# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1849 10 16_S30
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

30

Another Example of the Methodistic Unchristian Spirit of Judging

In No. 39, Volume 11, of the Methodist "Apologete," a Methodist missionary stationed at Jackson in Missouri writes, among other things, the following: "False shepherds surround us, who forgive the poor people their sins, and have followers enough. May the LORD open the eyes of such hirelings, and the understanding of their deceived hearers, that they may learn to see that Jesus alone has power on earth to forgive sins."

That a Methodist missionary writes thus does not surprise us, for most of these poor ignorant people evidently do not know what they are doing thereby; they know neither the true Lutheran (that is, Christian) doctrine of absolution, nor do they know what a hireling is. Of them it is said: "They deceive and are deceived." In their ignorance of true Christianity they have been drawn into the whirlpool of a fanatical sect, and, to their greatest ruin besides, have soon been made preachers and propagators of Methodism; so they now would do their duty also, and declare everything around them that will not join their party to be unconverted, and the preachers who serve another church, even though they should sacrifice and consume themselves in holy love for Christ and the souls purchased by Him, — to be hirelings, that is, belly-servants.

Gladly as we are willing to bear this in the case of those who are like that peasant who in his simplicity also carried wood to the burning of Jerome of Prague, to whom he, smiling, said: "O holy simplicity, whoever deceives thee has thereby a thousandfold sin!" — yet what shall we say to this, that Mr. Doctor Nast, the editor of the "Apologete," is helpful in having those who, according to the doctrine so clearly grounded in God's Word, absolve in Christ's name the sinners who desire forgiveness and confess repentance and faith, called hirelings for that without further ado?! What? Should Dr. Nast's conscience already have received such brand-marks that, out of love for his party, he can let a faithful servant of Christ, yea, all those men of God, Luther, Melanchthon, Chemnitz, Arnd, Heinrich Müller, etc., who all before us already imparted absolution and comforted themselves with it in temptation, distress, and death, be called hirelings, belly-servants on that account? —

Well then, go on so, you Methodists, and suspect, slander, and condemn all servants of the Savior who do not wear your color: there comes a day when the faithfulness that had been hidden will be rewarded, but the glossy whitewash will be stripped from the works, trumpeted far and wide, of all hypocrites greedy to condemn.

(Submitted.)

A Word on Union, with Special Reference to an Article in the July Number of the "deutscher Kirchenfreund."*)

*) This communication appears only in this number of our paper through the fault of the editor, to whom it had come more than a month ago. Both the sender and the readers are therefore asked for kind indulgence. The Editor.

Everyone who is in right earnest about the truth bestowed on us by God, which is to make us free from the base bondage of our subjective opinions, and to unite us in itself, that is, to "unite" us, will look with a sorrowful heart upon the unhappy sectarianism, which, in disobedience against this uniting, divine truth, and in yielding to the dividing, human pseudo-wisdom, falls apart in fragmentation. This sad condition has already been laid to heart and discussed from many sides, and many means and ways have already been proposed to remedy such an evil. In recent times the "Kirchenfreund," published, so it is said, "for the common interests of the American-German churches," has made it its task, especially in this country, to heal this hurt of Zion. Whoever now takes this paper in hand, which has taken its standpoint with a certain comfortable self-complacency, as it were in the very central sun of union, and from there looks down with condescending patience upon "the light of the Gospel refracted into various rays of color," will in an article, "Protestantism," that appeared in the July number and conceives of union in a quite peculiar way, scarcely know in fact what he should most lament in it, the contradictions found therein, or the dishonesty concealed under hollow phrases.

The article bears the further heading "inner articulation"; one reasonably expects now an exposition of the different members of Protestantism in their inner contrasts which found that articulation; instead of that, however, one finds nothing of what was announced, but only a self-complacent ratiocination about union, which ventures even to a prophecy concerning Russia. — The first question is, then, whether Mr. W. J. M. really wants union or not? According to one part of his essay one should indeed presuppose it; he says among other things: "But we wish the latter (unity) with our whole soul and with all our strength" — further, "that it (the magnificent 'union') will come is a hope which fills us with higher joy and greater confidence than all that has hitherto been done for union. The spirits must press toward a new goal." — What, then, does the author wish to unite? — Perhaps the Lutheran and Catholic "tendency"? So it seems, when he says: we not only wish, but hope with great confidence for a union of the Protestant with the Catholic Church. — "We wish," however, says the author, "never such a unity of the Church as would not leave to individual spirits the right of their spiritual freedom in Christ." Therefore he also asks: "Who will hold one of them (namely Peter and James as representatives of a Jewish-Christian, and Paul as that of a Gentile-Christian tendency) to be less Christian than the other?" And then says: "this different standpoint (that is, the Petrine and the Pauline) has, however, afterwards continually asserted itself again, and accordingly it has presented itself in parties ... The Catholic Church, especially of the Middle Ages, is ascribed, not without justice, in many respects that Jewish-Christian character ... Herein it stands directly opposed to Protestantism, whose most important confessional writings bear an essentially Pauline character." Here not a word is said of the lying spirit of Catholicism, the shameful caricature of "that" Jewish-Christian tendency of Peter. No, Catholicism is to the author merely a standpoint differing from Protestantism, from which the matter is regarded, "the matter itself with which we are concerned is the same, is One." But why, then, does Mr. W. J. M. still want to unite these innocent different standpoints? He indeed wants no such unity of the Church as takes from individual spirits the right of their spiritual freedom in Christ, and now even the union of the spirits of the Apostles seems to him not yet close enough?

Or does the author perhaps wish to unite Lutheranism and "Reformism"? — He mentions with justice, censuring it, that "all attempts at union between Reformed and Lutherans have always aimed at covering up the differences, at wishing to overlook them, and at seeking out a common ground." The author now wants to avoid this error and gives himself the appearance of wishing to uncover the differences quite thoroughly; he in fact talks very big and acts perfectly honest when he says: "The full difference of the Reformed and Lutheran confession, because it is of the spirit, we will have plainly acknowledged. It is as little the contrivance of a few doctors as Protestantism itself." He finds the difference between Lutheranism and Reformism "infinitely more profound (!?) than even that between Protestantism and Catholicism." He says further: "Can one, then, here (in the mutual right between religious communities) let go anything which one formerly believed one had to hold fast with a good conscience? Can one give up even a tittle of the law, so long as the heart finds anything in it? Can one here, for the sake of peace, do or leave undone something which would have to stir up discord in the inner heart? If these points are entirely removed, then uniting is easy. But whoever does not duly lay them to heart in uniting will directly sow the seed of discord." Further: "It must not