# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1849 09 04_S1
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Der Lutheraner.

"God's Word and Luther's doctrine shall never pass away."

Published by the German Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and other States.

Edited by C. F. W. Walther.

Volume 6.  St. Louis, Mo., September 4, 1849.  No. 1.

Terms: Der Lutheraner appears once every two weeks at the yearly subscription price of One Dollar for out-of-town subscribers, who are to pay for it in advance and bear the postage. — In St. Louis each single number is sold for 5 cents. Only those letters which contain communications for the paper are to be addressed to the editor; all others, however, which contain business matters, orders, cancellations, money, etc., are to be sent here under the address: Mr. F. W. Barthel, care of C. F. W. Walther, St. Louis, Mo.

Preface of the Editor to the Sixth Volume of the "Lutheraner".

So then the "Lutheraner" has outlived its first lustrum.*) With humble thanks toward God we look back. For we know: "A man's heart deviseth his way; but the LORD alone giveth that it go forward." Prov. 16, 9. What are we, that we could have secured for our little paper its continuance even for a single year? No, no, it is the LORD's grace that, while so many of our former companions, who began their journey with us under far better prospects, have long since run their course, our "Lutheraner," on the other hand, can today cheerfully take up its pilgrim's staff again for the further journey.

*) So men call a period of five years.

Gloomy and dark lay the future before us when five years ago we ventured to send our "Lutheraner" out into the world. We had great cause to fear that in its poor smock it would so seldom find a night's lodging that it would perhaps soon have to turn back ashamed. But behold! without having to knock stormily at people's doors first, and to beg long for admittance, as many other well-dressed gentlemen must, it has been greeted from more cottages than one dared hope with a friendly "Come in!" Already in its fourth year of wandering an entire company of united congregations took it under their protection. And even many of those who do not dwell on the road of the "Lutheraner," and therefore have come to know it only by hearsay, and for that reason at first had formed a very bad opinion of it, have now for the most part become more friendly toward it, grant it now its existence, yes, gladly admit that in its own way it also helps to promote what is good.

We cannot indeed deny that the dear "Lutheraner" on its journey still not seldom meets with people by whom it is received very ill, as if it were not an innocent traveller going about its calling, but a vagabond, a disguised spy, the emissary of a band of agitators and the like. But whoever shuns such adventures must not travel at all. We do not wish today to dwell upon this, burdening our readers' hearts with useless complaints about it. Only one thing is there which we cannot today pass over in silence. For not only to the "Lutheraner," but to all its promoters, whom men now like to call Old Lutherans, something quite evil is imputed even by those who otherwise by no means wish us ill: that we, namely, as they put it, have so "exclusive a character." Now since this is laid to our charge precisely by such as one can tell would gladly let all fairness be done to us, by such whose judgment therefore cannot truly be a matter of indifference to us, yes, whom we must esteem highly in many respects, we think it is high time that we speak out once openly and honestly on this subject. This shall now also be done.

But in order that a complete mutual understanding may be reached, we will show three things: first, what kind of exclusive character we do not have; second, in how far we ourselves do not deny that in a certain respect we are indeed exclusive; and finally, why we purpose, by God's grace, to be and to remain exclusive in this sense also in the future. —

Exclusive means literally in German: "shutting out." In religious and churchly matters one therefore attributes an "exclusive character" to that communion which is inclined to draw a certain sharp dividing-line between those who are to belong to the Church and those who are not, thus to shut others out from it, and accordingly to shut the Church up within certain narrow bounds. Now we no more deny than do our well-disposed opponents that there is an exclusive character which is altogether contrary to God's Word, and therefore unchristian and reprehensible, but we have also at all times renounced it, orally and in writing, and still renounce it.

We Lutherans have, first, nothing to do with the falsely exclusive character of the Roman, papistical, so-called Catholic Church, which binds the Church of Christ to a man and his office, to a place and name, namely to the Pope, to Rome, and to the name Catholic, in that it maintains that the visible so-called Roman Catholic Church, standing under the Pope as its head, is the one universal Church of JESUS Christ on earth, outside of which there is no salvation. We Lutherans by no means bind the Church to Luther and his office, not to Wittenberg, not to the name Lutheran; but believe and confess that the true Church of Christ is invisible and extends over the whole wide world, that there are members of it, namely true disciples of Christ and children of God, among all the sects of Christendom that do not bear the name Lutheran. For thus it is said in the Apology of our Augsburg Confession: "Thus the comforting article is set in the Creed: I believe one Catholic common Christian Church, lest anyone should think that the Church is, like another outward polity, bound to this or that land, kingdom, or estate, as the Pope of Rome would have it, but that this remains surely true, that the multitude and the people are the true Church who here and there in the world, from the rising of the sun to the going down thereof, truly believe in Christ." (Concordienbuch, New Yorker Ausgabe, p. 140. 141.)

We Lutherans have, further, nothing to do with the falsely exclusive character of those churches which esteem any particular constitution of the Church necessary to the essence of the true Church, and do not regard as parts of the true Church all those Christian communions which do not have precisely this or that constitution; as, among others, besides the Roman, the Episcopal Church and the Independents do. We do indeed not esteem it equally