# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1855 04 24_S140
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

140

and under the name of Christ to seduce the world. The content of the latter part of the above words: "And the dragon stood before the woman," etc. — "as soon as it was born, to devour her child," is accordingly briefly this: the devil spins the hemp for the rope of the Roman papacy.

V. 5. "And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne." — in spite of all persecutions of the first centuries the Church bequeathed her good confession to her children. Faith came forth from the struggle as a son, as the manly fruit of its mother. (And she brought forth a man child — this latter word is added in order to point with emphasis to the manly maturity which faith had attained through the trials it had to undergo.) In the consciousness of its strength it asserted its good right against the gainsayers, as the Church after the apostolic age, in the peace which she enjoyed, was especially zealous to practice the saying: He that believeth not shall be damned. To this the following points: "Who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron." But now the devil intruded himself. Under the signboard of orthodoxy, which was still a monument of the victory which the Fathers had won, he let "all nations" into the sheepfold and "ruled" them as if they were the right sheep, but not with the pure Word, but with legal compulsion, "with a rod of iron." Against this knavish trick of the infernal dragon these words are now especially directed. The sense is: However much by Satan's craft the tables have turned on earth, heaven nevertheless grants only to the right faith, which the faithful martyrs confessed, the right that it may condemn all the heathen, especially those who, under the name of the supreme church authority, condemn it. In its time the sentence also which has already been passed in heaven shall be executed on earth. Meanwhile, however, it is to be regarded as if the genuine heritage of apostolic fidelity to the confession had vanished under the papacy (for that this is now spoken of appears from V. 6), whereas, "hid with God" (Col. 3, 3), it lives only the more securely ("and her child was caught up unto God and to his throne.")

It is to be noted that the pure faith, which at the beginning of this verse is called a son and a man child, as the fruit of victory of the fidelity to the confession of godly Fathers, is at the close so significantly called only a child, because in face of the superior power of the new hostile force it appears as helpless as the infant Moses when he floated in the ark of bulrushes upon the water. There is also an emphasis upon the last word: "and to his throne," since indeed the throne of the Pope was given out by the devil as God's throne, and all the distress which the confession of the Gospel had proceeded precisely from this throne.

V. 6.: "And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days." — This is a description how the Church was preserved under the papacy. She was constantly in flight, because men pressed and persecuted her everywhere. Lonely and forsaken she found refuge with those who likewise, as she, had been forsaken by those who, as it were, inhabited the cities and walked in the streets, who had taken possession of the public places of worship, namely with the apostles and prophets, in the Holy Scripture. Here and there, too, in secret one Christian strengthened another by oral testimony of the Savior, as happened to Luther in the cloister. So God provided for the scattered flock of Christ, which found no shelter in the world and the ruling church, but had to lament with David: I am like a pelican of the wilderness, I am like an owl of the desert. I watch, and am as a sparrow alone upon the house top (Ps. 102, 7 and 8), shelter and food. He alone preserved it wonderfully, like the 7000 whom the Lord in the times of Elijah knew how to keep hidden before the very eyes of His servant.

One might ask: What difference is there between the child which was born in the travail of the apostolic age (V. 4 and 5) and the woman who preserves herself in the papacy in a hidden manner? Is not just the invisible Church, which under the dominion of Antichrist eked out her existence wretchedly, the fruit of which V. 5 spoke? Why then is V. 5 spoken so much more splendidly of the child than of the woman? But partly faith in itself is something other than the company of those who carry it as a treasure in earthen vessels: faith itself is always king and priest, removed from all defilement and disgrace, and caught up in eternal glory to God and his throne (V. 5), and that is the "child" of the apostolic Church, whereas the believers, although all comes to them that faith has, yet besides still walk in the body of this death and amid toil and care tend one another as "the woman" (V. 6), who is concerned for the life of the child, as they, for the sake of their confession, are in constant danger of death; partly the full blessed content of the confession which the Church of the first centuries, amid constant struggles with unbelief and manifold error, had brought to light, having, as a treasure that lay hidden in the field, been raised only in the time of the Reformation, was thus for so long preserved only by God's special protection ("caught up unto God and to his throne"), in order, after the 1260 wretched days, during which it had lain on earth as it were in swaddling clothes, to appear in manly form.

Here too, as in Ch. 11, 3, the papacy is reckoned by days, because the believers are spoken of who illumined this dark time. Their "wilderness" was Goshen, wherein during the Egyptian darkness the light shone.

(To be continued.)

(Sent in by Pastor Sievers.)

An Autumn Day in Bethany.

After the Indian brethren of Bethany had several times already sent to ask us when their friends and their missionaries' friends would again pay them a visit, and after the great heat of the sun of the past year had at last ceased, Pastor Cloeter and I followed the call to the distant village of Bethany, although flesh and blood always shrink a little when it is said, to travel so far into the primeval forest. It was on the 11th of September that I left Frankenlust toward noon and at two o'clock found Brother Clöter ready to travel in Saginaw City. Accompanied by two friends we reached the well-known forks of the Tittipiwassee; it was already 10 o'clock in the evening when, with a broken lantern in hand, we there crossed the broad river in a canoe to close our day's journey, my horse, held by me by the bridle, swimming alongside the canoe. We had only this one horse with us, and it was meant for carrying provisions, and partly for the assistance of whichever of us four wanderers should be the weariest. A friendly farm family, named Weymann, lodged us very willingly in Yankee fashion, although they had first to be awakened from sleep. The next morning should already have found us on the road at the very earliest; but the readers know that a guest has to fit into the order of the house where he finds friendly reception. So we had time to enjoy the beautiful morning in all comfort, and stood with delight on the high bank, where one has the confluent floods of the Chippeway and the Tittipiwassee far below at one's feet. We breakfasted not until after 7 o'clock. Three miles farther on we had to cross the Chippeway a second time; but at this place one needs no canoe, but can wade through after taking off boots and stockings. The river here is about 12 to 16 rods wide, the bed is nothing but rock and stone, and the water has a considerable fall. The way from there to Bethany is divided into three sections, of which each is about ten miles long. The first section was the most difficult because of the endless number of boulders, which were so heaped upon one another that a man on foot could climb over only with effort, the horse, however, could not leap over. In such cases the rider was compelled to make wide detours in order to follow the footmen who had gone ahead. In this it happened that the horse once got into a great wasps' or hornets' nest. The aroused creatures fell upon horse and rider to such a degree that the horse almost furiously rid itself of its rider, rolled about like mad on the ground, tore loose the saddlebag fastened to the saddle, and could hardly be brought to a stand again. After the first ten miles we made a noon halt, and also took some food, whereto we quenched our thirst with the fresh