# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1854 09 26_S22
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

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right. As, however, in the doctrine of the Lord's Supper the unanimity of the Church was a sign of the truth over against the manifold error, so also the unanimous confession of the old and new Church concerning Church and Ministry shall be and remain for us a sign of the truth. And therefore we rejoice in the significant testimony of Harleß as a means of impressing this truth upon ourselves."

The Bavarian General Synod of 1853.

Concerning it and the results achieved by it, the "Kirchenblatt" of the Prussian Lutherans (in the June number of this year) speaks as follows:

After this General Synod one can, in our opinion, no longer be in doubt that the Protestant Church of Bavaria is in deed and truth a Lutheran one. Formerly this was disputed. And one could dispute it without having to employ "many arts." Thus the General Synod of Bavaria in the spring of 1849 was no Lutheran synod, and since the General Synod (to speak with Wucherer) is the heart of the territorial church, one had to come to the thought that the territorial church was not Lutheran. The Reformed had seat and vote in the Synod of 1849, the synodals were not clearly and unreservedly pledged to the Lutheran Confession, indeed this Synod itself tolerated a protest against the "Lutheran" Church. To be sure, the great majority of this Synod also made a sort of confession to the Church, but with not much more sense and truth than the (Unionist) Church Diet of 1853 in Berlin professed itself to the Augsburg Confession. Therefore we justly see in the Synod of the year 1853 an essential progress; the synodals were pledged to the Confession of the Lutheran Church, the Reformed were excluded, and the whole bearing of the Synod also was Lutheran, even if one misses consistency and energy in many resolutions. It adopted a Lutheran order of divine service and abolished the rationalistic and Reformed element in it, it put an end by its resolutions to the distress over the hymnal and procured for the Lutheran Church of Bavaria a hymnal conformable to its Confession, it advanced the catechism question, and made a beginning in church discipline. All Unionist character the Synod, so far as lay in its power, condemned, in that it acceded to the motions of a petition by Löhe, Wucherer, Stirner, Fischer and others in this regard. Thus the General Synod also showed its Lutheran character with respect to the said petition. If one takes into account the difficult circumstances of the territorial church, as is fair, and considers further how a similar petition against Unionist character was dismissed by the Synod of the year 1849, one can rejoice in these resolutions even oneself. We should therefore like to lodge, in this point also, a protest, however gentle, against the judgment of these resolutions in the article mentioned several times before. Wucherer, himself one of the petitioners, says of the resolutions of the Synod on the petition, that not a single point of the petition was actually rejected, only the third and fourth were not adopted in their strict wording, whereas the Synod demanded for the sixth point (a main point!) a stricter form than in the petition itself, the rest was all acknowledged as well founded, even if not always with great energy; of that we are glad in hope. Dr. Petri says at the close of his report on the Bavarian Synod ("Zeitblatt" No. 5, 1854): "we have been somewhat more prolix (in discussing the Synod) because the sight on the whole is so gratifying: a sound, fresh development! if the one party does not grow impatient, the other not self-satisfied, then righteousness will come," So we think also! —

Further we read in the same paper:

The Pastor Diedrich at Jabel has received a call to Buffalo in North America as deacon with the Lutheran congregation there and professor at the seminary there, but, to the joy of our Supreme Consistory, has declined it. For although we from the heart grant to our fellow believers in North America able men, yet our own need is at present so great that we cannot, without painful loss, lose any of the forces which the Lord has supplied to us.

Pastor Eichhorn.

Thus it is said of him in the "Correspondenzblatt der Gesellschaft für innere Mission," in the May number of this year:

Pastor Eichhorn is still confined to his dwelling in Durlach and cut off in the strictest manner from all intercourse with the members of his congregations. The congregations thus deprived of their faithful shepherd have already sent repeated deputations to His Royal Highness the Prince Regent, to obtain free exercise of religion and the admission of their lawfully called Pastor Eichhorn, and have each time been very graciously heard by the Prince Regent, His Royal Highness; but the grand-ducal Ministry of State, which by several decrees has held out the prospect of granting the congregations private divine service and of permitting the calling of a foreign pastor, continues to refuse to permit Pastor Eichhorn any official activity among the congregations that have called him. If it were merely a matter of the person of Eichhorn, he would not be disinclined to hand over the direction of his congregation to other hands, and the congregations also would — though unwillingly — let it be done; but up to now every guarantee is still lacking that conditions will not be imposed by the grand-ducal government on the admission of another pastor which no Lutheran pastor and no Lutheran congregation could accept. If anyone, our dear brethren in Baden need our constant brotherly intercession.

(Sent in.)
I Remain a Lutheran.

I am a Christian and will remain so;
Therefore I abide by Lutheranism.
To believe the whole Word of God,
Let that be my highest glory.
The sects have from the Word
Of the Most High taken away and added,
Because to reason the narrow gate
Displeases and the narrow way.
The true Church hears the LORD,
And keeps self-conceit afar.

I am a Christian and will persevere,
Persevere therefore in Luther's doctrine.
The enthusiasts scold me as a fool:
"You cling to it also all too much."
The Holy Spirit has sealed to me
That Luther's doctrine is the truth,
And whoever does not bar his heart against it,
Confesses the same gladly and freely.
Whoever contradicts Luther's doctrine,
Believes also not the Bible.

I am a Christian and will remain so;
Therefore I abide by Lutheranism.
The true Church one must believe,
Else follows a visible popery,
Which then takes from Christians all rights,
The comfort of grace, their freedom,
And rules them as poor servants,
Until the truth quite flickers out.
The Church which faith means
Lives invisible, united with God.

I am a Christian; therefore I will testify
Of God's Word and Luther's doctrine,
And before the Pope not bow myself
Nor to his false devilish doctrine,
Who exalts himself above God,
And drunk with the blood of the saints
Constantly strives to root out
The true Church, full of fury.
I hate the Pope, the Antichrist,
Because he is the mortal foe of JESUS.

I am a Christian; therefore I will hate
The Pope, who robs God of the honor,
And who will not leave us Christ,
And commands abominations to be believed.
He teaches that you must by your own works
Earn heaven for yourself,
Yet that is to our own strength
Impossible, as I well know.
The grace of God alone makes
The believer righteous and pure.

I am a Christian, therefore I will die
In holy hatred against Rome,
From which only sin and destruction
Flow forth, like a broad stream:
The worship of saints, purgatory,