# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1849 10 02_S22
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

22

facts? When Augustine and other ancient teachers say that God does not convert men without or against their will, and does not make them out of slaves of sin into free children of God, he concludes from this that man has it in his power and natural strength to convert himself and to become a child of God. But this conclusion is just as unwise as if I should say of a man who is laid in chains that he had the strength and ability to make himself free, because the jailer steps up to him and offers to set him free as soon as the prisoner consents to it. Can the prisoner then also make himself free, if the jailer does not offer and give him freedom? By no means. Therefore he has it not in his power to make himself free. So it is also with man. If Christ, who has burst our bonds, did not come to us and take off the fetters of sin, we should surely let alone the throwing them off. But Christ does not compel us that we must let ourselves be made free by Him, He does not compel us to believe in Him, but He offers Himself to us as a Deliverer, and if we will not have Him for our Deliverer, we remain prisoners forever. That is precisely what Augustine and other teachers of the church mean when they say that God does not convert man against his will, that is, God does not leave to man his by nature evil will and make him in and with this evil will into a Christian and a free child of God, so that the evil, resisting will should remain the same as before; but God makes out of the evil will of man, through the preaching of the Gospel, a good will, which man himself can in no wise do, and so makes him into a quite different man from what he was before, into a new man with renewed heart, mind and spirit. As proof that this and nothing else is the meaning of Augustine, let there stand here, out of countless passages, only the one from his book "Natur und Gnade": If the capacity of nature through free will is sufficient both to know how one ought to live and also to live aright, then Christ died in vain. Why should I not here also cry out and shout with Paul? I may justly cry: Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace. For they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God. For as Christ is the end of the law, so also is Christ the Saviour of corrupted nature.

5. That the Lutheran Church, with Augustine and with all orthodox Christians of all times, holds fast and confesses the doctrine that man in his natural state is not morally free, but unfree, a servant of sin, of death and of the devil, in this Herr Oertel is right, for so teaches God's Word, Gen. 8:21: The imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; John 3:6: That which is born of the flesh is flesh; compare Rom. 8:7: The carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be; John 8:36: If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed; Rom. 6:17: God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart, etc.; compare further v. 20, John 15:5, and countless other passages. When now Herr Dr. V. concludes from the assertion of this doctrine on the part of the Lutheran Church: the Protestant is in direct contradiction to the moral freedom of man and an enemy of it, he accuses thereby not only God Himself of enmity against the moral freedom of men, because God brought up this doctrine; but he also draws a conclusion which is too stupid to be put down to the ignorance of Herr Doctor V., and yet also too malicious to be ascribed to a man who has not yet openly and manifestly bitten the head off all shame; and so one is indeed in perplexity to whose account that conclusion is to be charged. For when a Lutheran Christian believes and confesses that he, like all men, is by nature a servant of sin, thus morally unfree, but has been set free by Christ from bondage, and that he believes in Christ precisely for this reason, because in faith in Christ he has found the true freedom and sonship of God which he did not have before and could not obtain anywhere else, then it is manifest nonsense to say: a symbolical Protestant is in direct contradiction to moral freedom.

6. When finally Herr Dr. V. says that he will for the present leave undiscussed whether the Reformers were enemies of moral freedom merely with the intention of contradicting the Roman Church, or in order to have a pillow of rest in a life of sin, this is again nonsense; for only then would the doctrine of the natural bondage of man to sin be at all a pillow of rest in a life of sin, if it were also taught that this bondage to sin could not be imputed and were not punishable. But now Luther teaches, and with him the Lutheran Church, on the ground and according to the testimony of Holy Scripture, that this bondage of man to sin is his own sin and punishable, and shows thereby just as much, on the one hand, the immense, bottomless depth of human corruption, as, on the other hand, the immeasurable, incomprehensible greatness of the divine deed of love by which He has redeemed us in Christ and made us free children of God. Compare here again, instead of many passages, only the one: Augsburg Confession, Art. 2: Further it is taught among us that since the fall of Adam all men who are naturally born are conceived and born in sin, that is, that they all, from their mother's womb, are full of evil lust and inclination, and can have by nature no true fear of God, no true faith in God; that also this same inborn sickness and original sin is truly sin and condemns all under the eternal wrath of God who are not born again through Baptism and the Holy Ghost.

Let this be enough said to justify our heading: "Unsinn über Unsinn." Whoever has a desire to enjoy still more, let him read No. 14 of the Katholische Kirchenzeitung of Baltimore.
A. Wolter.

The Indianapolis Synod.

Some time ago we were requested by the secretary of the Dearborn Conference of the Indianapolis Synod to publish through the "Lutheraner" an invitation, signed by him and therefore official, of this Conference to a so-called mission festival. We were obliged to decline this request, because the "Lutheraner" is the organ of the Lutheran Synod of Missouri, etc., which for conscience' sake cannot work in common with the Indianapolis Synod, as such, so long as this Synod permits its preachers to serve mixed, that is, united congregations, as such. For since according to this the preachers of this Synod may admit Reformed as well as Lutherans to the Holy Supper, those preachers of it who do this are naturally not Lutheran but united preachers, and the Synod consisting of such preachers not a Lutheran but a united Synod.

Since, however, we have always been of the good confidence that the Indianapolis Synod, which at its formation so decidedly renounced the General Synod on account of its falling away from the Lutheran Church in doctrine and practice,*) would, advancing on the road entered upon, at last reform itself entirely and yet become a salt and light of the American church, we have purposely avoided declaring ourselves publicly against this Synod, and therefore also announced the rejection of the above-mentioned official invitation, without names, in the letter-box of the "Lutheraner" (Jahrg. 5, p. 184).

*) See: "Lutheraner," Jahrg. 3, p. 7.

How has now the Dearborn Conference of the Indianapolis Synod repaid us for our refusal? Listen. In the last number of Weyl's "Kirchenbote" a member of that Conference, F. W. (Wichmann?) in Cincinnati, makes a report of the "mission festival" held, wherein he writes among other things: "Thou, dear Messenger, wast so good as to announce it (the festival) beforehand.*) The 'Lutheraner' in St. Louis was so wicked and did not do it; he will have nothing to do with a body not orthodox, as he is pleased to call the Indianapolis Synod-

**) This so great kindness we gladly credit to the "dear Messenger" from the heart, yes, we do not doubt that he would be so good as to take up even all official announcements of the Grand Mufti, if only this brought him new subscribers. Indeed the faithful Messenger-of-all-the-world already goes so far that on his patient back he peddles quack remedies against certain diseases.