herr Pastor Bierdemann, Secretary of the Synod named in the heading, has had the kindness to communicate to us for the "Lutheraner" the extract given below from the proceedings of the same during its last annual meeting. We communicate this extract to our readers with special joy not only because they will see from it that the Synod has resolved to recommend the "Lutheraner" to its congregations, but above all on account of several other excellent resolutions, through which the Synod testifies its zeal equally in matters of doctrine and of life. As to the second part of the 6th resolution and No. 7, we admit freely and openly that we have objections to them; we hope, however, to be able to express our conviction regarding both points on a more suitable occasion.

We now let the extract follow.

The Synod began its sessions this year on Thursday the 19th of May, at 9 o'clock in the morning, and there were present, besides Schweizerbarth, 12 preachers and 9 congregational delegates.

This session was an unusually solemn one, in that it was our sad duty to exclude three members from our midst, and we all felt deeply how soon man sinks when the mighty hand of the Lord does not hold him. On the other hand, however, it was again very refreshing through the brotherly disposition of all the members toward one another, and the confessional fidelity which manifested itself in the speech and action of all.

In the sessions of the Synod the following 10 points were chiefly dealt with:

1. Schismatic Congregation. The principle was declared that we cannot recognize congregations which separate without cause from existing congregations. This principle was applied to the "first free Evangel.-Lutheran St. Stephen's Congregation at Zelienopel."

2. English Luther. Hymn-book and Liturgy. A committee was appointed to cooperate with committees of the western and northern districts to publish a genuinely Lutheran English hymn-book, to which an English liturgy with responsories is to be appended.

3. Disapproval of Secret Societies. It was resolved:

That the Synod not only regrets, but recognizes it as wrong, when Lutheran ministers become members of such societies, or support them.

4. Connection with the General Synod. Concerning this it was resolved:

That the Eastern Evangelical-Lutheran District Synod of Ohio can never connect itself with the General Synod so long as the latter takes the anti-symbolical standpoint which it has hitherto taken.

5. Disapproval of those who slander Christian, confession-faithful preachers, was expressed with reference to an attack in the "Missionary" upon Pastor Hölsche.

6. With reference to the Displacing of confession-faithful preachers the Synod resolved as follows:

Resolved: That our Synod cannot at all approve that, when a confession-faithful preacher is displaced from his congregations for the sake of the pure doctrine, another member of our body in their