# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1849 05 29_S156
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

156

Divine Preservation from the Plague.

When Dr. Justus Jonas, the well-known friend of Luther, was still a child, his father, at that time burgomaster in Nordhausen, once lay mortally ill with the plague. The sick man laid a roasted onion upon his plague-sore, and after it had done its service, he laid it beside him on a bench. What happens? A few moments afterward the little son comes to the bench, takes the onion, and, before the father can prevent it, he has swallowed it. Everyone now thinks that the child will surely become a victim of the pestilence, which is contagious even by touch. But behold! the boy remains well, and later becomes an important instrument for the spreading of the pure doctrine. Here was fulfilled the Word of God: "He that dwelleth under the defence of the Most High, and abideth under the shadow of the Almighty, saith unto the Lord: My refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust; for He shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence," etc. Psalm 91.

(Submitted by Pastor Keyl.)

The Original Order of Divine Service in the German Churches of the Lutheran Confession.

(Continuation.)

The Te Deum, or "Lord God, we praise Thee," is the counterpart of the Litany; for as the latter is the great general prayer of petition of the Church, so the former is the great general prayer of thanksgiving of the same. From of old it has been ascribed to Ambrose, and is therefore also called the Ambrosian Hymn of Praise. It probably arose in the Greek Church and was adopted by the Roman, where it already occurs about the year 550. Dr. Luther translated it from the Latin as it appears in his works (X, 1756). In this form it is an antiphonal song, which either two choirs, or the two halves of the congregation, or the choir and preacher on the one side and the congregation on the other, perform, so that one of the former intones and the latter responds. Further, the procedure is that the two choirs sing line by line; thus the first choir intones: "Lord God, we praise Thee," and the second choir responds: "Lord God, we thank Thee," and so on, until at the line: "Holy is our God" both choirs fall in together; then it goes on again line by line, until at the close, at the lines: "In Thee, dear Lord, do we hope; let us never be put to shame, Amen!" both choirs again fall in together. To the Te Deum there is always joined a Versicle and a Collect of thanksgiving.

Dr. Luther says of the Te Deum: "It is a fine Symbol or Confession (whoever the author may be) made in the manner of song, not only to confess the right faith, but also therein to praise and thank God." (X, 1199.) For this reason the Lutheran church orders likewise expressly admonish that it be sung often, in order that it may remain in the memory of the congregations; thus the use of it is found throughout, and for over 200 years, not only on all high festivals, but also on Sundays, besides in the weekday services, at the harvest thanksgiving, on the Festival of the Reformation, at church dedications, at the ordination and installation of preachers, yea, also at weddings and baptisms of children.

The Benedictus, or the Song of Zacharias, Luke 1:68-79, was already used by the Greek, and then, since the sixth century, by the Roman Church, and after the pattern of both also in the Lutheran, and in particular in the Sunday Matins. From it there later arose the hymn: "Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel."

The Magnificat, or the Song of Mary, Luke 1:46 ff., likewise passed from the Greek into the Roman and from this into the Lutheran Church, where it was used throughout in Vespers on Saturday and Sunday. A rendering of this Magnificat is the hymn: "My soul doth magnify the Lord."

The Nunc Dimittis, or the Song of Praise of Simeon, Luke 2:29-32, which in its origin and earlier use is placed on a level with the two songs just mentioned, Dr. Luther has adapted for the use of the congregation in the hymn: "In peace and joy I now depart," which, according to the church orders, they sang at the close of the Sunday Vespers after the Magnificat.

The sermon at the chief service was always preached only upon the Gospels. Originally, and especially in Dr. Luther's time, there is found as a rule neither a special introduction nor an opening prayer, but the preacher begins at once with the repeated reading of the Gospel; also the use of confession and absolution after the sermon came up only later and is to be found only in individual church orders, for, as Dr. Kliefoth says, "the Lutheran Church did not set much store by this general confession and absolution; what of it was necessary lay in the Kyrie and Gloria; also it conceives the sermon itself, the proclamation of the Word, essentially as the general confession and absolution; and besides, it had, among the minor services preceding the chief service, a confessional service of its own, namely the Saturday Vespers." — In place of the church prayer Dr. Luther wished to have read "a common form, how at the close of the sermon the people are to be exhorted to the general prayer," which is to be found at the close of his Hauspostille of the year 1559; therein the particular intercessions are at the same time assigned their place; it closes with the words: "to obtain all this, pray with devotion and faith an Our Father"; after this prayer followed the apostolic benediction "The grace of our Lord," and so forth, with which the action of the Word was concluded. Probably this exhortation was used when Communion took place, for otherwise the Litany was sung as the general church prayer; that arrangement was built upon the genuinely Lutheran principle that the congregation must necessarily itself join in praying the general prayers, and only from the increasing disregard of this principle is the rise of the ever more multiplying forms for such prayers to be explained, which the congregation often could not even read over in its hymn-book, let alone join in praying. A very laudable custom, however, which almost all Lutheran church orders prescribe, was this, that every time after the sermon all the chief parts of the Catechism were read aloud without the explanation, that they might become and remain known to the congregation.*)

*) Herr Dr. Kliefoth very often mentions his treatise "über Predigt und Katechese in der Vergangenheit und in der Gegenwart der lutherischen Kirche," (Mecklenburger Kirchenblatt, Heft 1. 2. 3.); should any of the readers possess these numbers, he is kindly requested to let me have them as soon as possible. The Sender.

The Communion as Eucharist or Thanksgiving began originally with the Preface, which, according to its name as well as its purpose, is a prologue or preparation for the celebration of the Supper, and as such already occurs in the second century; to this the Sanctus, or thrice Holy, was joined. The arrangement of these Prefaces, as it occurs both in the whole ancient and throughout in the older Lutheran Church, is this: After the Salutation, or greeting (The Lord be with you — and with thy spirit), which properly does not belong to the Preface, the preacher calls the congregation to devotion with the words: "Lift up your hearts," and the congregation declares its willingness in the answer, "We lift them up unto the Lord"; then the preacher exhorts: "Let us give thanks unto the Lord our God," and the congregation answers: "It is meet and right"; and now the preacher goes on: "Truly meet and right, fitting and salutary is it that we at all times and in all places give thanks unto Thee, O Lord, almighty Father, everlasting God," to which opening a longer prayer of thanksgiving is joined, which always ends with the words "with whom (the angels) we sing without end, saying," and thereupon choir and congregation strike up: "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts, the whole earth is full of His glory," from Isaiah 6:3. The Lutheran Church went back in this to the ancient Church, in that it let not the choir alone, but also the congregation respond; of the great multitude of Prefaces, however, it kept only one for all Sundays and a few for certain festivals, on account of which the Sanctus also was as a rule extended by certain additions. Soon the text of the Prefaces was translated into the German language and taken with the melodies belonging to them into the Agenden. Dr. Luther also presented to the Church the "German Sanctus," in that he adapted Isaiah 6:1-4 into the church hymn "Isaiah, the prophet, this befell." It was, however, more seldom sung immediately after