# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1853 12 20_S68
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

68

of the Church sanctifies the means of breach of faith, would not have held it permitted and advisable to abrogate. We recall only the "irrevocable" Edict of Nantes and the Peace of Westphalia. The abrogation of the former the Jesuits compelled; at the abrogation of the latter they have worked, however, without success. Also of these shameful principles, that under circumstances one need not keep one's word, and especially not to heretics, the root lies already in the Institutum of the order, wherein it says among other things: "Vows which our members made when they were still in the world are annulled in our Society, and so one must understand that the obligation of the same (vows) ceases as long as they remain in the order." (I, 700.) One sees from this that with entrance into the Jesuit order all conscience for the sanctity of a promise made must at once vanish from the soul of the one entering.

Maldonatus: A judge does not sin if he condemns anyone according to the law, although he himself knows that the same is innocent." (Summ. quaest. 7. art. 3.)

Castro Palao: "Finally, as often as an honest cause presents itself to conceal the truth, one may without sin make use of an ambiguous oath, etc. Therefore, as Sanchez, Bonacina, and others in their writings well say, even if one begs that all ambiguity be set aside,– yes, demands on oath that the truth be told sincerely and unambiguously, one can nevertheless always swear with a double meaning and use reservations, since it is self-evident here that one is to use no wrong kind of double meaning." (T. III. tr. 14. p. 7.) Who can now, after this, believe the present Jesuits, even if they affirmed it with a bodily oath, that they have now given up the old practice of their forefathers of using words of double meaning in the oath for the deceiving of others? If the present Jesuits have become different, why do they now appear as the renewed old Jesuit order? why are they not ashamed of a name which recalls a society which has systematically poisoned and destroyed all morality?

The reader sees that the Jesuits have the ten commandments turned about. They read: thou shalt have other gods; thou shalt misuse the name of God; thou needest not hallow the holy day; thou needest not honor father and mother; thou canst kill; thou canst commit adultery; thou canst bear false witness against thy neighbor; thou canst covet thy neighbor's goods. The Jesuits have, by their principle that the good purpose sanctifies the bad means, got all ten commandments off their necks, for themselves and for those who wish to entrust themselves to them. They are the ones of whom Isaiah, chap. 28, prophesied: "Ye have said, We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come unto us: for we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood have we hid ourselves." How deeply the Roman Church has sunk precisely now is therefore evident already from this, that it now almost universally praises the Jesuits and has called them to its help in this time. We could still adduce a great multitude of testimonies for the depravity of the morality of the Jesuit order (indeed we have left out just the most abominable ones, offending the sense of shame), but it disgusts us to copy out more. Let this be enough for this time. Let every reader now judge for himself what he is to think of the local "Herold des Glaubens," when the same calls the Jesuit order "a society which has deserved so well of the world in every respect and stands alone," and which is not ashamed to write: In conclusion we should like to know some writing or work of a Jesuit in which the principle is expressed that the good purpose sanctifies an otherwise evil means." It is clear that only a Jesuit, into whose face no blush ever comes, can ask and say so.

(To be continued.)

(Communicated.)

Concerning Besel's pamphlet on the "Little Baptism" in this year's Jahresbericht.

The undersigned has, to his regret, read this article in this year's Jahresbericht, and feels himself constrained, for the sake of the Lord's cause, to give some correction concerning it.

That the "style" has not turned out as desired in the little tract on infant baptism, concerning that much could be said. Here, however, only this. Let one picture the audience present. On the one side, people who, before the time when I took over the congregation, for 28 years were visited every 4 weeks with a shallow sermon by lazy, utterly unconscientious Union-makers. Among them there stand indeed now some dear Christians and sensible men, who in my time left the Union; but let one consider the other crowd, and indeed many also in my own congregation, to whom spiritual things must be, as it were, chewed up beforehand, explained again and again, and drilled in; so that I was compelled, even in sermons and still more in school instruction, to clothe a quantity of German words in so-called Pennsylvania Dutch (rather English-Welsh), and in daily intercourse to adapt my speech so to theirs that I am to this day accustomed to that gibberish more than I like. All this in order to reach those neglected little people and lead them to the Savior. Whoever wishes to blame such a thing as spoiling of style, let him consider, I let it be so because the salvation of the people lay at my heart. On the other side were the long-bearded Amish, a variety of Mennonites, who, however, strictly observe neither Menno's nor Dietrich's doctrine, but again form a middle thing, a sect of their own. They have settled there in great numbers, are mostly very rich, and full of cunning to seduce; moreover the god of this world has so blinded them that they are not only utterly unfit for true faith in the Word or Scripture, but are also quite apt for the mockery of important articles of faith. How now to speak with such people? Answer: in their manner and as one can get at them, and how that is to be done only he can know who lives among them. Deliberately, therefore, the disputation, written out beforehand, was composed in a language comprehensible to the hearers, without regard to good style. A clear proof that it never came into my mind to publish this little book in print; otherwise I should surely have polished it off a little.–

Also the "presentation" has not turned out well. When I read this, I put myself in spirit again among those people, whose mind and arrows I indeed knew long ago. The devil was there, as often elsewhere, a stupid devil, otherwise he would not have moved a member, and indeed a delegated member of the Amish congregation, to come to me twice in the evening and tell tales out of school. So I knew beforehand what arrows were to be shot against me. And against these I held up the shield, no matter whether otherwise the one belongs here or the other there; enough, I stood alone before many venomous enemies and claimed the peasant-war right, where schooled tactics are left out of account, for one defends oneself as one can. In this, to be sure, much comes in which to the spectator from afar appears somewhat absurdly rough and unseemly! but there one must again consider the matter and the people present. And what faithful shepherd will still caress such shameless and coarse wolf-men, who for thirty years have seduced so many, many families that they let their children grow up unbaptized! Did I not find in my small congregation, numbering 12 families, alone 19 children who ran about unbaptized, and how many were there still outside my congregation among German families! Let this be considered!

Finally, the "content" also has not turned out well. Thus far I have found nothing which ran counter to the Word of God. But that I handled Tertullian so harshly, because he was against infant baptism, etc., concerning this I must here publicly confess that I precisely omitted this sentence in the oral delivery and only on the approval of my successor in office left it unstruck in the manuscript. I took this whole sentence from Brownle's defense of infant baptism, and confess that instead of this (which I set down literally with mention of the name) I ought to have sought out the source-