# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1855 02 13_S102
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

102

fessions and sects, penetrates even into families and houses. In vain would I reply to him that all these repulsive and horrible things are no effect of Christianity, but an effect of this, that the perpetrators and instigators of those atrocities had indeed heard the Gospel but had not received it in simplicity and believed it, and therefore were given over by God's judgment to do what is not fitting; an unbeliever does not understand this, it is foolishness to him and he cannot know it. So we must invite him to be converted to the faith of the Gospel; if he then does not himself experience that Christ's Gospel is a power of God, which gives him delight in every good law and the will to keep it, then we will not blame him if he calls us hypocrites and liars. Be God eternally thanked that He, with His own Word, has hallowed the laws and ordinances of lands and states, so far as they are not contrary to His commandments, and with His Gospel has given us the power to keep them freely and joyfully; yes, honor and eternal kingdom to our God, who above these earthly states and kingdoms, in which there will ever be found only traces of freedom, has founded and built an eternal kingdom and has called us thereto, so that we rejoice in earthly freedom, but if earthly bondage oppresses us, can bear this comforted and joyful, as those who are free with the eternal freedom of the children of God.

Dr. Kurtz

reports in his "Lutheran Observer" that the Ev. Luth. Synod of Northern Illinois, which numbers 20 preachers, 10 of them Norwegians, has taken into its constitution the declaration that the Augsburg Confession and Luther's Small Catechism are "correct" (right, without error).

Upon this the learned (?) Lutheran (?) doctor makes the remark: "This seems to us the same as to declare that the Confession and the Catechism, so far as they go, are equal to the Word of God and therefore an unerring guide. Is not such an article in a synodical constitution a human invention, an ecclesiastical presumption and a despotic oppression of conscience? How many of our best and most pious American Lutheran preachers must such a fundamental law necessarily exclude from the Synod and from hearty co-operation? This is without doubt a retrogression, a monstrous leap backward to the forefathers of the American Lutheran Church. In this enlightened (!!) land of free thinking and acting such High-Churchism cannot long maintain itself; its truest fruit is bigotry (false religious zeal), ostracism, strife and schism." —

The reader sees from this how men who always have on their lips the "Only the Bible and no symbols!" at last come so far that they maintain that one can never say that what one believes or speaks, teaches, writes, has printed, etc., is true, even if it is taken from the Bible; whoever says this is already to such men a real Pope, or at least a Papist. Such men are those doubters of whom the Scripture says: "He that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed." (James 1:6.) Their faith shifts with the changing wind of the time. And not enough that they themselves are ever learning and never come to the knowledge, they also ostracize in horrid bigotry all who dare to say that the truth is not only in the Bible, but also in their heart, that they have, namely, also known the truth and therefore confess the truth. Whoever asserts that he is not mistaken in certain doctrines taken from Scripture, to him they ascribe in incomprehensible narrowness that he declares himself infallible (incapable of error) like the Pope, as if to be certain that one has not erred in a matter drawn from the Bible were as much as to be certain that one cannot err!

The "Lutheran Herold"

has in its number of the 1st of Jan. of this year replied to the remarks made against it by us in number 8 of our paper under the heading "On the Doctrine of the Church." It complains therein, 1., that our "purpose" in this was to show the article in question in the "Herold" "to be offensive in doctrine and to make it suspect." Answer: To make suspect is godless; of this the writer of those remarks knows himself free; to commit this sin in this matter was also not possible, since the article in the "Herold" was really only too suspect, indeed contained no small errors. — As to the justification of itself, 2. the "Herold" appeals to this, that the article attacked by us was printed from the work of a Saxon Consistorial Councillor, namely Mr. Langbein, and that this work was already in the year 1850 "mentioned in almost all (?) Lutheran (?) periodicals and praised as solid and well-executed." Answer: If such things already reassure the "Herold" concerning the orthodoxy of a work, we can only pity it and especially its readers. — To this justification the "Herold" then reports what comforts it amid our attacks, namely: "That the Lutherans in Saxony are just such Lutherans as the Herold and its readers also by God's grace desire to be." Short answer: If the "Herold" is content with such comfort, then indeed hops and malt are lost upon it. — Further the "Herold" reminds us that in that work of the Consistorial Councillor, reprinted in the "Herold," it is taught that "the office of preaching is instituted by God" and that the same is by no means "nothing other than a congregational service." Therein the "Herold" thinks it has found the true key to the fact that we subjected to a censure what it had copied from that work on the Church. It writes: "That these and other similar expressions may not have suited the 'Lutheraner' we readily believe. But what was to be done? To give vent to oneself over these expressions, that would be unpolitic! Therefore he waits until he supposes he has found another hold." Answer: It is very common that people of low motives presuppose the like ignoble ones in others; therefore Mr. Herold also thinks the "Lutheraner" holds godliness to be a trade and in its contest for the truth and against error regulates itself by the applause of men, which it may expect or not expect to have in doing so. Thank God, the dear Herold shows by its worthless insinuation that it knows neither the character nor the doctrine of the "Lutheraner." Let the "Herold" know, there are still honest people in the world, even in the midst of the state of the Yankees, and to these belongs by God's grace also the "Lutheraner," whom "politics" could never keep from rebuking an error, if it thought this needful to the honor of God. — To an actual defense, by the way, the "Herold" does not condescend, but declares our reply, in good papistical fashion, to be "word-quibbling," and adds: "We are assured that if all readers of the 'Herold' and of the 'Lutheraner' would once more carefully read through together the article of which there is question, and the review in the Lutheraner, they would be bound to arrive at the very same conviction as ours." Answer: We are very much inclined to believe that these thoughts really are found in the heart of the anonymous writer. Ultra posso nemo obligatur, that is, one can fairly demand of nobody that he understand what goes beyond his horizon. — When the Herold finally expresses its satisfaction that our criticism "was written in a friendly spirit," the Herold thereby condemns itself, since it, on the contrary, answered us so unworthily, and, if it felt itself too weak to enter upon the matter theologically, then did not at least keep silence. Yet we have already often had occasion to remark that in America one pays homage to the principle: Sic nos, non nobis, that is, so we do, but so one shall not do to us. The "Herold" has only itself to blame if we have now lost heart to controvert with it in a Christian-brotherly way, to which we had nevertheless offered it our hand.

Judgment on the "Lutheran Herold"

Thus writes about the same the "Reformirte Kirchen-Zeitung" of Chambersburg, Penn., in its number of the 15th of January of this year:

"The Lutheran Herold. — This paper, published by H. Ludwig, New York, is in its 4th year. It seeks to pass mediatingly between the two extremes in the Lutheran Church of this country and represents the milder, Melanchthonian view concerning the Sacraments. We read the Herold with pleasure and wish it a recognition and encouragement worthy of its