# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1854 06 20_S170
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

170

obligations of Christianity are laid upon us. *)

True, obligations are laid upon us in Baptism, but an obligation which is laid upon us is not what God undertakes to do, but what we are to undertake to do. Now we ask: Can anyone undertake to regenerate himself? Should he nevertheless be able to (and that is presupposed, if regeneration is to belong among the obligations) — then to what is regeneration made? To God's work or to man's work?

In Q. 14 we find a sentence which does not indeed concern regeneration, but does concern the chapter on the holy Trinity already discussed.

The author's expression is yet another example that the author wants by no means to call the Son and the Holy Ghost God. **)

It lay so near to say: in God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost, but he uses the addition "God" only with the word "Father," while with the Son and with the Holy Ghost he leaves it out. It would not be so striking if he had given the little word "God" to none of the three persons and had said simply: "Father, Son and Holy Ghost, but then he would have made all three persons equal to one another. Now whoever holds all three persons to be God need naturally make no matter of conscience of this equal placing. But he whose conscience smites him, that he would then also make the Godhead of the Father doubtful, deliberately sets the little word "God" alone to the Father, and thereby betrays that he holds it no sin not to hold the Son and the Holy Ghost for God.

And if anyone should wish to excuse the author and say that the little word "God" is indeed set only with the Father, but is without doubt to be referred to all 3 persons, we answer: This reference the author himself has prevented, in that he continues in an unequal manner of speech, saying with the Father "God," but with the Son "of God." For thereby he wants the little word God to be understood in a different sense with the Son than with the Father. He does not want it said God the Son; yet he has nothing against its being said Son of God.

Is that not all one? By no means. For when it is said God the Son, all denial of the Godhead of Christ is absolutely excluded. But when it is said Son of God, one still reserves the right to interpret the expression Son of God as one pleases.

(To be continued.)

*) Q. 11. 2. p. 153. ("With what intention is this done?") — "In order to lay upon him the obligations of Christianity."

**) Q. 14. p. 154. "But what are the obligations which are laid upon us in holy Baptism?" — "That we believe in God the Father, the Son of God and the Holy Ghost."

Church and Ministry According to Lutheran Doctrine.

Compiled in fundamental propositions with Luther's testimonies by Dr. G. Chr. Adolph Harleß, President of the Upper Consistory in Munich.

(Stuttgart, Liesching.)

Under this title there has at last appeared, from the distinguished and eminent theologian Dr. Harleß, at the end of last year, a writing in which he gives his voice in the controversy over the doctrine of Church and Ministry as briefly as it is clearly and decisively. Concerning the occasion which the highly esteemed author had for publishing this writing, he himself expresses himself in the preface as follows: "A particular occasion has given rise to the pages herewith published. It was the request, in a controversy that has arisen in the German Lutheran Church of North America, to give, along with others, a kind of arbitral judgment.*) However, since it seems to be a question there not merely of principles, but also of the manner of asserting them in individual cases, I saw myself unable, without a hearing of the contending parties and without insight into the acts of both sides, to pronounce a judgment in arbitral form.**) But the request was important enough to me to put to myself the question whether there did not lie in it a plain hint to break a long silence. For what moves the minds there is, in its ultimate ground, nothing other than that controversy over Church and Ministry which has for some time arisen within the Lutheran Church of Germany and has led to many a feud. I have until now been unable to side wholly and undividedly with either the one or the other of the contending parties. Partly it lay in the matter, partly in the manner of the controversy and the conduct of the proof."

Remarkable is what Dr. Harleß says concerning this, that he has accompanied his theses only with testimonies from Luther. He writes about this: "I proceed here from the oft-made experience that in this controversy over what is in accordance with the Lutheran manner, people speak and write in many places in a way as if one had not read Luther's writings and public testimonies, or not rightly understood them. And yet these are the historical foundation of our public ecclesiastical confession. †) Should the two contradict one another, that would first have to be investigated and proved. Should Scripture bear witness against both ecclesiastical authorities, I should have to submit. But I have found neither the one nor the other until now. Were the latter in particular the case" ("that the Lutheran doctrine contradicted Scripture,") "the controversy would take a wholly different turn. It would then concern the truth of Scripture against Luther. Whether it stands so, or is wished to be so put, one would likewise first have to bring clearly to light. The attempt at clarification I make with the following pages. They enter upon nothing but what seems to me, in the pending question, to belong to the supreme principles. The further consequences arising therefrom, e. g. with regard to the ordination to be arranged by the outward Church, church discipline, and the like, I purposely do not enter upon at present. I shall not withdraw from later service, so far as I can render it and God grants time and strength. But first it is a matter of securing the principle (the fundamental doctrine). One must bridle the horse where the bridle belongs. That it may now be known what I mean, I give my view in short fundamental propositions. When I then cite Luther more fully, I ask that this be regarded not as a mere citation of another's statement. I let Luther speak for me; for he speaks better than I could speak. It is also the way with men of such calling that what they have said for particular times, by providential disposition" (that is, by this, that God, who foresees all things, so ordered it) "seems to have been spoken for all generations. In this sense I introduce him, and indeed in hearty goodwill toward both contending parties. May God the Lord give blessing and peace in growth toward the blessed unity of faith and confession." —

God be praised and extolled to all eternity, that in this latest sorrowful time, when it appeared as if all the influential theologians of our Church, under the appearance of stricter orthodoxy and churchliness, were letting fall not only our Luther, but also our dear Confession in one of the most important doctrines, and were wishing to bring the old leaven of Roman-papistic false doctrine back into our Church as a jewel gradually lost

*) By whom this request was made is not said. Ed. of the L.

**) Dr. Harleß thus does not agree with the principles according to which the Leipzig Conference acted. Ed. of the L.

†) Sad as it is that now not a few theologians who call themselves Lutheran confess outright that they can no longer agree with Luther's and our Symbols' doctrine concerning Church and Ministry, the honesty of such men nevertheless deserves respect; far more deplorable in any case is that there is now a number also of such as, though they depart in a Romanizing direction from that doctrine, yet try by all sorts of dialectical (that is, disputatious) arts to persuade people that they agree with Luther and the Lutheran Confessions. What devastation such a procedure works cannot be expressed. All sense of strict truthfulness, all honesty must perish thereby, and such "holding fast" to the Confession on the part of its "friends" must necessarily undermine the Confession, its authority and its usefulness for the preservation of unity and purity of doctrine more than can be done by its most determined enemies. As regards the persons concerned, we have the hope and the comfort that many of them do violence to the writings of Luther and the Symbols unconsciously, blinded by preconceived opinions. This must, to be sure, soften the judgment upon such persons, but the matter nonetheless remains in a high degree dangerous and ruinous. Ed. of the L.