# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1849 09 04_S6
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

6

ness, of wrath or grace of God, and least of all in what relation holy Baptism stood thereto.—Scarcely half an hour later, and just having entered my house again, my dear little William also was seized by the cholera. With many a one I had been, throughout the whole course of the sickness, even unto death, but none had I yet seen suffer as this poor child. When toward one o'clock in the night the sick child became somewhat quieter, I had to withdraw for a little hour, as my strength gave way under the superhuman exertions of the last weeks. Thereupon I remained a short time alone with the boy, who now spoke continually, loudly and distinctly, as with father, mother, his brothers and sisters, etc. For a while I listened to his thoroughly coherent speeches, whereupon I sank into other thoughts, until by the word "baptized" I was again made attentive to him. My astonishment was great when I heard the words from him: "— — baptized, now all my sins are forgiven me!" After some other words he said again: "I and little David and still more (the other small child) are baptized, now they are all, all forgiven!" Shortly thereafter two dear members of my congregation, Mr. Claus and Mr. Steinmann, who were rendering me help in the care of the sick, came into the room again. They heard from me with great astonishment what I had heard. At their exhortation to spare myself somewhat, I withdrew again at 4 o'clock. But there was little thought of rest. At half past 5 I came again to the sick child, who now lay in the slumber which in this sickness almost always immediately precedes death. Claus and Steinmann now told me how the last speeches of the child, for more than five minutes, had referred almost solely to the grace of God in Christ JESUS obtained through holy Baptism. They distinctly remembered especially the words: "I have found One who has taken away all my sins. Henry (the eldest brother — but it must surely have been someone else!) wants to take it (probably the bestowed gift of the righteousness of Christ) from me again; but no, no! I will keep it, I need it myself." The words "found" and "taken away" I never used toward the child: they were preached to him by the Holy Ghost, who has declared Himself for the words of God spoken by me!—At 6 o'clock the soul of the little child passed over to the beholding of that which it had here laid hold of, though only a few hours before, yet in a firm faith. Praised be the LORD, who even now still does, in and through His Church, greater signs and wonders than He once did in the healing of the sick, etc.

I feel constrained to bring this remarkable experience of the power of holy Baptism to publicity, not for the sake of the unbelievers and despisers of Baptism, who with seeing eyes yet do not see, and with hearing ears yet do not hear; but for the sake of the believers, who by God's grace believe on the bare Word of God, even without seeing, but who all together have daily cause to lament the weakness of their faith. Them I would thereby stir up to bring their little children to Baptism so much the more joyfully in obedience to the divine Word, with fervent prayers, to nourish in the little ones, in spite of all objections of human reason, the baptismal grace obtained, from the tenderest age, by the Word of our God, and also in all their own temptations and great distresses of soul to comfort themselves with this: I am baptized! There have I put on the LORD Christ! There is forgiveness of sins, deliverance from death and the devil, and eternal blessedness wrought and given to me, to me, who believe the words and promises of God!

August Selle, Pastor.

In confirmation of the above we also have gladly wished to subscribe our names, in the hope that the honor of God our Saviour may thereby be promoted.

August Claus.
Christian Steinmann.
Chicago, the 16th of August, A. D. 1849.

(Sent in by P. Röbbelen.)

Ungodly doctrine cannot stand if it finds no applause with the multitude, as Ps. 73, 10. testifies; but the testimony of the truth has no need of such applause, because it has an eternal ground in God the LORD.

The "Lutheraner" goes forth for half a decade to the members of the Church of Christ, which is One at all times, with greeting, to strengthen them, according to the command of the LORD, in these last evil times against the seduction to unbelief and false belief, which, particularly in a land where Satan also abundantly exploits the general freedom to his own advantage and the injury of souls, is prepared more or less for all, even in the remoter dwelling-places, by this enemy of peace in God and in His eternally uniform, undivided and unmixed truth. This is truly a proof of great faith; for when one thinks of the time when the little flock of the honest confessors of their LORD first came forward with this greeting, it would not yet have been so absurd to calculating reason, in the midst of the crowd stirred up by Demetrius at Ephesus (Acts 19, 28.), during its idolatrous clamor, to get a hearing and to defend the apostle Paul, as there, where the commingling of different doctrines under the dreadfully abused name of Union, not indeed commanded by laws of State, but through the far greater tyranny of fashion and echoes of highly celebrated political conditions, had become dominant in the common spirit of a mighty nation, to undertake the representation of the pure Lutheran doctrine, that is, of the unabridged and unmixed One speech concerning Christ (compare 1 Cor. 1, 10.). But because it has been done in faith, the LORD, who lets Himself never be mocked, has also let this deed triumph over the scorn of the servants of the time and prisoners of the spirit of the age, who rely upon their masses, if not by great numbers (for numbers do not decide in the kingdom of God), yet so much the more gloriously by a full measure of spiritual gifts and inner strengthening of the congregations called in His name. To be sure, the hostilities against the truth nevertheless continue; but if its confessors only remain mindful of the earnest admonition of the Holy Ghost, 2 John 10., and seek only also in this to keep themselves unspotted from the world, that they break off fellowship of faith with such as, to please men, according to circumstances stretch the doctrine of Christ wider and narrower, and in the apprehension of clear sayings of Holy Scripture allow such unchristian liberty that they let them be denied as indifferently as accepted: then there is no need of any contradiction, however fine and adroit, and however much raised in the name of a yet so great multitude. Just as little as it can strike any one who in faith joins himself to the apostles as strange, that like them he has not merely Jews and Gentiles as adversaries, but also such as, under the name of Christ against the apostolic, under the name of Paul against the Petrine, and under the name of Peter against the Pauline preaching, contend with the false pretense that Paul and his fellow-apostles differ among themselves, and the apostles from the LORD Christ in their preaching; in a word: false brethren, that is, such as call themselves Christians without being so, confess Christ without letting His Word stand when it does not suit their head and humor,—that he must put up with seeing among his enemies, besides the Papists, the arch-enemies of the Church of Christ, also those whom as Protestants he would so gladly have heard testify, with the Church, as powerfully for every word of God as against the Papacy; so little need he let himself be disturbed thereby in the peace which he has in faith, because he knows that it is not his faith and confession, still less the multitude of those who believe and confess, but the promise of the LORD that bears the Church, and him in and with the Church, and that he too does not fight when he draws the sword of the Word for the Church, but Joshua, who casts down the walls without hand, Gideon, who chases the enemies without the many who depart from him, Samson, who smites the Philistines with the jawbone of an ass, and David, who lays low the armed man without helmet and coat of mail in the name of God. Least of all is it of any importance for the continuance of the Lutheran Church that, despite the calmest and most telling defense of her doctrine, such as is done continually through the "Lutheraner," among those who, whether from prejudice or love of the flesh or wicked pride and resistance against the truth, do not desist from their errors,