# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1849 03 20_S114
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

114

humility, that struck me, but I thought, the pastor is after all a humble man, and as to "reading the epistles of Paul," that seemed strange to me, for I had always supposed that the blessed Luther and the "Old Lutherans" stood precisely upon the epistles of Paul. Meanwhile I thought: learning does no harm, you shall do it, and when you have grasped it, you will light a candle for our pastor too, for the poor man is also much scolded and plagued because he is so stiff, and will not admit everybody to the Holy Supper, and I would gladly grant him that he might have it somewhat better in his life.

So I went about it, and looked through the epistles of Paul; but, dear me, I found quite something else, and now do not know at all how to find my way, and at last had to exclaim, now truly the unlearned too have become perverse; one sees it plainly in the Kirchenbote and his fellow-travelers. Well, what then did I find? I will only just cite it:

Right in the epistle to the Romans 16:17 it reads: "Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them." Why, thought I, that sounds quite different. For we have not introduced the Reformed doctrine of the Supper and Baptism, etc., alongside the apostolic, and thereby made the division, but they; we have also not introduced the Union, and thereby brought strife and quarrel into the Lutheran and Reformed Church, but our good friends, who now accuse us of lovelessness, and want to push the quarrel upon our conscience, which they themselves introduced. Nor could I find at all that we should join together with them, but Avoid! Avoid! it says.

The two epistles to the Corinthians are indeed quite full of zeal against false doctrine and false teachers, and the apostle had to set right again with great earnestness the doctrine of the Holy Supper, and it has been especially noteworthy to me that he contends so hard for the doctrine of the resurrection of the body, whereas one would think that one could well continue to exist without a body, and as many clever people, also so-called believers, think, it must be better to go on living there without a body than with a body; but St. Paul stands firm upon it, and as he sets it before us, one sees also plainly that whoever overthrows the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead overthrows the whole faith, and leaves nothing of the dear redemption, but remains in his sins. 1 Cor. 15:12. He will also hardly have had church fellowship with them, for he calls these false teachers "Satan's apostles," 2 Cor. 11:15, although they too were ministers of righteousness, thus quite "evangelical believing preachers," as indeed nowadays, without more ado, anyone who can pull a long face, and zealously practices a Jewish legalism, but otherwise chatters somewhat evangelically, and is liberal, and has the "love," is called "evangelical" and a "dear pious man."

Yes, he is not yet done; in the second epistle to Timothy 2:16, 17 he names Hymenaeus and Philetus, who also interpreted this doctrine otherwise, and says: "who concerning the truth have erred, and their word will eat as doth a canker." Well, everyone knows what a dreadful, dangerous disease the canker is; one cannot possibly get along amicably with it, and I think the holy apostle will have done it by impulse of the Holy Ghost and by command of Christ, when he delivers one of these "dear brethren," together with his fellow, Alexander, unto Satan, "that they may learn not to blaspheme," 1 Tim. 1:20, in spite of the fact that the "Kirchenbote" and his consorts are not at all satisfied with it.

The epistle of St. Paul to the Galatians I did not even need to open, for the passage 1:8 I had already often heard as a child from my dear grandmother, when the old woman could bring forward nothing more against the clever things of my older brothers and sisters, then she opened the Bible, and pointed to the passage and said: "Love here, love there, I know well enough what love is, but there! there! that is God's Word, and he who spoke it had surely more love than all of us together, and he proved it when he let himself be abused and plagued by the people to whom he preached the Gospel, in order to rescue them from eternal perdition, but when it concerned God's Word and the right doctrine, then he could also curse, even if it concerned an angel"; I looked at the passage once more and thought in my mind: it is well that the dear apostle is with the LORD, for the "Kirchenbote" would make a Papist and heathen of him too; they do not agree at all with one another.

But the holy apostle became still further quite suspect to me, as I read the Kirchenbote further, or no, the Kirchenbote became quite suspect to me, for in the dear epistle one reads straight out the opposite of what Mr. K—t has read out of it, and now demands of us also that we should read it out. There are indeed strange people in the world! for there it stands quite clearly that precisely over the Mosaic matters the apostle collided very hard with the congregation; for Gal. 4:10 it says: "Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years," and adds: "I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labour in vain." And 5:2: "Behold, I Paul say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing." Why, thought I, that is strange, a little bit of foreskin more or less, what can that matter, especially as the dear apostle had his Timothy circumcised too? One would not think that the holy apostle could so zealously contend about it. But he explains it quite finely in the following verse, that thereby the whole preaching of Christ and his redemption, and of justification by faith alone, is overthrown; and so it will be with every false doctrine. A single one will spoil everything, as the apostle also says in verse 9: "A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump."

But how entirely the holy apostle falls out of the love of the Kirchenbote when he says in verse 12: "I would they were even cut off which trouble you." That sounds again quite differently from what the Kirchenbote would have it!

That the apostles were of different opinions about these doctrines I also cannot find, and it seems to me like a shameful blasphemy against the one truth, and the infallibility of the apostles, and makes the whole Word of God uncertain, so that such stupid, simple people as I would know nothing more to do with it, and only such clever people as the Kirchenbote could find out the one certain divine way. But I think, perhaps such special saints have also their special ways through the air, and need no longer any firm ground under their feet. This I do find, that the holy Peter once fell into hypocrisy from fear of man and complaisance, and also united with false teachers; but Paul does not say: "Well now, dear Brother Peter, that does not matter, see, these are just different opinions which the people have, therefore keep company with the people undisturbed, but bring the people along, we will now celebrate the Holy Supper together, for on account of such trifles love shall not fail," but he rebuked him openly and set his hypocrisy before his eyes. Gal. 2:14.

To the people who insisted that Titus should be circumcised, he yielded not an hour, that the truth of the Gospel might continue, and calls those people quite shortly, without special ceremonies of love, "false brethren," which is indeed quite something else than what Mr. K—t says: "Were not the apostles also of different opinions? and that in a doctrine just as important, in that some still clung to the Mosaic" (what all people lay to the charge of the holy apostles, for the sake of the dear "love"!), "while Paul labored with all his might against it. But they were nevertheless peaceable and loving toward one another," etc., this is plainly false and not true at all: for 1) the apostles were not at all of different opinions about these matters, but taught thereon very unanimously, Acts 15, and 2) if anyone in his walk erred against it, which could happen even to an apostle, the apostle rebuked him openly, and 3) if anyone taught against it, as in general against the faith once preached, he preached and wrote openly against it, and if they would not desist, he delivered them confidently to the devil, that they might be chastened, calls them dogs, Phil. 3:2, Satan's apostles, 2 Cor. 11,