# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1854 09 12_S11
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

11

Yea, not only against the wolves shall they contend; to them applies even that word: "Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines." (Song of Sol. 2, 15.) "If thou take forth the precious from the vile, thou shalt be as my mouth: let them return unto thee; but return not thou unto them." (Jer. 15, 19.) But of those preachers who shun this conflict it is said in God's Word: "His watchmen are blind, they are all ignorant, they are all dumb dogs, they cannot bark; sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber. Yea, they are greedy dogs which can never have enough. Cursed be he that doeth the work of the LORD deceitfully." (Is. 56, 10. 11. Jer 48, 10.)

be, who teach only for the sake of the belly and therefore in time of need leave their congregation to its bodily peril. Against this St. Augustine writes: "O hireling, thou sawest the wolf coming, and fleddest! Thou answerest and sayest: Behold, am I not still here and not fled? Thou hast fled, because thou hast been silent; thou hast been silent, because thou wast afraid. Fear is the fleeing of the soul. In body thou hast stood still, in spirit thou hast fled." Tract. 46. in Ioh.

In the second place, we see the necessity of conflict and strife for the truth and against false doctrine and false teachers from the example of all the prophets and apostles, yea, of the LORD Himself. All the prophets and apostles not only proclaimed the revealed truth pure and sincere, without the least falsification and weakening (2 Cor. 4, 2.), and so showed themselves not as lords but as "ministers of the Word" (Luke 1, 2.), but they also warned continually against the falsifiers, even against such as disguised themselves as apostles of Christ and as ministers of righteousness (2 Cor. 11, 13-15.), and against the "throne of iniquity, which frameth mischief by a law" (Ps. 94, 20.); they exposed their false doctrine, refuted their apparent arguments, and punished and condemned them in the severest manner. Even a Paul, this man of love, who sang a song to love as no man ever did (1 Cor. 13.), and who himself bore so great a love in his heart that he wished himself accursed from Christ for his brethren, his kinsmen according to the flesh, if he could thereby have saved them, nevertheless calls the false teachers "fools," "dogs," "Satan transformed into an angel of light" (2 Cor. 11, 14. 19. Phil. 3, 2.); he expresses the wish "that they were even cut off," if they but mixed "a little leaven" of false doctrine into the lump of the Gospel (Gal. 5, 9. 12.); yea, Paul dares publicly and solemnly to pronounce the curse upon these false teachers. "Though we, saith he, or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed." And that it may be seen how earnest the holy apostle is with this curse, and how he utters it not in thoughtlessness, not from fleshly zeal, but driven by the Holy Spirit, he repeats it and writes further: "As we said before, so say I now again: If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed." (Gal. 1, 8. 9.) No differently do all the other apostles conduct themselves, even he whom men so often and gladly praise as the true disciple of love of the LORD, John. He even wishes that false teachers be neither received nor greeted. He writes in his second epistle, in the 10th and 11th verses: "If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed. For he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds." Yea, the same John denies salvation and blessedness to all who add anything to God's Word or take anything away from it. He writes in the last chapter of Revelation: "For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book. And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book." (Rev. 22, 18. 19.) And finally, what did Christ Himself do? Are not nearly all His sermons at the same time sermons of controversy against the false teachers? Does He not warn earnestly against all false prophets and call them ravening wolves in sheep's clothing? Does He not call the Pharisees and scribes, on account of their hypocrisy and falsifying of Scripture, "whited sepulchres," "serpents" and "generation of vipers," "fools," "blind leaders of the blind," "thieves and robbers," and pronounce the woe upon them? (Matt. 23, 13-33. 15, 14. Luke 11, 40. John 10, 8.) Shall then the preachers not be "fellowsoldiers" of the apostles and their and Christ's "followers"? (Phil. 2, 25. 3, 17. 1 Pet. 2, 21.)

But, my dear reader, the necessity of strife in the Church for the pure and against the false doctrine is shown finally also by the nature of the matter itself and by experience. It goes without saying, indeed, that God does not need us men for the preservation of His truth, but it is just as certain that He wills to use us for it. If therefore the truth is not to be lost, it must be preached and confessed by us, and also defended against all objections, and the opposing error refuted. The gifts in Christendom are distributed variously. Not every Christian has the gift to discern spirits, to see through fallacies, to notice always at once the often at first slight departure from the pattern of the pure doctrine, and to recognize the dangerous consequences which one must at the same time accept with this and that concession made to a false teacher. Whoever now has this gift is also bound to employ it for the common good, according to his station and calling and the opportunity offered him, and both for the conversion of the erring and for the strengthening of the weak, to carry on the conflict against every error that would creep in. God, we repeat it, can indeed protect His truth and preserve it and keep it from error without us; but if we, when the enemies of the truth appear, wilfully fold our hands in our lap, then the truth is lost through our fault, and God requires of us the souls which are lost together with it. Although those Israelites of old were lost through their own fault when they gave ear to false teachers who had not been sent, yet God says of the seducers: "But if they had stood in my counsel, and had caused my people to hear my words, then they should have turned them from their evil way, and from the evil of their doings." (Jer. 23, 22. cf. v. 21.)

Who does not rejoice, if he is a true Lutheran, that we Lutherans have the doctrines of the divine revelation so clear and pure and so complete? But whom have we, next to God, to thank that we possess this precious treasure, which is worth more than all the gold and silver of the earth, more than all the glory of the whole world? What would have happened, if once in the fourth century an Athanasius and other heroes of faith of that time had not so earnestly opposed the godless Arians, when these assailed the doctrine of the divinity of Christ and with satanic craftiness and malice sought to explain it out of Scripture? What would further have happened, if once in the fifth century an Augustine and his companions had not so earnestly opposed the blind Pelagians, when these denied the doctrine of original sin and sought to maintain that man could be good and be saved by his own power? What would further have happened, if Luther three hundred years ago had not defended with such flaming zeal the pure doctrine of justification, of the Church, of the holy ministry, of the spiritual priesthood of all true believers, of Christian liberty, of the holy Sacraments, etc., and had not combated the opposing Roman-papistical, Zwinglian and fanatical errors with such great unbending earnestness and zeal? And what would finally have happened, if Luther had not had such faithful successors in the battle as the "second Martin," namely a Martin Chemnitz*), a Jacob Andreä, a John Gerhard and so many others? Certainly, had God not out of grace given to the Church these enlightened, faithful, courageous and steadfast fighters — the jewel of the pure doctrine would long since have been lost, and we should in any case now be lying in more than papistical, perhaps in heathen darkness. The precious fruit of the earnest conflict of those

*) The papists themselves have written: "Vos habuistis duos Martinos; si posterior non venisset, prior non stetisset," that is: You Lutherans have had two Martins; if the other had not come, the first would not have remained standing.