# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1850 01 08_S77
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

77

or even merely to be able to stand forth against the enemies as an outward reformer or champion of the Church, requires more than the beginning of a so-called believing awakening to repentance and a lively feeling of being a poor sinner .... namely, a faith that is armed not only against the power and cunning of brazen unbelief, but also against the false holiness and false learning of a degenerate Pietism, and thus also most especially against the most dangerous snares and temptations of such pious flatterers, who can hide their claws and horns behind the shining garment of a false, so-called mediation of faith, that is, of a self-clever, ingeniously stupid, cross-shunning fashionable Christianity, and whose inner spiritual content is depicted to the life in Ps. 50, 16—18., compared with v. 9—13. Enough: whoever in our time would work blessing as a true David and Hezekiah must not merely take into view the altars of Baal of open antichristian unbelief, but above all also the dangerous, falsely pious high places of a world-converting-minded and yet worldly-conformed fashionable Christianity. He must therefore already have advanced so far in the excellent knowledge of Christ (Phil. 3, 8—10.) and of His high-priestly work for us and in us, and consequently also in true self-knowledge and denial of the world, as to be able not only to keep the fourfold dangerous conceit, namely the learned, the ingenious, the fashionably pious, and the Berlin conceit, from himself with the shield of faith, but also to banish the same victoriously in his nearest surroundings with the sword of the Spirit and with world-overcoming power of God. But whoever, without this armor of the cross and without these preliminary victories in his nearest circle, ventures to conjure the demons of the age, in him Acts 19, 13—16., compared with Luke 14, 31—33., may perhaps be verified all the more grandly, the mightier the means that are employed in such conjuring."

"A third ground for the above judgment lies in this, that in high places the actual content of faith, and consequently also the Christian kernel, as well as the truly theological, and therefore scholarly, character of those people is not yet known at all, who have offered themselves as the most zealous helpers in the carrying out of ecclesiastical plans of union and liberation. Indeed, a deep experience of life, as well as long study, and consequently also a certain calling, is required in order to judge, not merely with a dim foreboding but from one's own thorough examination, the poison of lies, already penetrated into the inmost marrow of the life of the Church, of the now prevailing so-called believing science, that is, of a vain, sanctimoniously ingenious theology of fashion and toilette. The writer of this has now for a considerable time spared no pains to look about himself closely and diligently both in the field of the old Protestant theology and in the labyrinth of modern science, and his writings will infallibly convince that he is thereby guilty of no vain self-praise. In these writings the conviction has been established that from the present leaders of the so-called believing science, for the wounds of our time and especially of our Church, there is to be expected not only no healing, but on the contrary greater dangers and greater calamity than from the most open enemies of our most holy faith. Would it not, then, under such undeniable circumstances, be more advisable if one were to work out one's own salvation with fear and trembling, to confine oneself to the faithfulness in little things to be practiced in one's nearest calling of life, and to leave the true deliverance of our poor Church, to be expected infallibly according to the divine promise, to the LORD Himself?" —

After de Valenti has thus established the judgment pronounced above, he answers the question: "what may well be advised for the Church of Prussia in view of the crying needs and dangers of our time?"

"The first thing that comes into consideration here," he says, "is the restoration of the Lutheran Church according to its ancient historical right, which has been trodden down by the violent introduction of the now existing so-called Union. That the Old Lutheran congregation existing in Prussia has meanwhile experienced toleration is indeed to be acknowledged most highly; yet this is only a temporary, transitory act (action) of justice, which by itself alone cannot make good the injustice committed against the Lutheran Church and the damage thereby inflicted. To avert the heavy consequences and punishments of this stroke of violence, and likewise to help the existing Old Lutherans out of their present position, which is indeed not separatistic in the proper sense, yet is cut off from the general legal standing and is therefore dangerous, there is no other means than a legally effective restoration of the Lutheran Church in Prussia itself. In what manner this can best be done is left, however, to those to whom the LORD gives first the willing and then also the performing."

Next he advises granting to the Dissenters a public toleration certainly most needful. "As regards the Friends of Light in particular," he says, "this prodigal son can hardly be kept longer in the father's house; let him therefore go in peace and permit him to eat his husks to his heart's content, and he will soonest come to his senses, that is, the separated congregations will return, as regards their better part, to the father's house. Yet from these Dissenter congregations not merely a religious but also a political confession of faith ought to be demanded, so that one may learn whether they acknowledge the divine right of the government or not." The same he advises also in reference to the Gustavus Adolphus Society, of which he remarks: "A society which, in the present confusion of concepts and language, can make neither a religious nor a political confession of faith, is to be regarded as a blind, destructive worldly power, which sooner or later will follow without resistance the stream of the unleashed, wild elements of the age and will serve the same."

"Especially earnestly," he says further, "may the poor be taken care of. Then let one be content with such improvements of ecclesiastical defects as do not essentially change the constitution and form now existing. Let more preachers be appointed, let the false teachers be deposed, and let a well-ordered and Scriptural church discipline be introduced, from which, as is understood, the apostolic ban must not be lacking. On the other hand, let the sharpness of the magisterial sword be used with all might against all civil disturbers of the peace, for the punishment of evildoers and for the praise of them that do well. If the king and his faithful servants were thus to despair altogether of all their own strength, especially of their wisdom, and were thoroughly healed of all dangerous self-pleasing love of reforming, the LORD would mightily stand by them."

Moreover de Valenti remarks: "Even the most exact outward following of all the counsels given here, relating to the particular office of princes, would by no means be able to reach the goal, that is, the glorification of Christ and the conquest of the enemies of the cross, without a thorough judging of oneself having gone before." — "It is therefore presupposed that in such self-judgment the conviction will come that, for example, my complaints against a Göschel, Nitzsch and others, as well as against the short-sighted Hengstenberg, puffed up with undigested much-knowing, are founded in truth." — The gentlemen Göschel, Nitzsch and Tholuck, namely, de Valenti accuses "of outrageous pantheistic poison-mixings and fancies, and of having long since fallen away from the fundamental articles of the Protestant faith." Page 433. Altogether, however, he designates the fashionable Christianity of our time as a "pious abortion, namely a Pietistic wicked servant, rotten in heart and marrow, who wantonly squanders the spiritual gifts and goods of his forefathers or also of his own former experiences of grace, or buries them in the napkin."

(Sent in.)

"When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own." John 8, 44.

In No. 30 of the "Protestantische Zeitblätter"*) an "evangelical Protestant," who thought fit to leave out his name, with

*) We have not yet had the honor of making personal acquaintance with this paper; nor do we have any desire for it, for, judging by the few samples which the "Lutheraner" has brought from it, this periodical, quite apart from its blasphemous tendency, must be an arch gossip-shop. We should almost like to ask our dear brethren to leave further gossip of this kind unnoticed; they are, after all, only withered leaves which the wind of the "Time" blows away of itself. Ed.