# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1854 04 25_S137
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Der Lutheraner.
"God's Word and Luther's doctrine pure shall to eternity endure."
Rev. John, Chap. 14, v. 6.7.
Published by the German Ev. Luth. Synod of Missouri, Ohio and Other States.
Edited by C. F. W. Walther.
Volume 10.  St. Louis, Mo., the 25th of April 1854.  No. 18.
Terms: Der Lutheraner appears once every two weeks at the yearly subscription price of One Dollar for outside subscribers, who are to pay the same in advance and bear the postage. — In St. Louis each single number is sold for 5 Cents.
Only the letters which contain communications for the paper are to be sent to the editor; all others, which contain business matters, orders, cancellations, money, etc., are to be sent hither under the address Mr. F. W. Barthel, care of C. F. W. Walther, St. Louis, Mo.

(Sent in for Der Lutheraner.)

The So-called Great Hanoverian Catechism,

judged by Wege.

(Continuation.)

Concerning Christ.

Our Lord Christ says, Matt. 10, 33. "Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also, etc."—

Therefore we ought in general, and in the textbook from which Christianity is to be learned in particular, to confess Christ.

To a right confession, however, belongs among other things the express and unambiguous assent to the doctrine of the Holy Scripture.

Therefore it is no right confession if one says no more of Christ than what any heathen or Jew can also say.

It is no confession if one concedes ever so much to Christ, but will not say the one thing only, "He is God."

It is no confession if one cites ever so many passages of Scripture concerning Christ which testify to his Godhead, and yet does not say that the doctrine expressed in them is right and demands faith.

The Hanoverian Cat., however, when it speaks of the origin of Christ, calls him only

"the son of a poor Jewish mother, with whom, however, God had in an incomprehensible manner most closely united himself."
(Short Rel. History, p. 171.)

That he was the son of a poor Jewish mother is no more than what any Jew, heathen or Turk can also say, if he only knows the history.

It is no confession of the Godhead of Christ when it is said, God had united himself with him, although it adds "in an incomprehensible manner and most closely."

The Holy Scripture says: Christ is the true God and etc. 1 John 5, 20.

The Hanoverian Cat., however, grants only a union and thus teaches not to believe in the Godhead of Christ, but to doubt it.

This doubt is strengthened by the expression

the son of a poor Jewish mother

for a poor Jewish mother she remains, but a virgin she does not remain, if she, instead of by the Holy Ghost, had become pregnant by a man.

Therefore it is not merely a slander of Mary, but a casting of suspicion upon the conception of Christ, when she, instead of a virgin, is called only a poor Jewish mother.

But if Christ is not conceived of the Holy Ghost, then his conception must be not only purely human, but also in a peculiar degree impure. For since Joseph is not the father, as is expressly testified, not only must Mary have been the most unworthy to bear the Saviour of the world, but also the whole holy history, and with it the whole Holy Scripture, would become the most shameless lie.

Mary would lie to the angel's face when she says (Luke 1, 34.) "seeing I know not a man"—the angel would lie to Mary when he says Luke 1, 35. "The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, etc."—the angel would also belie Joseph, and the Holy Scripture us.

If Christ is not conceived of the Holy Ghost, then Christ cannot be God, then he himself needs a Redeemer, and faith in him as a Redeemer is just as vain as it is foolish.

These conclusions are so evident that they need no further proof, but also of such great weight that not great acuteness is required, but only a hearty zeal for the honor of Christ, in order to measure thereby how much it has to say when one in a history of religion which is put into the people's hand as a Christian textbook, and which, the shorter it wants to be, the more pith-