# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1848 10 03_S19
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

19

fessional-practical reform of its whole church-system as soon as possible and as thoroughly as possible. For without this wholesome and necessary consequence, that obligation would remain a rather dead, formal act, through which no particular blessing would be conferred upon the Lutheran Church in Ohio; rather, there would then only be begotten the dangerous delusion, grievously wounding to the consciences, that one might in all sorts of ways, in particular cases of doctrine, of worship, of pastoral care, of discipline and of government, act contrary to the churchly confession, or let the most decided defects continue to exist, if only one pledge oneself with the mouth to the Confession. — —

Recollections from the Time of the Thirty Years' War.

Already in the last volume of the Lutheraner, page 85, the dear and honored Senior of our Synod, Pastor Löber in Altenburg, reminded us that with the 24th of this month the second century has run out since the conclusion of the so-called Peace of Westphalia. He gave the Lutheran Church of this country to consider whether it also is not bound to observe the memory of this event, so incalculably important for the whole Lutheran Church, by a fitting centennial celebration. Whoever has weighed the reasons offered for it in the place cited will have been convinced of the fitness of such a celebration here also among us. Since, however, only he can properly celebrate from the heart a thankful festival of jubilee in remembrance of that conclusion of peace who has received a living impression of the afflictions of the war which was ended by that peace, we have determined, since no other more skillful hands take up the pen,*) to communicate at least a few scenes of sorrow from the time of that war. — Before we begin with it, however, we will state in only a few words, for those who perhaps do not yet know it, how it came to this war and what it was properly all about.

Every reader will know: when the man of God, Luther, more than 300 years ago brought again to light the buried Gospel, and made it manifest to the world out of God's Word that the Papacy is the antichristian kingdom, a great part of Christendom in Germany did not accept the precious Gospel, but remained, partly willfully, partly misled by priests and bishops, under the dominion of the Pope. Thus there arose in Germany two great parties, that of the Lutherans or Protestants on the one side, and that of the Papists or Roman Catholics on the other. But since the Roman Catholics had the Emperor and several powerful princes on their side, they used their greater power to forbid the Lutherans the free exercise of their religion and to hinder them therein in every way. Already in Luther's lifetime a war between the Papists and Lutherans therefore threatened to break out. But Luther had begged of God that his eyes should not see the horrors of a religious war. He died in peace. Scarcely, however, had he closed his eyes on the 18th of February, 1546, when the fire of war, which had long been smouldering under the ashes, burst forth with power and in a short time set all Germany in bright flames. It is true that after this so-called Smalcaldic or German war two important treaties of peace between the papal party and the Lutherans in Germany came to pass, namely, the Treaty of Passau in the year 1552 and the Religious Peace of Augsburg in the year 1555; nevertheless, in spite of these treaties of peace, the papal party still remained in great advantage. There was no end of the oppressions and afflictions of the Lutherans dwelling in the Roman Catholic countries. In particular, they had not a little to suffer in the Imperial hereditary lands, and above all in Bohemia, which likewise belonged to the Emperor. In the year 1609, to be sure, the Lutherans in Bohemia obtained from Emperor Rudolph II a Letter of Majesty, according to which the cities and the knighthood were given the freedom and the right to build churches and schools; but how little earnestly this was meant showed itself only too soon and too plainly.*) When, among other instances, Protestant citizens in the city of Klostergrab, which belonged to the Archbishop of Prague, and inhabitants of Braunau, which belonged to the Abbot of that monastery, had built two new churches, the latter was forthwith seized and its builders thrown into prison, but the new church at Klostergrab was razed and leveled to the ground. Indignant, distinguished Bohemian Protestants turned on account of this violation of the Letter of Majesty they had received to the Emperor then reigning, Matthias. Instead of satisfaction, however, they received a harsh reproof, yes, the most serious threats, for an answer. One could not think that the answer received really proceeded from the Emperor, and held several Imperial councillors under suspicion that they were the authors of the unlawful decision. When therefore, on the 23rd of May, 1618, the Imperial councillors were assembled in the castle at Prague (in Bohemia), there suddenly appeared deputies of the Protestant Bohemian Estates, armed, in the assembly hall, putting to the councillors the question whether they were not the authors of the alleged Imperial written decision. Two of the councillors, W. Slawata and Martinitz with his secretary Ph. Fabricius, thereupon gave defiant answers, and thereby the deputies were so violently provoked that they quickly seized the two councillors and threw them through the open window into the deep castle moat. Fortunately the gentlemen fell upon a heap of rubbish, so that they came away without considerable injury. Insignificant as this occurrence, certainly not honorable to the Protestants, seemed to be, it nevertheless became, against all expectation, the very sad occasion for that most protracted and most cruel war of religion that was ever waged, for that war between Protestants and Roman Catholics which first in the year 1648, therefore only after thirty years, by the so-called Peace of Westphalia concluded at Münster and Osnabrück on the 24th of October of the said year, reached its end, after unspeakable misery had thereby been brought upon Germany. Especially hard afflictions the Lutheran congregations in Bohemia, until then so flourishing, had to endure; and of this we will this time set before the readers a remarkable example.

Friedland, a city with a castle in the lordship of the same name in Bohemia, on the border of Upper Lusatia and Silesia, belongs to those Bohemian cities in which the light of the Gospel, which God so richly bestowed upon Christendom through the Reformation, first arose. At least it is certain that in this city already in the year 1534 an evangelical worship, purified from all papal abominations, was established and an orthodox Lutheran preacher was appointed. The pure, saving doctrine was preached in this region with so great blessing that Friedland in later years became the seat of a not insignificant Lutheran superintendency with some twenty parishes belonging to it.

Shortly before the beginning of the Thirty Years' War, God had here in very truth pitched his dwelling with his pure Word and Sacrament.

In the year 1615 there was called, namely, a most faithful and zealous servant of the Church from Mügeln in Saxony, by the name of M. Wolfgang Günther, by the Baron von Redern (then lord of Friedland, Reichenberg and Seidenberg) to the pastorate and to the superintendency at Friedland. This dear man made it his earnest concern to promote in every way the spiritual growth of the city congregation entrusted to him as well as of all the congregations of his diocese. He held with those entrusted to him

*) The Synod had obtained from Pastor Löber, who as is well known has already written an excellent centennial writing, "Denkmal der Augsburgischen Confession," the promise also to write for the Lutheraner a short history of the Thirty Years' War with special regard to the fortunes of the Church during the same: unfortunately, however, our dear Löber has been prevented by sickness and other circumstances from fulfilling the wish of the Synod.

*) To make the sacredly and solemnly sworn and sealed treaties to the disadvantage of the Lutherans invalid through godless sophistries, that was then, as always, the work of the unscrupulous Ahithophels, of the Jesuits and their friends. Thus J. P. Windeck, Canon at Marchdorf, wrote in the year 1616 in his Prognosticon futuri status ecclesiæ: "The Treaty of Passau and the Religious Peace are of no validity; they were extorted from the Emperor by force; the Pope also has not confirmed it; and by the Council of Trent it has been annulled besides." From this it is easy to infer to whom one has actually to thank the dreadful misfortune also of the Thirty Years' War — namely, the Jesuits.