# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1849 03 06_S107
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

107

aroused, the grief of the congregation was yet much greater when now Paul Gerhardt also, the most beloved and most renowned among their clergy, was to be taken from them. The citizens and the guilds turned at once to the magistrate, who for its part, on the 13th of February, made an urgent intercession with the Elector for Paul Gerhardt, and in doing so emphasized in particular his blameless conduct, his peaceable disposition and his special gifts. His Electoral Highness himself, says the magistrate, had made no scruple of having Paul Gerhardt's hymns admitted into the Märkische (Reformed) hymn-book of the year 1658 published under his name; it would occasion peculiar reflection abroad if so pious, gifted man, renowned in many lands, had to leave this city; toward the Reformed he had always conducted himself so peaceably that on his account the edict would not have been needed at all; it was not disobedience, but conscientiousness, that he refused to sign the pledge, and one must pay some regard to an anxious conscience, even if the scruples of conscience concerned insignificant matters."

To this petition, as also to a second, still more urgent one dispatched to the Elector at Cleve, the magistrate received no compliant answer. Only in consequence of a representation of the Estates, in which they proposed that P. Gerhärdt be reinstated in his office and that the preachers generally be excused from issuing the pledges, and also complained that the Consistory would no longer permit the mention of the symbolical books in the calls of the Lutheran preachers, did the Elector become more favorably disposed toward P. Gerhardt. *)"Immediately after his return from Cleve on the 9th of January, 1667, he had the magistrate of Berlin summoned before him, and through the Lord President von Schwerin, in the presence of several Privy Councillors, had the desired and scarcely any longer expected announcement made to it: that since His Electoral Highness had heard no complaint against Paul Gerhardt except that he refused to sign the edicts, but they must hold that he had not rightly understood the meaning of the edicts, they would therefore fully reinstate him in his office and excuse him from signing the pledge.

"The magistrate informed Paul Gerhardt of the favorable decision of his fate on the following day, and the glad event was also announced, on the 12th of January, 1667, in the Sonntagsche Mercurius, a weekly paper much read in Berlin at that time; but now there began for the man faithful to his confession a new struggle with his conscience. Immediately after the audience given to the magistrate the Elector had caused one of his Privy Secretaries to communicate to Paul Gerhardt the news of his reinstatement, with the remark that His Highness lived in the most gracious confidence that he would know how to conduct himself in conformity with the edicts even without a pledge. Precisely this confiding utterance of the great Elector was what greatly disquieted Paul Gerhardt's mind. An unconditional return to his pastoral office was, in his opinion, a tacit promise to conduct himself in conformity with the edicts, and an oral promise just as binding as a pledge executed in all due form."

In a letter to the magistrate of the 19th of January, 1667, in which he asks that they would be pleased to help him in his doubts and to inquire for his sake in what manner and form he should re-enter his office, he mentions also the moderation praised in him: "to that I have never understood myself otherwise, nor can I yet understand otherwise, than that I be left in all my Lutheran confessions, and namely in the Formula Concordiae, and that I be permitted to hold none among these confessions to be a book of shame, disgrace and blasphemy, or to let others hold it so."

In a further representation to the magistrate of the 26th of January, 1667, he expresses this thus: "Therefore it is again my humble request of your Honors and the Right Wise Council, that they would let this my present word of anguish go to their hearts, and also help to intercede with His Electoral Highness, our most gracious Lord, that, if I am indeed to serve my office again, there may first be granted me the most gracious electoral indulgence that, next to a gracious release from obedience to the edicts (since otherwise I shall in all possible obedience, unremittingly and in deepest humility of my heart, let myself be found) I may remain unmoved in all my Lutheran confessions, namely in the Formula Concordiae, so that also according to it I may instruct my congregation and hearers, and need pledge myself to no other moderation and discretion than that which has its ground in my Lutheran confessions just mentioned; otherwise it would be not only impossible for me to hold any sermon, but I should also be unable to perform further those parts of the holy service of the church which I have hitherto administered in the hope of a better freeing of my mind, for my conscience would be filled with unrest and terror on that account; but what is done with an evil conscience is an abomination before God, and draws not the blessing, but the curse upon itself, whereby neither my congregation nor I would be helped."

The Elector sent his representation back to the magistrate the same day with the brief marginal order: "If the preacher Paul Gerhardt will not re-enter the office graciously permitted to him again by His Electoral Highness, for which he will then have to answer before the Most High God, the magistrate in Berlin will at the earliest invite some other peace-loving, capable men to deliver a trial sermon, but not call the same until they have first rendered to His Electoral Highness a most humble report of their qualifications."

Paulus Gerhardt now turned also to the great Elector himself with a direct representation of the same content as those letters to the magistrate; he says in it: "Just therefore, most gracious Elector and Lord, I have hitherto had to refrain from signing the said pledges, because I cannot satisfy the aforesaid electoral edicts without injury to my poor conscience; I have also complained of this more than once to the Electoral Councillors, when I was summoned, and represented to them how in such obedience I should have to forsake and put from me my Lutheran confession of faith, the Formulam Concordiae, and when I could not be heard in this, I finally took upon myself most obediently the remotionem ab officio, and by the power of God bore it almost a whole year in all possible quiet and patience. Should I now, then, again engage in that from which I formerly withdrew in the most pressing necessity, I should be doing myself the highest injury, and, so to speak, strike with my own hands into my soul the very wound which I sought before with so great anguish of heart to ward off from me. Since, however, most gracious Elector and Lord, I well know that Your Electoral Highness is not minded to let any man, even the very least, be wounded and grieved in his conscience, I therefore pray so much the more heartily and earnestly, in all most humble obedience, that Your Electoral Highness will not take it ill that I, under the most gracious electoral favor shown me, disclose the anxious care and trouble of my mind. I fear God, in whose sight I walk here on earth and before whose judgment I must also appear hereafter, and, according to what my conscience has stood from my youth up and still stands now, I can find no other than that, if I should re-enter my office in the manner touched upon above, I shall lay upon myself His wrath and heavy punishment. To avoid such great, unspeakable misfortune, Your Electoral Highness will most graciously permit me to abstain from the church service hitherto performed again in some part, and to refrain from the full administration of the office of preaching, until, according to God's will and with Your Electoral Highness' most gracious permission, with a better conscience than can now be done, I shall enter upon this high, holy and divine office, of which we poor people must one day give so heavy an account."

The Elector let it stand with his former decision. Paulus Gerhardt remained deposed from his office. At that time he composed the hymn: "Ich danke dir mit Freuden."*)

*) Loc. cit. p. 71.

*) Compare page 71 of this volume, where we have already communicated the lovely hymn from Gerhardt's exile.

The Editor.