# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1849 10 02_S18
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

18

ter, but Christ alone, and shalt confess thyself a Christian. But if thou holdest that Luther's doctrine is evangelical and the Pope's unevangelical, then thou must not cast Luther away so utterly, else thou castest away with him his doctrine also, which thou yet acknowledgest to be Christ's doctrine. But thus must thou say: Let Luther be a knave or a saint, that concerns me not; but his doctrine is not his, but Christ's own. For thou seest that the tyrants do not go about merely to kill Luther, but the doctrine they will destroy, and on account of the doctrine they rightly lay hands on thee, and ask thee whether thou be Lutheran. Here thou must verily not speak with reedy words, but freely confess Christ, whether Luther, Claus, or George hath preached Him. Thus also Paul writes to Timothy, II, 1, 8.: Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me His prisoner. If here it had been enough for Timothy that he confessed the Gospel, Paul would not have commanded him not to be ashamed of him also; not as of the person of Paul, but as of one who was bound for the Gospel's sake. Now if Timothy had said: I hold not with Paul nor with Peter, but with Christ, and yet knew that Peter and Paul taught Christ, he would yet have denied Christ Himself thereby. For Christ saith, Matth. 10., of those who preach Him: He that receiveth you receiveth me; and he that despiseth you despiseth me. Why so? Because they hold His messengers (who bring His Word) thus; therefore it is the same as if He Himself and His Word were thus held." (Works. Halle ed., XX, 136. 137.)

From the foregoing exposition, however, it is now further clear why we must confess continually that the so-called Evangelical Lutheran Church is no other than the One holy universal Christian Church. The simple reason is that, if we should let this be taken from us, we should thereby deny that the faith which we confess, and which is laid down in our Symbols, is the universal Christian faith; for if it is this, if our Confessions are the voice of the true Church (of which no Lutheran doubts, and which also can never be refuted), then those who have and confess this faith must necessarily also be the true Church; if we therefore should concede that our Symbols contain not the faith of the universal Church, but only our private opinions, we should thereby make ourselves a sect.

It will indeed be said that one can deny to the Lutheran Church that it is the One holy universal Christian Church, and need not on that account make it a sect, but can acknowledge it as a branch, as a division of the former, in short, merely as a particular church. But, we repeat it, however willingly we admit that the individual congregations which in deed and truth call themselves Lutheran are particular churches, and also that the whole sum of these visible orthodox congregations*) is yet only a particular church, nevertheless the sum of these congregations is not the Lutheran Church to which we desire to belong, and which we mean when we speak of the Lutheran Church, but the totality of all those who, whether they bear the Lutheran name or not, and whether they outwardly are in a so-called Lutheran particular church or not, carry the Lutheran faith in their hearts, and, according to the degree of knowledge on which they stand, also confess the same. Were we to concede that the Lutheran Church, to which alone we confess ourselves and for which we contend, is only an orthodox particular church, we should thereby declare ourselves guilty of causing, with our exclusive name and with our separate existence, factions, divisions and separations in the Church; but this be far from us! When we seek to gather so-called Lutheran congregations, we desire to labor, not for a party in the Church (which we should esteem the best only as the Reformed man does his Reformed, the Evangelical his Evangelical, the Methodist his Methodist, etc., church), but for the universal Christian Church.

*) That visible ecclesiastical communions are called churches even only in an improper sense, this we have already set forth elsewhere.

There would remain to us only One way by which we could let our Lutheran Church be deprived of its catholicity without declaring ourselves Lutherans thereby to be members and servants of a sect or party in the Church, namely, if we should assume that there were several churches which are true churches, in spite of the different faith and confession which they have. But though in our times men may take delight in the differences of the so-called denominations in doctrine, as in a lovely play of colors of the divine truth, yea, though now most of the so-called believing theologians concede even to the worst Rationalism its right in the midst of the Church, we abide in simplicity by God's Word, which tells us: as there is only One God, One Christ and One way to salvation, so there is also only One faith, therefore One truth and One-Church, the pillar and ground of this One truth. All that is now pretended of a possible fellowship of light and darkness, of Christ and Belial, of the temple of God and the idol-house of this world and of human reason, all this we therefore esteem the Devil's vain deceit in these last dark times, in order that, if it were possible, even the elect might be led into error.

There is no doctrine so foolish or shameful that it does not also find hearers and disciples.
Luther.

"Knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth. And if any man think that he knoweth any thing, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know. 1 Cor. 8, 1. 2.

Upon this saying the old church teacher Bernard makes the following fine remark:

Thou seest that the Apostle praises not those who know much, if they know not the manner in which they ought to know; thou seest, he places the fruit and profit of knowledge in the manner of knowing. What else then would he say, than that thou shouldst know in what order, with what diligence and to what end one must know all things? In what order, that thou knowest first of all that which is most needful for the attainment of salvation; with what diligence, that thou strivest most eagerly to know that which most strongly moves to the love of God and of the neighbor; to what end, that thou desirest to know nothing for vain honor and for thy glory, but all for thine own and others' salvation.

(Communicated.)

May a Christian join the so-called secret societies?

(Continuation.)*)

P. By thy natural birth thou art a miserable creature, Charles!

C. Yes, a poor, lost and condemned sinner, as our Catechism teaches and I from the heart confess.

P. Unfit for everything good —

C. God be praised, that this is now otherwise.

P. Is it not so, thou canst now comfort thyself with thy dear Savior, hast peace for thy soul, rejoicest in the divine sonship, and in the glorious inheritance which is laid up for us in faith, hast also another spirit in thee, and new life and spiritual heavenly powers for every good work, to the praise and glory of God?

C. Would to God I used them only better, but there I must still complain, as the holy Apostle, Rom. 7.

P. Who must not join in these complaints; but yet it has become wholly otherwise and better. Powers for a godly life are still there, and desire to employ them to the honor of God, even though in life and walk it goes not as it should, but much weakness still creeps in.

C. Well, yes, but what has that to do with the secret societies?

P. That is just what I also cannot see, and would gladly learn from thee, for thou behavest as if thou owedst all this to the secret societies.

C. That has never yet come into my

*) By a singular concatenation of circumstances the printing of this continuation has been delayed. Ed.