# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1854 03 14_S115
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

115

from unbelief, for the Holy Scripture, in whose sense the narrative ought to have been rendered, is not a human book of fables, but God's inspired and therefore perfectly true Word,—

from the derogation of the honor of God, for the creation of man from earth in the image of God, with everything that belongs to it, is the crown of creation,—

from the derogation of the saving truths, for if we are to imagine Adam in such a way that he could scarcely be measured against the men who lived later, then the loss of the image of God would not be to be lamented, and the restoration of it would at the very least be an indifferent matter.

Enough of this.

We turn yet to another specimen, in which, after what has been said so far, we may be briefer. It concerns

the Loss of Paradise.

The Holy Scripture says, Gen. 3:24:

"So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way."

The Hanöv. Cat. says (Short Religious History, p. 163):

"God drove them away probably by lightnings or by a gulf of fire that had arisen, out of the paradisal region."

We do not reject all conjectures in the field of the Holy Scripture without exception, but what holds of all exposition, preaching and form of doctrine holds of them: it is to be according to the analogy of faith, after the saying:

"Or prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion of faith." Rom. 12:7.

The faith that conforms to Scripture knows on this occasion of nothing else than of Cherubim. These are (as is well known) angels.

But the Hanöv. Cat. passes over the angels altogether and brings a conjecture of lightnings and gulfs of fire.

Now it does not say, to be sure, that God the Lord stationed lightnings and gulfs of fire before the garden, but that He drove them out with these, and it also adds the little word "probably."

But,

1) a conjecture in the mouth of a teacher is more than in the mouth of a common man,

2) a conjecture which is set down in writing and print is more than one merely oral,

3) more still is one which is found in a common-school book, intended for use throughout a whole stretch of country in Germany—

Accordingly such a conjecture is no less than a finger-post toward the understanding of the Holy Scripture.

Now where does this finger-post point?— Precisely to where the omission of the angels points. For if the author once wished to conjecture, why does he not rather conjecture that God accomplished this expulsion by the same servants, namely by angels, by whom He kept men from returning to Paradise?

and why does he not leave out his conjecture altogether?

He wished, after all, to give a concise history. Thereby an inserted conjecture gains significance; for the author has rather let brevity go than his conjecture.

Why?— think upon it, dear reader, and if thou canst find no reason which has proceeded from faith in the trustworthy truthfulness of the Word of God, then remember the saying:

"For whatsoever is not of faith is sin." Rom. 14:23.

If the Holy Scripture is not esteemed by thee as God's inspired and therefore infallible Word, then possibly thine unbelief would confirm the justice of my accusation of the Hanöv. Cat. But if it is esteemed by thee as such, then be not angry at him who has the same faith, confesses and defends it, but at him who by his conjectures about the expulsion from Paradise, about the language of the first men, as well as by his doctrinal propositions about a Word of God not inspired, but written only under extraordinary assistance of God, threatens to make this faith waver—not at him who judges the offense, but at him who has presented the offense.

But the examples adduced so far of that irresponsible manner of making the source of all Christian knowledge suspect are far surpassed by how the author treats the history and doctrine of the Person of Christ.

But of that in a separate article.
(To be continued.)

(For the "Lutheraner.")

Karl Friedrich Wilhelm Catenhusen,
late Superintendent of the Duchy of Lauenburg, first spiritual Assessor of the Royal Consistory, Pastor primarius at St. Peter's Church, Ephorus of the Learned School at Ratzeburg.

The memory of this dear man deserves to be established also in the North American Lutheran Church, because it will bring the promised blessing which the memory of the righteous shall have. A detailed biography of him, accurately and beautifully drawn by a Lauenburger, is found in Nos. 66 and 67 of the Sächsisches Kirchen- und Schulblatt, of which the present one is an extract. — The departed was one of the first champions of our Evangelical Lutheran Church in our time, a faithful confessor and servant of the divine Word, a preacher of righteousness by faith alone, a faithful shepherd of his flock, blessed with many fruits, a true father of a whole land, a man with a heart full of humility and obedience toward God, full of love, fidelity and kindness toward men, misjudged and without cause reviled by many, but all the more, and with cause, loved and honored by many. What characterizes the nature of Lutheran piety: above all unconditional, rock-firm adherence to the Word of God, a standing upon the Word, which esteems all heights and depths of human wisdom as nothing against it and knows no higher good in the world than this Word; a burning zeal for the pure doctrine and the Scriptural confession of the Church, which in the struggle for the sanctuary of God yields not a foot's breadth and is ready to give up everything for it, which bears it with pain indeed, but with steadfastness and joyfulness toward God, when it is misjudged and reviled for the sake of the confession by otherwise dear but erring brethren; deep earnestness of repentance and knowledge of sin, and a joyful, ever-comforted faith in the imputed righteousness of Christ; a childlike glad confidence in the certainty of justification, and, far removed from all sour legalism, yet for that reason no less thorough earnestness of sanctification; inwardness of the soul's intercourse with God, which most gladly leads, hidden from the world, a life with Christ in God, yet therewith that priestly mind and that confessor's courage which also wishes to go out into the world with the testimony of Christ for the saving of souls and the increase of the Kingdom of God, joined with the genuine old-Protestant sobriety, which lets itself be allured neither upon the ways of sentimental asceticism nor to self-chosen services, but above all in faithful fulfillment of the divinely appointed calling wishes to serve and win souls; yea, what we praise in the fathers of our Church: the manly strength and bravery, united with childlike tenderness and mildness, the high earnestness of the soldier of Christ, united with childlike cheerfulness and devotion, the ever-bearing and hoping love, the subjection to divine and human order, the zeal and the iron diligence, the steadfastness under the cross, the humility toward God and also toward men—all this was found also in him and has marked him to us as a faithful son of the Church, in whom the spirit of Luther and of the Reformers lived. And that is something great in our time!

Carl Friedrich Wilhelm Catenhusen was born on the 24th of August, 1792, at Ratzeburg in the Duchy of Lauenburg. His father, teacher at the girls' school in Ratzeburg, was a pious, strictly upright man, who from early on held him to the fear of God and to all that is good. Thus the high good of a simple, middle-class Christian upbringing fell to his lot, and the blessing of it accompanied him through his whole lifetime. For although his youth fell in a time when in Germany the confession of Christ was almost