# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1850 01 08_S76
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

76

to fulfil, indeed has already begun. Therefore, however dark it may look here in many respects and especially at many a time, for the present it behooves us only to be still, faithfully to do our own part, and to wait for the help of the LORD, LORD, which will surely come, even when His Word serves the old ones all only for a testimony, that at the last Judgment they have no excuse. But do you, dear reader, be kindly entreated also faithfully to do your part, namely to lift up heart and hands, and before the throne of grace to remember in intercession those who stand alone in dark heathendom and have to wage war against mighty and crafty enemies of the LORD. To be sure, the victory has long been won, through our LORD JESUS Christ; but that this victory may become ours also, that the poor heathen too may become partakers of this victory of Christ, for this pray, dear reader, with fervent and believing spirit.

And herewith let this survey be concluded; for of the two other bands which we still visit nothing, almost, can be said for the present, and of our new station Sibiwaing a report will be given by another hand.

On the Prussian Distress of the Church and Its Remedy.

Thoughts from one and another epistle, sent off in April 1847 by Dr. de Valenti.

Under this title there is found in the Zeitschrift für die gesammte lutherische Theologie und Kirche, edited by Dr. Rudelbach and Dr. Guericke, in the third quarterly number of the year 1848, a fuller communication, from which we take the following:

"These epistles," says de Valenti himself, "were actually sent off last year (namely 1847), partly to a high official (Minister Eichhorn), partly otherwise, without however having been able to reach their proper destination." In them the author gives the King of Prussia and Minister Eichhorn, with reference to State and Church, several earnest counsels, whose observance he urgently recommends. "Still," says he, "it is, as I firmly believe, time to prevent unspeakable misfortune, if one gives ear to the voice of truth, which to be sure is often at first sharp and cutting." To the question what call he has for this step, the author replies: "It lies in part in my unfeigned love for Prussia and her illustrious Monarch, which often and much, both alone in my closet and in company with my faithful household congregation, offers up hearty prayers, and in part also in my well-tried and well-grounded conviction that the hints and counsels given by me still come early enough, to be able to prevent great, nameless woe and misfortune."

The proper purpose of his writing de Valenti himself gives in these words: "I would namely work the conviction that even the royal power, in spite of the appearance of the contrary, is yet by no means called to introduce into the Prussian State Church any essential reforms, and that in particular the continuation and completion of the Union already existing in name must bring not only no salvation, but unspeakable and unforeseeable misfortune in Church and State."

The author bases this judgment first by refuting the widespread presupposition that a Bible-believing monarch, devoted in love to the crucified Savior and standing at the head of the mightiest German Protestant state, is already as such called to this work. He rebukes the sinful confidence which a great multitude of short-sighted believers have placed in the pious King of Prussia; whereby he mentions that he has heard from Privy Councillor Bunsen himself that since the days of David no king like this one has ascended a throne, and adds: "To me, then, this very sinful confidence in a man who is yet to be proved in the fire of trial is a clear sign that the LORD will in some way put such false hope to shame, both for the welfare of His Church and for the welfare of those concerned and of us all. — O that this might happen in such a way that these blinded people be truly converted without grievous judgments, or that at least the innocent one, on account of such shameful idolatry, may not himself be drawn into the judgment of these dangerous pious flatterers."

The reader knows how this prediction has been fulfilled. On the 18th of March of the year 1848 there broke out, as is well known, a terrible revolution in Berlin, by which the Prussian state was shaken in the most violent manner, the King humbled to the very depths, and the so-called Union entirely torn asunder.

As the second ground for the above judgment de Valenti designates "above all the readily demonstrable fact that the ecclesiastical Union now being pursued in Prussia is by no means to be regarded as a Union of the Reformed and Lutherans, but as a dangerous spiritual conspiracy (plot) of degenerate and false Protestants. It is namely, especially as regards the leaders, a merely external, voluptuous-clever-sentimental and worldly-pleasure-seeking love-union of such degenerate pious people, who in doctrine and life have retained no sound Reformed or Lutheran-Protestant vein any more. Yes! the real chief members of both parties who bring about the Union are precisely such so-called believing theologians, who have long since forsaken in doctrine and life the apostolic-Protestant standpoint*) common to the two Churches, have, coarsely or finely, spiritually joined brotherhood with the crypto-(secretly) atheistic, that is false, science of a Hegel or Schleiermacher, and in this manner have betrayed the most holy articles of faith and doctrine of both Churches in a heart-rending and faithless manner to the antichristian spirit of the age. The proofs for this judgment lie in the author's accompanying writings, which can spread the necessary light especially upon Göschel, Nitzsch and Schleiermacher. Although now, for example, a Göschel is not so directly concerned in the present attempts at union as, for example, a Dr. Nitzsch, yet he is (was) the leader of a great party of those who now, upon a quite extra-Protestant ground, wish to unite for the formation of a so-called united State Church, and who have been welcomed even by a Hengstenberg and Tholuck, in spite of the abundance of pantheistic, truly blasphemous absurdity which is to be found, for example, in the writings of Göschel, as the spring-birds of believing science. Such a union, however, is not a Union between the Reformed and Lutherans, which in deed and truth, that is, in spirit and faith, has long existed, but a betrayal committed against both Churches, namely an acknowledgment of the antichristian spirit of the age, which, if the plans of the uniting persons succeed, proceeding from one concession to another, must in Prussia in the end infallibly bring about the downfall of Protestantism (at least of the State-Church sort), and with it, in the political sphere, immeasurable misfortune."

*) Since de Valenti on page 431 says of himself that he "with his whole heart confesses the faith, the Confession and the churchly theology of the Lutheran Church," it is the more striking when he at these places speaks of an apostolic-Protestant standpoint common to the two Churches, and of a Union which exists between the Lutherans and Reformed in deed and truth, that is, in spirit and faith, long since. One might hold these utterances justified by his saying on page 433 that "the faith of a Luther has found of itself ever more recognition in the Reformed Church, especially since the last revival of faith." Yet in another place he speaks of an "already existing inner union of spirit between the two Churches, sufficiently proved also by history," and blames the late Scheibel, saying he acted unwisely "to tear open again the old wounds of the Church, instead of testifying against the monster laying waste both Churches, the fashionable gospel of Göschel-Hegel, and likewise of Nitzsch-Schleiermacher." From this it is clear that the author, otherwise dear to us, is plainly in error concerning the relation of the Lutheran Church to the Reformed. The word which Luther held up against the Reformed at Marburg: "Ye have another spirit than we," history has confirmed to this present day. While Luther childlike and humbly bowed himself under the Word of God and took his reason captive under the obedience of faith, he remained upon the old "apostolic-Protestant standpoint," which the Reformed forsook by following, in important articles of faith, the conceit of their sinful reason.

"Another closer ground for the said judgment," de Valenti continues, "lies in the present own spiritual standpoint of high persons. (Namely of the King of Prussia.) In order in such decisive times as ours are, in some way as inner,