# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1849 01 23_S84
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

84

dissension arose among the Lutherans themselves, in that more and more secret adherents of Calvin (Crypto-Calvinists) crept in among the Lutherans, who, under the pretense that they were Lutherans, wished to sell the Calvinistic doctrine to the people as Lutheran, and thus to cheat them of their faith in the most shameful manner. Whither would the confusion thereby arisen have led, had not the faithful confessors of the truth, thirty years after Luther's death, united to draw up a new Confession, namely the Formula of Concord, thereby to put an end to the dangerous strife and to unmask the perverters of the truth who had crept in under the Lutheran name?

The decline of the Lutheran Church, which we now lament, would have followed, without the Symbols, probably immediately after Luther's death. But since the preachers and the people had these pure Confessions in their hands, the preachers were solemnly pledged to them, and the hearers examined them by the same, no manifestly false teacher could for two centuries dwell in our Church and in the long run seduce souls. But wherein lies the reason that for sixty or seventy years the most impudent heresies have been able to gain the upper hand in the Lutheran Church, other than in this, that the Symbols of the Church were not allowed to become known to the people, but were purposely concealed? For when these became strange to the hearers, then everyone dared to sell the thoughts and fancies of his heart as God's Word and as the doctrine of the Gospel.

If men have ever experienced what incomparable benefit the Symbols are, we experience it now. What should we do now, if we could not prove from those Confessions what the true evangelical doctrine is, which Luther and the whole first Lutheran Church once believed and confessed? We should have to be silent and let the destroyers of our Church carry on their baneful work under our own name unpunished. But pointing to our Symbols, we can now confidently defy all false Lutherans and convince all honest souls that they are deceivers and spiritual counterfeiters.

Learn from this, beloved fellow believers, how much we would give away if we should now no longer hold fast to the public Confessions of our Church. Trust not, therefore, those who, speaking against these Confessions, pretend that they contend only against human authority, and that they wish all honor to be given to the Bible alone. They wish to deceive you! They would gladly see the wall thrown down which has been drawn around the Church by the Symbols, in order that they may have freedom to smuggle in human wit as divine revelation, and that no one may be able to prove to them that they trample under foot the Church whose bread they eat, that they dwell and labor in it not to build, but to pull down.

The more, therefore, the Confessions of the Church are now hated, the dearer and more precious let us hold them. In the house of every Lutheran they ought to be found. Everyone ought to be acquainted with them, yea, quite intimately familiar with them. With them every Lutheran ought to compare what is preached to him and what he reads in other books. To them fathers and mothers ought already to point their children and their household, teachers their pupils, but above all the preachers their hearers. Surely, so long as acquaintance with these glorious testimonies and love for them remain among us Lutherans, so long will the pure doctrine also have a dwelling place among us. No spirit of error will seduce us, and as our fathers once fell blessedly asleep in the faith confessed therein, so shall we also, by the same faith, overcome sin, death, and hell, and be saved.

We close with the testimony of the old, faithful, and sincere Selnecker: "We can be assured that so long as in these and other lands, churches and schools shall hold to this Confession and Declaration, as it is comprised in the Christian Book of Concord, so long will there be soundness in God's Word, or in the doctrine, without fanaticism, together with other blessing of God, among us and abide with us. But as soon as there shall be the least departure from the same right Confession, then God also, who has at the last shown us this great benefit, will withdraw from us, and let all manner of blasphemy and fanaticism break in among us." (Vit. Sax. El. Augusti.)

The Evang. Lutheran Tennessee Synod.

This Synod held its 28th session from September 30 to October 5 of last year, in Solomon's Church, in Shenandoah County, in Virginia. The report of it lies before us in both the German and the English language. This report also, like that of last year, furnishes proof that this Synod is one of the few which not only are called Lutheran, but wish also to be and to remain so.

Present were 10 preachers and 20 lay deputies; 14 preachers belonging to the Synod were absent, and indeed several of these because, through poverty, they had not been able to raise the cost of the journey, wherefore the Synod, among other things, passed the resolution: "That we most solemnly and earnestly advise our church members to render more support to their pastors, that they may be able to make the necessary arrangements to attend the Synod."

We hope to give our readers pleasure if we communicate to them the following further from the report:

"Dr. Henkel reported to the Synod that the translation of the Christian Book of Concord (into the English language) had for some time been going forward, and that it had already been gone through once, but that the whole must still receive further correction before it will be ready for the press. He hopes to have it ready for delivery next summer. The reason why the publication is delayed is to gain time to make the translation as free from error as possible.

Dr. Henkel reported further, that since the distinctive doctrines of the Lutheran Church concerning the Sacraments are not generally understood among the English, which arises from this, that Luther's writings are for the most part to be had only in the German and Latin language, he therefore announced to our body that he intended to publish a volume, containing an English translation of Luther's letter on Rebaptism and his sermon on Baptism, in which the article of Baptism is fully explained; as also Luther's Great Confession concerning the Holy Supper, in which this article is explained at length. — He proposes, if the Synod deems it good, that arrangements be made to translate the work as soon as possible and to publish it in print.

Resolved: That the Synod fully approves Dr. Henkel's proposal, and that we recommend the work to our congregations with joy." —

It says further in the report:

"Whereas a work, called 'The History of the American Lutheran Church,' by Dr. Hazelius of Lexington, S. C., has been published, in which there are false representations with regard to our body, and whereas various ecclesiastical bodies and religious periodicals recommend the said work to the public, and whereas under such circumstances it is well fitted to mislead the public and to fill it with prejudice against us, and to be very injurious to the truth, therefore

Resolved: That Pastor A. Henkel, J. Steuerwalt, J. Killian, Dr. S. G. Henkel, and Mr. Socrates Henkel be appointed a committee to examine the same and to correct the errors which they find in it, and that they request the publishers of the Lutheran Standard, Lutheran Observer, and such other periodicals as may appear suitable for it, to publish their corrections together with this preamble and resolution."

The report further states that a committee was appointed, which was to report on the prospects of opening a friendly correspondence with the Western Virginia Synod. Among other things this committee, consisting of the Rev. Messrs. J. R. Moser, H. Wetzel, T. Moser, and Dr. S. G. Henkel, laid before the Synod a petition from St. Paul's Church in Augusta, Virginia, in which the petitioners make known that "they are against all union of forces and means between us and the New Lutherans, unless they first renounce all their anti-Lutheran (un-Lutheran) doctrines and measures, etc." Thereupon the following resolution was recommended by the committee to the Synod and unanimously adopted by it: