# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1849 11 27_S54
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

54

accordingly it is no less incumbent upon the hearers and members of the congregation to help care and watch that the pure doctrine may remain in vogue among them; they are therefore entitled to test the doctrine of their pastor by the rule of the divine Word, as this is already found in their little Lutheran Catechism, and especially whether he rightly divides the "word of truth," Law and Gospel, also refutes errors that are present, rebukes prevailing sins, comforts the sorrowful and the tempted, joins exhortation with doctrine; in sum, whether he understands how to handle and apply well the Word of God in Holy Scripture, which is "profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness," publicly and privately? That the hearers and children of the church also have this right and this duty to test the doctrine of their pastor is likewise evident from Holy Scripture; for the holy apostle Paul writes to the Thessalonians, 1 Thess. 5, 21.: "Prove all things" (namely, by God's clear Word, by the "form of sound words," the Catechism) "and hold fast that which is good." No less does he write to the Corinthians, 1 Corinth. 10, 15.: "I speak as to wise men; judge ye what I say"; further, 1 Cor. 2, 15.: "He that is spiritual" (that is, the believer grounded and experienced in God's Word and truth, whether preacher or not) "judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man." Likewise John commands, 1 John 4, 1., "to try the spirits whether they are of God"; so also the LORD Christ admonishes, Matt. 7, 15.: "Beware of false prophets," and so forth.

(Conclusion to follow.)

Reply.

In the 12th number of the "Missionsbote" (2nd year), the organ of the Synod and Mission Society of Michigan, there is found a letter from Pastor Schmidt in Ann Arbor, from which we take the following:

"For about half a year we have noticed in the letters of our missionaries Auch and Maier a tendency and mood expressed as though they could, according to their conscience and inner conviction, no longer remain in our Mission Society if we did not all join ourselves in doctrine, confession and practice to the Old Lutheran Church or the Lutheran Synod of Missouri. It is known to the readers of the Missionsbote how, at the founding of the Indian Mission in Saginaw County in the State of Michigan, the brethren from Bavaria put their hand with us to the holy work, . . . but how in the year 1846 a separation arose on account of certain differences of opinion of an unessential kind, especially concerning the cultus."

Further below it says: "We expressed ourselves in No. 9 of the Missionsbote of last year regarding the doctrine and confession of the Lutheran Church, and testify here once more that by God's grace and the power of the Holy Ghost we have always held purely to the Word of Holy Scripture, as the Lutheran Church teaches, and have never been ashamed of the confession of our Church; but that we should unconditionally join the said Synod, as our missionaries and several brethren of the Missouri Synod wish, and thereby also accept the practice and ceremonies of the Old Lutheran Church, which are unknown to most of us and must after all be regarded as matters indifferent, this we can never and nevermore do; and thus nothing remained to us but to leave our brethren Auch and Maier, with the mission station Sibiwaing, where the LORD has hitherto visibly blessed His work, to the Missouri Synod, which has taken place in the way of order." To this an unnamed person, among other things, adds the following remark: "We honor the conviction of every man, and thus also that of the missionaries Auch and Maier; but the Holy Ghost has not yet convinced us that the ceremonies of the Old Lutheran Church are suited to our time and especially to Lutheran Christendom in North America. We do indeed recognize a lack also in respect to the cultus, but we believe assuredly that we must first of all fix our eye upon the chief lack, that of true Christian life, and when this has once more awakened, the Spirit of God will surely create for the future Christendom the right form of cultus, which corresponds to the inner life of the Church, and this will certainly correspond to none of the forms now existing; and therefore we hold that it is foolish to force upon a Christian congregation gathered out of heathenism any form determined beforehand; for the Spirit creates its own form, and that alone is a true one which corresponds to the spirit that rules in the congregation, and this also will be different according to the different circumstances of the countries."

* * *

All that is here said gives the reader of it no other than the conviction that we went out from the Mission Society and Synod of Michigan on account of a certain mania for ceremonies, because it would not yield to our desire to accept Old Lutheran ceremonies. For it is here clearly stated that the Synod and Mission Society of Michigan have always held purely to the Word of Holy Scripture, as the Lutheran Church teaches, and have never been ashamed of its confession; consequently we could have had no other cause for the separation than the one already given.

Apart from the fact that Pastor Schmidt, in the introduction, in regard to the time, would well have had to lengthen it threefold, in accordance with the truth, we on our part, in accordance with the truth, can do no otherwise than publicly confess here: that we have never, either directly or indirectly, set such a condition, as though we could remain with a good conscience in the Mission Society of Michigan only if it would join itself in doctrine, confession and practice to the Old Lutheran Church or the Lutheran Synod of Missouri. We know nothing of an Old Lutheran Church, and recognize neither an Old nor a New Lutheran Church, but only one Lutheran Church, as she steps before every man's face in her Symbols, in doctrine, confession and practice. But if one has a mind to give the name Old Lutheran to the Synod of Missouri (to which we also with joy reckon ourselves), which holds faithfully to the confessions of its fathers, not so far as, but because they agree completely with God's holy Word, and defends them against all attacks not by rational deductions but from God's Word: let them do, then, what they cannot leave undone, but let them first prove to it that it has fallen away from the Symbols of the Lutheran Church before they rightly give it this name. We make no secret of it, however, that we repeatedly asked our Society that it should bid farewell to the false Union of our days (to which we also were still heartily devoted a few years ago, but from which we were freed by God's grace), to its laxity in confession and its anti-Lutheran practice, and return to the confession, the doctrine and the practice of the Lutheran Church according to its Symbols. We confess it also freely, that it indeed goes against our consciences when a Lutheran Synod and Society (?) binds its missionaries at their ordination to all the Symbols of our Church without having made the study of them a duty for them; that this procedure was compatible with our consciences only so long as we did not know them. We must also confess that it would no longer harmonize with our consciences to have signed a Constitution in which every member of the Synod bound himself to hold fast the Augsburg Confession as confession, rule of doctrine and norm of practice, and likewise to conduct the instruction of the youth, especially of the confirmands, in the most faithful manner: when now, notwithstanding this obligation, the Augsburg Confession is in fact rejected in its 14th Article, and the latter is so practiced that children who could hardly read perhaps were confirmed after eight days of confirmation instruction and admitted to the holy Supper; yes, when it even happened, while one of us was staying in Ann Arbor, that children were confirmed with two, at most three days of instruction, to whom, as Pastor Schmidt himself said on his return, the person charged with their instruction had for the most part imparted nothing but rationalistic principles, as for example "the LORD JESUS became a martyr to His doctrine," and so forth. — It is also against our consciences and our conviction when at the said place Catholics, Methodists and Reformed