# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1848 10 03_S17
# 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., October 3, 1848.  No. 3.

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 it 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, money, etc., are to be sent hither under the address: Mr. F. W. Barthel, care of C. F. W. Walther, St. Louis, Mo.

(Submitted by Rev. Dr. Sihler.)

The Lutheran Observer and the Ohio Synod.

(Conclusion.)

Having, on the one hand, in accordance with the truth, briefly defended the above resolution of the Synod of Ohio against the unjust attacks of the Lutheran Observer, that organ of the unionistic so-called General Synod, it is incumbent upon us no less, on the other hand, in accordance with love, to point out briefly to the Ohio Synod what churchly conduct is most closely connected with that resolution.

The first and most important consequence of the said resolution is this, that with that public and solemn confession of the symbolical books it is utterly incompatible to go on, as before, serving mixed congregations as such, and, for example, administering the Holy Supper to the Reformed as such; for it cannot in fact suffice, when the preachers of the Ohio Synod set forth the Lutheran doctrine to the Reformed and Unionists who may desire the Holy Supper from them, and require of them thereupon to concede that it agrees with Holy Scripture; for in their inherited indifference toward the pure doctrine the people think in this matter no further and no otherwise than thus: "That the Lutheran doctrine agrees with Holy Scripture, I do indeed now perceive, but the Reformed is surely not contrary to Holy Scripture either!" Therefore it is altogether necessary, in order that consciences may be counseled on every side, that the Lutheran pastor should not merely in general demonstrate the obedience to Scripture of the Lutheran Church in the doctrine of the Supper, but at the same time furnish the definite proof that the Lutheran Church alone is subject to the Scripture-word as it reads, while the Reformed Church does not act thus, but actually, out of the conceit of carnal reason, reads into the words of institution another meaning, which is directly contrary to the clear, simple sense of the words, so that it does not hold to the Word of God as it reads, and its doctrine herein is opposed to that of the Lutheran Church; that whoever therefore heartily acknowledges and testifies the Lutheran doctrine of the Supper to be altogether in accord with Scripture must at the same time also reject the Reformed as contrary to Scripture, since it, now as before, simply does not believe the almighty and truthful Son of God, and holds fast the error that in the blessed bread and wine the body and blood of Christ are not essentially and truly contained.

Furthermore, the Lutheran pastor may not withhold from the Reformed or Unionist who desires the Holy Supper from him that by the Holy Supper received from his hands and within a Lutheran congregation he in fact departs from his former communion of faith and enters into the Lutheran Church. For by such a declaration of the Lutheran pastor he can properly safeguard his own conscience and that of the Reformed, and that in the following respects:

First, thereby the error is forestalled, as if it were possible to approve the pure doctrine of the Lutheran Church and yet oneself to belong as a member to a falsely teaching church.

Second, it becomes manifest only in the willing acceptance of that declaration of the Lutheran pastor on the part of the Reformed or Unionist that the latter heartily acknowledges and confesses with us the pure doctrine of the Lutheran Church and, out of love for the divine truth, gladly separates himself from his erring church.

Third, only through such a procedure is the right protest raised also against the false union of our days, and the delusion laid low, as though the Lutherans and Reformed could nevertheless unite churchly without a uniting of the contrary doctrine.

Whatever Lutheran pastor of the Ohio Synod, therefore, even now still, whether from care for his belly or from fear of men, or from sloth, should withhold from the Reformed or Unionists that altogether necessary declaration, would confess the Lutheran confession only with the mouth, but deny it in deed, and behind the signboard of the churchly symbols serve Unionism, and thus be a hypocrite.

A second necessary consequence of the avowal of the churchly symbols is, for the churchly practice of the Ohio Synod, this, that it use no Agende in which there occurs not only the unionistic formula of distribution at the dispensing of the Holy Supper, "Christ says," etc., but also in general no ambiguous formulary, be it in the conduct of public worship or of particular churchly acts. For the common worship and the acts of the Church should and can be only the active expression and the manifold realization of one and the same pure confession. But how manifoldly the Agende hitherto used by the Ohio Synod contradicts this requirement has already been shown repeatedly in the Lutheraner.

Thirdly, the Ohio Synod ought now with earnestness and diligence to be intent upon ridding itself as soon as possible of the so-called United Hymnbook and introducing a decidedly Lutheran one. For, in the first place, that book is, as to its contents, in a lamentable state, since even the noble older Lutheran hymns are miserably falsified, watered down and mutilated; and then it has withal the purpose of promoting the false union of the present time between the Reformed and Lutherans.

Fourthly, that fanatical levity ought now to occur nowhere at all any more whereby individual Lutheran preachers, even of the Ohio Synod, at the distribution of the Holy Supper even invite members of other communions to partake, and thus, besides the practical denial of the pure doctrine and the actual furtherance of the false union, injure their conscience in yet another respect, in that they may become the cause to many an unworthy person, whom they do not know exactly, of eating judgment to himself.

On the other hand, fifthly, the Ohio Synod ought to make it a serious concern to all its members