# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1849 10 02_S20
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

20

the multitude of the believers spreads itself, the Church and her doings have almost vanished from the sight of men, especially of such Christians as ogle the world, and would rather feast themselves in its splendor than in the splendor of Christ, which, hidden from the eye of the world, rests upon the Church and her poverty. The Church is not idle, though the world does not see her activity, because she does not set her works of love before men's eyes, much less has them trumpeted abroad. By individuals and in secret much is still done. Thus, surely, no one in our congregation has yet been in poverty and want but help has been given him out of the congregation; yea, her works of love extend beyond the congregation, and so it goes in every true Christian congregation, however small and poor it may be. That the Church, indeed, no longer appears as formerly, as a queen, but like the poor widow in the Gospel, who cast all her living with her mite into the treasury, that is true; but remember the old H...., through faithless servants and deceitful debtors, that is, her own children, who despised her goods and turned the grace of Christ into wantonness, the Church, or rather the multitude of those who call themselves Christians, has sunk into unbelief and so fallen into decay; and as the unbelievers made up the great multitude, naturally nothing great, nothing striking to the eye, could be done by the Church, that is, by the few believers. But God be thanked, that for years the LORD has begun to look upon it with grace, and has poured out His Spirit again in His Word and Sacrament upon the poor multitude, whereby thousands and hundreds of thousands have awakened to new life. But what do the children now do? They act just as ungodly as the young H.... After they have become rich through the Church in spiritual life, and should now fresh and joyful lay hand to the work, in order with their newly given powers to help the house to its old glory and splendor, they shamefully forsake it, and ally themselves with the secret societies, which have meanwhile sprung up and, as they say, carry on the proper business of the decayed Church, namely, to practice love and charity, for which the Church is no longer able. That is indeed a shameful thing, that ye withdraw from the Church and her LORD the powers which ye owe and are bound to give her, and then make yourselves big, and chatter of the decay and incapacity of the Church, and boast of your societies, which have yet become great precisely through your faithlessness. The Church is nothing more to you, the societies are everything; they come first, then the Church, if ye have perhaps still a moldy crumb left to throw to her haughtily!

C. That may be true of some, but not of me and others who are faithful to the Church.

P. An excellent faithfulness that, and worth boasting of! Compare, then, the sums which ye spend upon the societies with what ye do for the support and further building of the Church! They can, by your contributions, erect the costliest houses everywhere, spread everywhere their connections and their influence and their power, while thousands of our members languish in their spiritual hunger, and cry out for churches and preachers. For the cry of distress of the Church ye have no ear, and think it a wonder how much ye do, if ye give a paltry contribution to the maintenance of your own congregation! Yea, everything must give way! Your meetings ye must attend; for attending congregational meetings ye have no time; the visit to the house of God, baptism and the Lord's Supper are postponed, because ye must march behind the big drum to attend the burial of a "Brother," who perhaps died in hatred against your LORD and King; and while by your doings ye press out of your brethren the tears of sorrow over the misery of the Church, ye boast greatly that ye dry the tears of earthly need. The Church laments over her apostate children like a forsaken widow, while ye float in splendor and honor as the proper comforters of widows and orphans, and helpers in need of the poor! Woe unto you, unhappy children, who first brought your mother, through your disobedience and wild life, into poverty and discredit, and then, after she had sought and found you in her poverty, taken you up anew, and fed and clothed you, forsake her anew, carry her goods and possessions into strange houses, and then with contempt point other people to her poverty, which ye yourselves have caused. Thus ye must strengthen the world and its prince in their seeming triumph over the Church and her King! It concerns you what the LORD saith by the prophet Isaiah, chap. 1.: Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth: for the LORD hath spoken, I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me! And by your fault alone the apostasy spreads ever more! It is indeed dreadful when, in the great cities, one meets especially Germans who have been years in the country and have joined no congregation as yet, and when one asks them why not, they have, as they say, no money to pay the contribution, which is commonly so low that a beggar can raise it, and which is always remitted to those who are too poor to raise it. And when one presses them further, it comes out that they must put their money, which they earn, and do not need for their necessities, into the secret societies, and think it cannot be otherwise, one must indeed provide rather for occasional cases of sickness than for the soul sick unto death: These are the fruits of your "love and charity"! Be sure that God will bring the reward for such abomination upon your head!

(Communicated.)

Nonsense upon Nonsense.

In No. 14 of the Catholic church paper of Baltimore there is found, under the heading: "The Church is a Nurse of True Liberty," an article which is so through and through full of nonsense that the sad conjecture is suggested to the reader that the author has lost his understanding, or never yet had it. We should therefore in no wise allow ourselves to deem this nonsense upon nonsense worthy of the slightest consideration, and to weary the reader with the exposure of it, if therein the doctrine of the Church were not also attacked, distorted and slandered. But since this is the case, we must ask the reader for indulgence and for permission to lay before him at least a part of that nonsense.

The whole above-mentioned article consists of an introduction and three main parts. In the introduction the author praises liberty and assures us that he himself is ready "to fight for it, if it should be wholly suppressed." Of what liberty this is spoken is easy to recognize; it can only be spoken of civil liberty, for for Christian liberty, for the freedom from the bondage of sin, death and the devil, the author, as a Christian, will surely not wish to fight only when it should be wholly suppressed. This liberty cannot possibly be wholly suppressed, since Christ has once for all obtained it by His work of redemption, and this work can, God be praised, never be undone. If, therefore, the author should be speaking of this liberty, he would thereby not only have made himself ridiculous in the most pitiable manner, but also have declared himself a non-Christian, since every Christian ought to know and confess that Christian liberty can never wholly perish, but that nevertheless every true Christian contends unceasingly for it. The author must therefore mean to say with those words that he is ready, in case of necessity, to fight for political or civil liberty. And why is he so ready? Hear: "It would be to renounce the dearest thing, to rob oneself of one's human dignity; to deny the redemption accomplished at so high a price, the precious blood of the Son of God, were one purposely to deny liberty to oneself or to others." These are the words of the author. He will, then, in case of necessity fight for civil liberty (for of that he speaks, as is proven), because to deny it would be a denial of the redemption wrought through Christ, and a giving up of the sonship of God. So we see, then, that the author holds the redemption which has been wrought through JESUS Christ to be a redemption from civil unfreedom, and the sonship of God to be just as much as membership in a civilly free state. In this he agrees, to be sure, wholly with the Jews at the time of Christ, for they too hoped that the Messiah would deliver them from the yoke of the Romans