# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1848 09 12_S1
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Der Lutheraner.

"God's Word and Luther's doctrine pure shall to eternity endure."

Published by the German Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and Other States.

Edited by C. F. W. Walther.

Volume 5.  St. Louis, Mo., September 12, 1848.  No. 1.

Terms: Der Lutheraner appears once every two weeks at the yearly subscription price of One Dollar for out-of-town subscribers, who are to pay the same in advance and bear the postage. — In St. Louis each single number is sold for 5 cents.

Only those letters which contain communications for the paper are to be sent to the Editor; all others, however, which contain business matters, orders, cancellations, moneys, etc., are to be sent here, addressed: Mr. F. W. Barthel, care of C. F. W. Walther, St. Louis, Mo.

Preface of the Editor to the Fifth Volume of the "Lutheraner."

"Forward! Forward!" so it sounds from all sides in our days. So cry now not only the Friends of Light, but even the "believing" Protestants, yea — O wonder of the nineteenth century! — so cries now even the Pope from his high seat. On the other hand: "Back, you Lutherans, back to Luther, to his Reformation, Church, and doctrine!" so has the "Lutheraner" hitherto cried, again and again, on its four years' pilgrimage through the congregations of this country. That has indeed been a very ugly discord in the beautiful harmony to which the world has at last come. And therefore it has also gone very ill with the "Lutheraner" hitherto. The Friends of Light have on that account put it under ban and outlawry as an enemy of light and freedom; the Papists have laid it under excommunication as one hardening himself in apostasy from the Church; and the Union men have struck it from the list of true Protestants as a narrow-hearted fanatic, as the bigoted Old Lutheran. Now perhaps some of our dear readers will say: Should the poor forsaken and rejected "Lutheraner" have the courage to persist in its Back! Back! also in its new course of the year? Should it not perhaps have come to the conviction that we live, after all, in the age of progress, and that it is therefore foolish to want to remain behind alone, yea, to march backward?

It is evidently necessary, for honesty's sake, that the dear readers before whom the "Lutheraner" appears again with the present number should not be left in the dark on this point. So we declare it herewith at once, in this our preface to the new volume: Yes, also in the new volume the "Lutheraner" will, God willing, remain by its old watchword: Back! back to Luther, his Reformation, Church, and doctrine! But in order that the dear readers may not misunderstand the "Lutheraner" in this, and may not construe it to him as an evil obstinacy that he proceeds thus, we will at once, this first time in the new year, say a little about why true Lutherans cannot do otherwise than return to the Reformation founded by Luther and to the doctrine preached by him, yea, why really all who still wish to be Christians should return thither with the "Lutheraner."

To be as brief as possible in this, we will point to only two chief reasons for it. The first is, because Luther was manifestly an ambassador of God and called by Him to the work of the Reformation; the second is, because Luther manifestly taught nothing else than the everlasting Gospel once more. —

If it is certain that Luther was an ambassador of God and was called by Himself to the work of the Reformation, then it is also, we think, not to be denied by any man who still believes in God, that all who are true Lutherans, all who wish to be Christians, should return to the Church Reformation founded by Luther and to the doctrine preached by the same, and in this faithfully persevere unto death. For if Luther was sent and called by God Himself to so high a work, then it holds true also of him what the LORD says of the apostles: "He that heareth you heareth me; and he that despiseth you despiseth me; and he that despiseth me despiseth him that sent me." Luke 10:16.

This the Papists know well; therefore they have also from of old been at pains to prove that Luther had no call to his work. They say: Who bade him raise so great an uproar and so great a division in Christendom? Had he not sworn to remain faithful to the Roman Church? How, then, could he become her enemy, fall away from her, and destroy her?

We answer to this: Luther was indeed called to the work of the Reformation, and that, first, in an ordinary, regular manner, but also in an unusual, extraordinary manner.

An ordinary call to the service of the Church Luther received at various times: first, when in 1507 he was ordained a priest; then in 1509 appointed professor of theology at the university; afterward in 1511 made Doctor of Holy Scripture; and finally in 1512 also chosen preacher and pastor at the city church at Wittenberg. In accepting these calls Luther indeed pledged fidelity also to the Pope and his Church, but at the same time and above all he swore also fidelity to God and His Word, to Christ and His Church. When he became a priest, they called to him, among other things: "We give thee power to teach the Word of God"; and when he became a professor: "It is now thy duty to expound the law of God and to teach the book of life." When he became Doctor of Holy Scripture, he had to say with hand raised to God: "I swear that I will not present strange doctrines, condemned by the Church and offensive to pious ears"; and when shortly before he had become a licentiate: "I swear that I will defend the evangelical truth with all my powers." Though Luther, therefore, as a Papist, because he still lacked complete knowledge at that time, may also have taken other vows contrary to God's Word and the true Church, yet these could bind him as little as the ungodly promise which a robber has made to his captain; moreover, those ungodly vows were revoked and made void by oaths for God's Word and for the universal Christian Church. Therefore Luther also has often comforted himself in his temptations with this his ordinary call, and has joyfully appealed to it before every man. When, for example, in the year 1523 in the collegiate church at Wittenberg they would not abolish the papistical Mass, he addressed his congregation from the pulpit with these words: "I am called by you to the office of preaching; I have a divine command to feed the congregation of God here with the pure Word: therefore it behooves me by virtue of my office to be in earnest that such evil and offense in the