# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1849 05 29_S155
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

155

give something toward its being preserved; moreover, they turn the children away from it also, that such office may soon go to the ground, and Christ's blood and passion be in vain, and yet go on securely, with no conscience, no remorse or sorrow for such hellish and more than hellish ingratitude, and with many unspeakable sins and vices, showing no fear or awe of God's wrath, no desire or love toward the dear Savior for His bitter, heavy passion, but with such horrible abominations would yet be Evangelical and Christians."

Now, ye dear fathers in our Lutheran Church, who by God's grace have God-fearing and gifted sons, but yet hesitate to give them up to the service of the Church, because so much reproach and poverty is bound up with it — are ye not now perhaps of another mind, after ye have read what the man of God has spoken to you? Doth not your mind now incline much rather to this, that your sons may be "great in the sight of the Lord," than that they obtain riches and honor before the world? For the fashion of this world passeth away, but that being "great in the sight of the Lord," in which your sons, as kings and priests especially before God, should live and reign with Christ, — that abideth for ever.

Ye can therefore do nothing nobler to the honor of God and to the profit and benefit of your neighbor than to give back to the Giver His gifts, as to the triune God, who hath created, redeemed, and sanctified you together with your children, and to set your sons to the holiest and most glorious service, for a gift and offering and for a sweet savor before the Lord. And if some of you in our old fatherland had to put all your sons into the army for a time, in order to wage the wars of an earthly prince where need was — should ye not here, with joy and love, put at least one of your sons into the army of the Lord Christ, that, closely gathered together with other faithful warriors around the banner of the pure confession of your Church, he may wage the wars of the Lord of all lords, and by the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, victoriously lay low the most dreadful and mightiest foes, namely, sin, world, flesh, death, devil, and hell? —

So then, ye dear fathers, those glorious promises which the Lord hath given to His faithful servants should justly entice you to give up your sons willingly to the service of the Church, that also hereafter, if they remain faithful, those promises may be fulfilled in them. But on the other hand the earnestness of God should also terrify you, if ye, in spite of all exhortation and entreaty, yea perhaps in spite of all the urging and desire of your sons themselves, withdraw them from the service of the Church or school out of avarice, worldly care, fleshly softness, and so forth. For what think ye, to what end and purpose hath God given your sons such gifts, and also the desire and inclination toward the holy ministry in their hearts? Perhaps to this end, that ye should keep them from applying these abilities and powers according to the Giver's counsel and will, and rather lead them on, yea perhaps by doctrine and example drive them, to serve the great god Mammon, and through him the devil, but not the triune God, the Proprietor of us all? Is not this your undertaking the most shameful robbery of the Church and murder of souls together, and is it not enough that ye yourselves go to hell through such dreadful unbelief? Must ye then also drag your flesh and blood down with you, unless God's grace wondrously intervene, and so make the eternal pain of hell and fire's glow doubly hotter and more terrible for you?

O woe unto you, so-called Christians, who go beyond the abominations of the heathen; for whereas these sacrificed their children bodily to Moloch and made them pass through the fire, in the delusion of thereby appeasing the wrath of God, whose burning they as sinners felt in their conscience, ye sacrifice the souls of your children to the devil with love and delight, and plunge yourselves with them wantonly into the jaws of the infernal wolf.

But ye fathers also, who are not so downright anti-Lutheran, that is, Mammon-minded, yet who live on slothful and lax, without caring on your part also for the welfare of the Church, know ye not that your sons, equipped by God well in heart and head, are also pounds which the Lord hath entrusted to you, that ye may trade therewith with diligence and zeal and gain other pounds with them? but naturally not in that fleshly way mentioned above, like the sons of the servants of Mammon, who are only to help their fathers fill the purse, but in the spiritual way, namely, that your sons, after ye have ventured the cost upon them and set them to the service of the Church, may thereafter also, as instruments of the Holy Ghost, rescue many souls from the power of Satan and convert them to the Lord Christ?

But if ye now neglect this and bury your pounds, — what think ye, will God the Lord do with you, when your little hour of death strikes and the day of reckoning comes, when ye also must give answer to the righteous and strict Judge for the use of these pounds? Will ye not then be made manifest in the shame of your nakedness? Must ye not be struck dumb with terror, and will not the sentence also be executed upon you: "Cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." (Matth. 25:30.)

But ye also, anxious fathers, who are so needlessly concerned about the bodily welfare of your sons, in case they should one day become poor bush-pastors, — ye ought justly to be ashamed of your unbelief; for know ye not, or believe ye it not from the heart, that He still liveth, and that to Him all power is given in heaven and on earth, who once said to His disciples, when He walked on earth in lowliness and the form of a servant: "Lacked ye any thing?" and they had to answer, according to the truth: "Nothing, Lord." Yea, know ye not that the Father in heaven maketh His sun to rise and sendeth rain even upon the evil and the unjust, that He is kind even unto the unthankful and the evil? — how should He then forsake and neglect those who by true faith in the Lord Christ are His dear children, to whom He hath given His only and beloved Son for their own, who are temples of the Holy Ghost, yea, in whom the triune God Himself dwelleth and walketh, and to whom He hath moreover entrusted the holy office, to invite and exhort men in His stead to Christ and to beseech them: "Be ye reconciled to God"? Verily, the ravens would sooner have to bring flesh anew, or manna rain from heaven, or this and that handful of meal not be consumed, before your sons, if they are faithful servants of the Lord, should suffer want. But what goes beyond the relief of want, beyond the satisfying of food and necessity, about that no believing Christian, and least of all a preacher, shall of course be anxious in any wise. For no man liveth by the abundance of the things which he possesseth; the rich can also only feed and clothe themselves, and have, if they are fleshly minded, nothing more than the poorer, except that they have much care, unrest, and trouble, pass harder through the strait gate, and go more easily to hell. Therefore we poor bush-pastors in the West would much rather praise and magnify God that we live pretty much from hand to mouth, and are counted worthy to be like the Lord Christ also in our outward appearance, and to follow Him with joy and love, who had not where to lay His head. Yea, we would thank God from the heart that in our modest portion we are delivered from so many kinds of temptations and snares of Satan, in which perhaps many a rich pastor in the East is entangled, who in increasing worldliness suffers terrible harm to his soul, and is in such great danger, with the greater part of his church children, whose service of Mammon he strengthens and confirms by his example, of being eternally lost. —

Thus I would have heartily admonished you, ye avaricious, or lax, or anxious fathers, who have believing and gifted sons, to give them up willingly and joyfully to the service of the Church. Imitate Hannah, who even gave her only Samuel back to the Lord for His service in the temple; tread in the footsteps of David, who dedicated the captured gold and silver to the Lord. Offer thanks to God also in this manner, who also for you gave His only Son, and by whose grace it is that ye are redeemed, not with corruptible things, as silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ.