# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1854 04 25_S143
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

143

In Christ's Wounds I Stand Here.

"My dove in the clefts of the rock, in the covert of the stairs."

Song of Sol. 2, 14.

Into the clefts of the rock flies the dove,
Where she is safe from the storm:
So also my weak faith seeks
Thy wounds, dearest JEsu Christ!
Which like castles of rock protect me,
When the clouds of misfortune flash about me.
Hail to me for this refuge!
In Christ's wounds I stand here.

When my conscience begins to accuse,
And the long guilt of my life shows itself to me,
When my heart would despair for anguish of sin:
I flee to my JEsus' grace,
Who died on the cross for my guilt,
And obtained forgiveness for me from God.
Sin, thou hast nothing on me:
In Christ's wounds I stand here.

When the heavy doubts assail me,
Whether I also am appointed unto salvation:
I will not dispute thereon with reason,,
Which receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God.
There on the cross in my Saviour's wounds
I have found my election of grace: —
Away from me, all ye doubts!
In Christ's wounds I stand here.

The world speaks: "He has only poverty, suffering
And persecution, who honors the LORD;
Come, I give thee riches, honors, joys,
Pleasure, and all that thy heart desires": —
Should I, to escape the cross,
Sell my Saviour for money?
World, thou art crucified unto me;
In Christ's wounds I stand here.

Satan goes about to devour me,
Ever tempts my flesh and blood to fall away;
If he succeeds not with craft and lies,
He shoots fiery darts full of rage.
But the LORD has bruised his head,
He must flee when we pray to JEsus.
Satan, get thee hence from me!
In Christ's wounds I stand here.

When I, sorrowful, from the last hills
Look into the gloomy valley of death,
And there floats to me on black wings
The angel of death, pale and livid,
When the king of terrors affrights me,
And stretches out his grim hand after me;
I cry: "Death, I defy thee!
In Christ's wounds I stand here."

When I am happily escaped from hell,
Have fled from sins, devils and death;
When I have now won the crown of life,
And stand glorified before God's throne!
Then will I say with tears of joy,
And play the harp for it gladly:
"Praise and thanks be to thee, Jesus!
Through thy wounds I stand here".

Hermann Fick.

How the Papal Church Deals with the Children of the True Church Born within Its Domain.

If one grants that even in the Roman Church many souls are still born again and saved, it is by no means conceded thereby that those who make up the Roman papacy or the papal realm can be true believers and belong to God's Church. By that concession the Lutherans mean only to say that God himself has, in the midst of the papacy, preserved for himself his believers, that is, his Church, from time to time and still preserves it, according to the promise: "Rule thou in the midst of thine enemies," Ps. 110, 2.; and only if one understands these believers by it can there still be talk of a Roman "Church." But as for the papacy as such, it bears the name "Church" as Satan bears the name "god of this world." Far from children of God being born and made blessed through the Roman Church, so far as one understands by it the papacy, rather are the most of the children of God, who are born in its domain of the invisible Church through baptism, spiritually murdered by it again and cast into damnation. This the blessed Gerhard Schmezr has testified among others. He was namely a Dominican monk of Aachen, who, after he had spent eighteen years in the order of that name, at last came to knowledge, fled to Leipzig, and there on the 10th of October 1649 publicly went over to the Evangelical Lutheran Church. In memory of this his exodus out of Babel he thereupon wrote a work under the title: "Das gestümmelte Pabstthum." Therein it says among other things as follows:

"A strife arose in my heart for a whole year about the true saving faith. For because I beheld in the Roman Church the doctrine and life of the monks and priests, I began to doubt whether I had the true saving faith or not. And because Sirach says: Blessed is the man that doth meditate good things in wisdom, and that reasoneth of holy things by his understanding, etc. 14, 22. 23., *) I applied myself to read the Scripture diligently, especially the Epistles of Paul, through which I then received the right true faith in my heart and saw the great thick darkness and shadow of death in which I had hitherto sat. But that my motives (reasons) may be the better understood, I will set forth the faith which the true evangelical Church begets in the hearts of believers, and how dreadfully and tyrannically on the other hand the Papal Church deals with this child of faith.... 1. She puts out its eyes, when she forbids the reading of the holy Scripture, which otherwise (the Jesuit) Cornelius a Lapide calls a sun, which dispenses the rays of its wisdom through the whole world and kindles everything with its heat; Thomas de Aquino, the principium of theology. But if the Scripture is a sun, if it is an eye of faith, if it is a principium from which all theological questions must be drawn and settled: how comes it then that the Roman Church forbids it to all laymen universally to read? 2. She cuts off the head of this child of faith. If Christ is the head of his Church, Eph. 1, 22. 4, 15.: why then does the Pope set himself up for it and rule as a monarch in the Church, exalting himself above all that is called God or divine service? 3. She binds its ears, hands, feet and other members in such wise that they have almost no power; namely, by the excommunications (ban), by the cases reserved to the Pope alone to absolve, by auricular confession, by the prohibition of certain foods, by the prohibition of marriage for the priests (though otherwise they hold marriage to be a sacrament), by the cloister vows, etc. 4. After the mutilation of the body she tears out its heart, namely Christ JEsus with his righteousness, grace and salvation. 5. She withdraws from the soul its nourishment, namely the use of the holy Supper under both kinds. 6. And where does she finally bring the child of faith? A dreadful thing! She is not sated with the death of this innocent child, but ventures to give it up at last also to the red dragon, namely to purgatory! O what a merciless mother!" — All this Schmezr now carries out at length, and closes with the words: "If the papists wish to revile me on this account, then may St. Augustine answer instead of me, who writes: What harm is it to a man that human folly would blot him out of its tablet, if an evil conscience does not blot him out of the book of life?" —

*) A proof by fact of the blessing also of the apocryphal books.

Second Appeal to the Whole Lutheran Church of America.

Beloved brethren! In confidence of the mighty help of you all we have, commissioned by the Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Missouri, Ohio and other States, ventured to propose a union of the Indian congregations at Shebahyonk (Tuscola County, Mich.) and Bethany (Gratiot County, Mich.) and, with the consent of the congregations concerned, to put it into effect. The removal of the Shebahyonk Indians will, God willing, take place within a short time. The latter are willing, joyfully, for the sake of God's Word, to leave their dear old home, in order to seek a new one, about 100 miles distant, in Bethany, where the bread of life, so far as in us lies, will be abundantly supplied to them. With them the Bethany people hope that we shall help them all, on the occasion of the union of the two congregations, to set up a common Indian village with farms, where to each family about 40 acres of woodland shall be allotted, that they may work it after the manner of American farmers and eat their own bread in the sweat of their face. You should have heard and seen yourselves with what joy the promise which we gave them in this respect