# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1849 02 06_S92
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

92

oppressed from their oppressor, and lead them out into a spacious place. —

"The LORD shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace!"

Hübner's biblische Historien.

Edited by C. G. Weyl, Pastor of the Ev. Lutheran Trinity Church in Baltimore.

It is a stratagem used ever and again by the devil to bring his filth into the Church under the name of men who have proved themselves faithful. The dear Apostles already complain of it. Among other things the holy Paul writes: "For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light." 2 Cor. 11, 13. 14. Luther also has had to experience this. Hardly had his name gained a good repute in the Church, when Satan at once made use of it in order to spread his lies under it. To cite only one example, when Luther had published his Kirchenpostille and there arose on every side a demand for this precious book, Bucer in Strassburg, who was at that time still of Zwinglian sentiments, hastened to procure an edition of this sought-after book, into which he had smuggled the false Zwinglian doctrine of the Sacraments. Shortly before he had already proceeded in the same way with the glorious exposition of the Psalter, of which Bugenhagen (commonly called Pomeranus or Dr. Pommer) was the author. Of this wicked piece Luther writes in his treatise: "That these words of Christ, This is my body, still stand fast," at the close as follows: "Martin Bucer is among you one of the foremost, and a Christian dear brother and fellow-servant of Christ among you, who also makes you holy even in this life, the same has Latinized the Psalter of our pastor, Sir (Herr) Johann Pommer (as he has the great grace from God to speak and to interpret), and has so corrupted the fine book with the poison of your doctrine of the holy Sacrament, that hardly any remedy may be found, since the same book comes among so many people, and under Sir Johann's name and labor the very error is sold along with it, which he nevertheless constantly opposes with hand and mouth. Such a trifle you holy people let pass, as though you had pleasure therein, and do not hold it for a retraction and counter-statement, though you know well what Sir Johann thinks of it, and how highly he is offended by such a knavish trick. In like manner my very best book that I ever made, the Postils, which even the Papists gladly have, he has likewise so fitted up with prefaces, interludes and interjections, that under my name this blasphemous, shameful doctrine is carried further and spread, than perhaps through all other books. What shall I do? How can I now remedy the matter? I must act as if a dog had bitten me. I have rebuked it with prefaces, but what avails it? The devil saw well that this book was spreading on every side, therefore he seized upon it, loaded and smeared his dirt upon it. And I, an innocent man, must thus be the devil's dung-carrier, whether I will or not. Yet we suffer nothing (in their thoughts), but walk on roses, and are scolders and biters! They, however, are all holiness: and yet withal practice such poisonous little tricks and murderous stabs as cannot be healed. And indeed, if I were a Christian (for which they surely do not hold me), I should be so minded that I would rather have one cut my throat than that such little tricks should be done, that with my book I must carry poison to souls, unknowingly and unwillingly. So hasty are the people and their devil with their error, that they spread it also through other men's books, just as though the books were too few with which they now would stupefy the world. What would happen after my death? This they do to me in my lifetime, and let me sit here at Wittenberg and look on!"

The fears of Luther, as to how it would go with his name and his writings after his death, have, alas, been nothing less than groundless. Especially in this our time hypocritical Rationalism has brought it about that almost no one any more is ashamed of deceit in matters of religion. That kind of deceit, of republishing books in such a way that one indeed retains the title and name of the old authors, but alters their contents so completely that the old books are no longer to be recognized, has now become quite current. How shamefully has the small Catechism of Luther in particular been dressed up in our times! What mountains of the filth of false doctrine has Luther had to bear with this his incomparable little book in the schools and families of our deceived German people! How hideously have the lovely flower-gardens of our old hymn-books been rooted up in our days! Under what pitiful rhymings do there now often stand the names of old singers of holy, glowing psalms, of a Luther, of a Philipp Nicolai, of a Johann Heermann, of a Paul Gerhard, and others! We call to mind only the wretched and godless "Gemeinschaftliche Gesangbuch" of this place. How badly have many old books of edification and prayer, which have become favorite books of the people still asking after God, been falsified and corrupted now! We call to mind only Arnds wahres Christenthum,*) Starke's Handbuch and Schmolke's Communionbuch. And what lying and deceit one meets with altogether in our days, when one thinks of the synods, congregations and preachers, and of the periodicals, which now still always bear the name "Luther" and "Lutheran" on their foreheads! We call to mind only the so-called "General Synod of the American Lutheran Church" of this place, the "Lutheran Observer" and the "lutherischer Kirchenbote" in Baltimore. What soul-damage has been done by this religious counterfeiting, and how many innocent, guileless, simple souls have been seduced thereby, cheated of their faith, and plunged into hell and damnation, cannot be reckoned or told. Woe to those who make themselves partakers of this guilt, and do not earnestly repent! For if Christ says: "Whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea," — what have those to expect who cheat thousands and again thousands of soul and salvation through the mask of a man honored in the kingdom of God, by bringing new books, filled with the poison of false doctrine, under the title of an old, good, orthodox book into schools and houses, and the like!

*) With pain we have seen that even the edition of the 1st Book of this devotional work, recently provided and splendidly got up by the American Tract Society, does not contain the old Arnd unaltered.

But we pass on to our proper subject. Mr. Weyl made known last year in his "Kirchenbote" (Vol. 7, No. 14) that he intended to have Hübner's biblische Historien reprinted "in their old unaltered form and essence." However much cause we otherwise had to doubt whether Mr. Weyl would really let the old good Lutheran school-book go forth again unfalsified under his name, yet the publicly given express promise of the gentleman, to let the book appear again "in its old unaltered form and essence," beat down our doubts. We thought that the most unscrupulous worldling would keep a word so given, were it only for the sake of his honest name, how much more a man who would stand forth as a servant of Christ! We believed ourselves this time so sure that we encouraged a bookseller of this place to order confidently a considerable lot, since the books would without doubt be used up soon in the four schools of our Lutheran congregation alone (attended by about 400 children). We rejoiced already with the zealous teachers employed in our schools at the appearance of the glorious book, as children at a Christmas present. But how bitterly have we been deceived! The greater the joy was with which we heard of the arrival of the books, so much the greater was the indignation when, at the very first cursory glance into one of them, we saw that there was not so much as a trace of the old Hübner to be found in it! For, behold! there was other text, other doctrines, other rhyme-verses, other arrangement, number and selection of the stories, other questions; in short, everything was different from what was in the book, containing twice two and fifty select biblical histories out of the Old and New Testaments, by Johann Hübner, formerly Rector of the Johanneum at Hamburg. Instead of which