# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1849 10 30_S37
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

37

the fatherland of these writers, nor in general adopted and accepted these their views, and, for example, altered the Augsburg Confession and the other symbols accordingly. Rather, these very theologians, by such and similar doctrinal opinions, which were already most thoroughly combated and overcome by Luther and his fellow-laborers at the time of the Reformation, have only made themselves known as such as in fact, though silently, are leaving the Lutheran Church, or at least do not belong to her from the heart; for what has the Church and her Confession to do with the apostate private opinions of this and that so-called Lutheran writer?

In the second place, Dr. Schmucker, who is bound by oath to the Lutheran Confession, ought indeed to have understanding enough to perceive this great difference between the confession of the Church and the contrary private opinions of individual persons, be they great or small scholars; and then he ought in fairness to have so much honesty as to make this difference clear to his readers, instead of concealing it and leading them into the delusion that, for example, the article on the Holy Supper in the Augsburg Confession has been materially altered by the divergent private views of this and that individual scholar.

Were he indeed a sensible and honest man, he would have to punish earnestly such frivolous jugglery instead of devising it, wherever he found it, and either to fight honestly for his Church and her Confession, to which he is so earnestly and solemnly pledged, even against his Reformed and Presbyterian friends, or to lay down his office at the seminary at Gettysburg, since his own Zwinglian or Calvinistic private view of the Holy Supper stands in decided contradiction to the Confession of the Lutheran Church.

But that Dr. Schmucker really shares this Reformed doctrinal opinion, and, despite his sworn obligation, has decidedly fallen away from the doctrine of the Lutheran Church in the Augsburg Confession and the Catechisms of Luther, is proved by his agreement with the report which the so-called Lutheran General Synod sent to Germany in the year 1845 concerning its doctrine and practice, and which, especially in the doctrine of the holy Sacraments, is a decided and, as it were, official confession of apostasy from the Lutheran doctrine and Church.

In this report it says, namely, as follows:

"Luther's peculiar view*) of the bodily presence of the Lord in the Supper has long since been given up by the great majority of our preachers, although a few of the older German teachers and members of congregations still retain it."

*) This expression is, by the way, false; for the Lutheran Church in all her several confessional writings teaches throughout the same thing, although she does not otherwise confirm all the "peculiar views of Luther" which he held, especially in earlier years.

Now if the worthy Dr. Schmucker, who by no means belongs to the "older German teachers," were not in his heart involved in the same apostasy, he would surely, especially as teacher of dogmatics at the most esteemed theological seminary of his synod, have raised his objection against it and fairly demanded that this his protest be noted in the report. But since he has remained silent in this matter, everyone must naturally assume that he also agrees fully with the above passage of the report, according to the world-known maxim: "he who is silent, agrees" (qui tacet, consentit). In sum: it remains so, Dr. Schmucker is a faithless and unconscionable man, who, despite all his zeal for missions and for other things, has not even the natural conscience of an honest Jew, Turk, or heathen, to say nothing of being a Christian; for it would be impossible for him to teach against his oath of office, and, for the sake of his belly or of honor, to remain at his post as before, in spite of his contradiction of the doctrine to which he is solemnly pledged.

But it is dreadful that the board of directors of the seminary every five years solemnly pledges this man anew to the Augsburg Confession and the two Catechisms of Luther, and either does not know that he teaches directly contrary to them (which ignorance, however, is almost impossible to assume in all of them), or regards such breach of faith and such unconscientiousness as an insignificant trifle, and out of ungodly man-pleasing and sycophancy sins so dreadfully against its own conscience and at the same time makes itself partaker of other men's sins.

Yet, God be praised, even within the so-called General Synod it seems nevertheless in recent times, in spite of the hindrances of those two frivolous or insincere spokesmen, Doctors Schmucker and Kurtz, to be becoming somewhat different and better. Individual men of gifts, education, and influence are beginning to stir, to inquire of history and doctrine somewhat more carefully and honestly than those, to recognize ever better the high importance of the one and pure confession also for all the acting and working of the Church, and to esteem ever more highly the right humble and frank fidelity to the Confession. To these belong chiefly the editor of the Evangelical Review, Professor Reynolds in Gettysburg, and Dr. Morris, pastor in Baltimore, from whom the worthy Dr. Kurtz, certainly to his no small vexation, has already had to admit many an opposing article into his Lutheran Observer. May God yet further look down in grace and grant these worthy men and their like-minded friends ever more light and courage of faith and of witness, that in these most important matters of the pure acknowledgment and confession of the faith, since it concerns so nearly God's Word and honor and the salvation and blessedness of men, they may thoroughly trample down all former regard for men and ever more decidedly and definitely raise a powerful and manly testimony also at their synodical assemblies against the apostasy hitherto.

To be sure, if they would be humble and honest, they must first sincerely confess their former blindness and rightly grieve that by their former joint apostasy from the pure doctrine they have vexed and grieved the orthodox Lutherans, especially in this country, and have strengthened the evil cause of the present false mixing of faiths and churches.

And then, if they would come thoroughly to rights with God, their conscience, and the Lutheran Church, they must retract their former denial of the truth, which surely proceeded from an ignorance not wholly blameless, though not from evil will.

In the third place, finally, it is surely their duty, by open, straightforward testimony for the pure doctrine and a thorough demonstration of the falsification, if God will, to bring back their whole synod, and, if this is hardly conceivable, at least the upright and those who love the truth, but to separate themselves, according to Titus 3:10 and Romans 16:17, from the others who stubbornly hold fast the error, and instead to enter into living fellowship of faith and church with the orthodox Lutheran bodies. May God so ordain it, Amen! —

Report of World Events.

The most important and most momentous event is the subjugation of Hungary, which has been completed by Russian arms. The Hungarian main army, ensnared on all sides by Russian and Austrian armies, has laid down its arms before the Russians, the Hungarian government is dissolved, the leaders of the insurgents have fled or been taken prisoner, and some have already had to pay for their undertaking with their lives. Thus, now that Venice also has had to surrender to the Austrians, the last spark of the fire of revolution in Europe is extinguished, and the power of the princes, as it seems, is more firmly established than ever. The Russian Emperor, who thinks himself called to uphold the monarchical principle in Europe, and to whose strong arm the Austrian imperial house owes its deliverance this time, will surely know how to use his victories and will stretch his iron scepter ever farther toward the west of Europe. It is also remarkable with what sympathy he takes up the cause of the papal chair in Rome, so that he is said even to have undertaken the guarantee for a loan of the Pope. What if the Roman and Greek churches made a grand union, which in earlier centuries has often been tried in vain, and the Russian Emperor set himself up as protector of Christendom?