# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1855 01 02_S75
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

75

Church to teach, but also to watch over it that the preachers subordinate to him do the same, declares publicly that he cannot agree in this point of doctrine with Luther and with the confession of the Church. The Reviewer says: "The misgiving over the departure from the Lutheran Symbols, which the author does not conceal from himself, he seeks to suppress by the consideration that, even if, in the judgment of all genuine Lutherans, the principles of the Lutheran Confession are, in their essential content, thoroughly grounded in the Word of God *), it by no means follows from this that the carrying out of the right principle has been quite purely accomplished everywhere, and that in the positive and negative (that is, affirming something and denying something) oppositions to the Romish errors, nowhere once has it gone not far enough or somewhat too far. Precisely according to the strictest of the symbolical writings, the Formula of Concord,†) with its sharp distinction between the "sole Holy Scripture" and the "other Symbols and writings," the rule must hold: "Dear to me is the Augsburg Confession, dear the Apology, dear the Formula of Concord, but dearer still the Holy Scripture." We must declare herewith in deep sorrow: O great disgrace, which is done to thee, precious Lutheran Zion, hereby by those who are to be and wish to be watchmen upon thy walls! That thou hast a confession conformable to Scripture, they have already themselves given up before the face of thy enemies. These are not watchmen, but — we must say it, though it may seem hard to some — capitulators, who treacherously deliver the fortress of our Church to her enemies. When a Reformed man, a Unionist, etc., speaks so, whom can that surprise? But what are we to say when a Lutheran superintendent speaks so, who not only believes himself called to stand at the head in the work of the revival of our Church in this last sorrowful time, but upon whom also not a few younger servants of our Church look as upon a standard-bearer in the great struggle begun for the palladium of our Church, full of confidence and hope?

*) Strange, that now in Germany the so-called "strict Lutherans" speak of the Symbols just as the people of the apostate General Synod here! Yea, have not the Rationalists always spoken so, to cloak thereby their perjury in respect of the subscription rendered to the Symbols? Where, then, have the so-called "churchly Lutherans" arrived? Before the gates of Rome; as we shall see further above.

†) We must also renounce this, that the Formula of Concord is called the "strictest of the symbolical writings." This is said too nearly of this as of the other parts of our Book of Concord. It would indeed be a sad thing if the other Symbols were not strict enough, but lax, or if the Formula of Concord were improperly strict and so went beyond Scripture! For how can one be stricter than the other in respect of the divine truth, and yet both be equally true to the truth?

But let us now let our Reviewer tell us what doctrine of the Church Mr. Superintendent Münchmeyer sets forth as his own. He writes:

"The author (Mr. M.) approves the giving up (favored by the Romanists) of the twofold, visible and invisible Church; he would at most let the well-known definition of (the papal Cardinal) Bellarmine please him, according to which the Church is a visible and tangible company of men, like the company of the Roman people or the French realm or the Venetian Republic. Only he protests most vigorously against the confusion of that visible Church with the Roman.*) Among the more recent theologians Münchmeyer declares himself, in opposition to Höfling, Harless, Brömel and others, who hold fast to the distinction of the visible and invisible Church and emphasize the latter by preference, in agreement indeed not with Löhe, but well with Kurtz, with Karsten and above all with Delitzsch in his four books on the Church. The author maintains most decidedly that Holy Scripture knows nothing of a twofold, visible and invisible Church, but only of the One, which is the Body of the LORD, the house of God. And he regards as the most essential question whether all the baptized, even the godless and hypocrites, are members of the One Church, which is the Body of the Lord. The author believes he must answer this question in the affirmative. If All who are baptized have put on Christ, Gal. 3, 27, and thereby the proposition is established: ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ JESUS, verse 26, if the unbelief of men does not make the faith of God without effect, Rom. 3, 3: then (according to M.) the unbelievers within the baptized congregation, e. g. those who keep away from the celebration of the holy Supper, even those for whom one is not to pray according to 1 John 5, 16, further the excommunicated, as still standing under the discipline of the Church, finally even those who sin against the Holy Ghost, who are indeed absolutely dead, but yet until the judgment hang on the Body of the LORD — all these must be regarded as members of the Body of Christ, as belonging to the One true Church, even if this their membership comes to the impenitent not for blessing but for double condemnation. Those passages of the N. T., where children of the devil are named those who commit sin, or where warning is given of antichrists, who went out from the congregation but were not of the congregation, 1 John 2, 18. 19., M. seeks to render harmless by the remark that someone may be of the devil and yet at the same time a member of the Body of Christ."**)

*) That is just the terrible thing in the doctrine of these dissenting Lutherans, that they suppose they are good Lutherans if they only do not let the Roman Church be regarded as the true Church, though they share the false notion of the Romanists of what the Church is. What do they do else than displace the papal church from its place and wish to put the Lutheran in the same place?

**) This is the same doctrine for whose rejection the holy martyr Huss was burned by the papists, for the papists knew well that with this doctrine the whole papacy, the whole Roman hierarchy (rule of priests and rather of parsons) stands and falls. And now — a Lutheran superintendent serves up this doctrine to us again as Lutheran doctrine!

This extract from Münchmeyer's writing, which we have taken from the review of it, will suffice to give the readers an idea of the doctrine in the article on the Church which is now arising among many so-called "strict" Lutherans in Germany. Who does not shrink back from such a monster? What masses of errors, especially concerning the power and efficacy of the holy Sacraments, must come together before it can come to such an unheard-of doctrine of the Church? — May God give to our fatherland's Church able and courageous witnesses of the truth, who may set a dam against the ever more mightily pressing stream of the most monstrous errors. But us may God preserve in the pure, clear confession of our dear Church, in simple faith, for the sake of His dear Son, JESUS Christ, our LORD and Saviour. Amen.

The New Year a Year of Jubilee.

As we hand over to the readers with this number the first in the new year 1855, we cannot leave unmentioned that the newly begun year recalls to remembrance an important event in the history of our Evangelical Lutheran Church. On the 25th of September 1555, therefore just 300 years ago, it was, namely, when at Augsburg, at the Diet opened by the Roman King Ferdinand, that important treaty of peace was concluded which, under the name of the Augsburg Religious Peace, publicly and solemnly confirmed and recognized our Church in the whole Roman Empire in all her rights and possessions, particularly in her freedom from the jurisdiction of the Pope and the bishops, and placed the Lutherans in all ecclesiastical rights on an equality with the Roman Catholics; which was also, as a fundamental law of the Empire, to be "in every way a lasting, abiding, unconditional peace, enduring for ever and ever, established and concluded, and to remain."

It is not our purpose for this time to demonstrate the incalculable importance of this treaty for us, the adherents of the Augsburg Confession. It may suffice only to have reminded of it now at the entrance into the year. We do not doubt that in the congregations of our Synod on the appropriate day, or otherwise on a fitting occasion in this year, this work of God also, which has had the most decided influence upon the whole development of our Church, will be remembered from the holy place. Our Church held solemn Jubilee festivals in the year 1655 as well as in 1755 in memory of that event, and as every earnest celebration of great divine works and benefits, so also this one has each time brought to our Church a general awakening and otherwise rich blessing. In regard to the importance of the Augsburg Religious Peace we only recall further this, that when Pope Paul IV., of unblessed memory, received news of its conclusion, he fell thereupon into the utmost wrath, and under antichristian threats the immediate abrogation of this