# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1850 04 16_S129
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Der Lutheraner.
"God's Word and Luther's doctrine shall pass away now and nevermore."
Published by the German Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Missouri, Ohio and Other States.
Edited by C. F. W. Walther.
Volume 6.  St. Louis, Mo., 16 April 1850.  No. 17.
Terms: Der Lutheraner appears once every two weeks, at the yearly subscription price of One Dollar for subscribers living at a distance, who are to pay it in advance and bear the postage. — In St. Louis each single number is sold for 5 cents. Only those letters which contain communications for the paper are to be addressed to the Editor; all others, which concern business, orders, cancellations, money, etc., are to be sent to this place under the address: Mr. F. W. Barthel, care of C. F. W. Walther, St. Louis, Mo.

(Submitted by Dr. Sihler.)

The Faithfulness to the Confession of the Elector John Frederick of Saxony.

When we see how in this our time so many thousands of Lutherans, preachers and non-preachers, have been led astray from the simplicity that is in Christ by Satan, in the guise of an angel of light, and are, as it were, bewitched by the delusion and jugglery of the present Union, so contrary to Scripture: then two things are most comforting and refreshing to every honest and upright Lutheran who soberly and prudently holds fast to the faith of the holy Christian Church from the beginning, as this faith is grounded upon God's firm and sure Word, as it reads, and is more closely set forth and explained in the Lutheran Confessions.

The one looks to the future, and rests in the sure hope and confidence that the Word of God, and the doctrine grounded upon it once for all, abides forever, overcomes all error, casts to the ground everything devised by men, dissolves again every false union, brings all enchantment to nought, scatters all mists, and, as the old and ever new sun of truth, shines through again and gleams forth the more gloriously.

The other, however, which is no less comforting and refreshing, looks to the past, which out of its rich treasure of history and experience offers in manifold ways lovely and mighty strengthening of faith.

Here, then, there is again for such refreshment no nobler and more glorious time than that of the Reformation itself, when the LORD had arisen again to help His Church mightily, and when, especially through His chosen instrument, our dear father and teacher, Dr. Martin Luther, that man full of faith and of the Holy Ghost, He let the light of His Word shine into the darkness of human ordinances and the doctrine of devils; when the night passed away and the day drew near; when the sweet and gracious Gospel delivered the captives and set free the children of death; when the voice of Christ gathered His sheep again and redeemed them out of the hands of hirelings and drivers and from the jaws of the infernal wolf.

Two things again there are, however, which blow upon us out of that great and stirring time, the greatest undeniably next to that of the apostles, with so fresh a breath of life, and penetrate us with so sweetly powerful a refreshment. The one is the might and glory of the pure doctrine itself, which, kindled at the light of the divine Word, made manifest error and falsehood in all their manifold deformity, pursued them into their most hidden lurking-places and dragged them to the light, and filled young and old with a pure knowledge of the divine, saving truth.

The other, however, are the mighty, strong-in-faith, confession-faithful, experienced, battle-practised warriors of Jesus Christ, proved in cross and trial, who grew up out of the pure doctrine, as bold as they were prudent, as courageous as they were patient, as strong as they were wise, as mild as they were vigorous — heroes who are more renowned in the history of the Church than the heroes of David in that of his kingdom — heroes who also struck down more and mightier enemies with the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, than the heroes of David with the sword of the fleshly arm.

To these heroes there belong, indeed, chiefly the teachers of the holy Church, specially raised up and endowed at that time by the Holy Ghost, a Luther, Melanchthon, Bugenhagen, J. Jonas, Myconius, Brenz, and others, who stood in the van and, gathered together about the banner of the pure confession and clad in the armor of God, smote Satan, the Pope and the fanatics, partly in open battle, partly stormed their fortresses and bulwarks.

But there belong also to these heroes, though in the second line, all other witnesses, courageous in faith and faithful to the confession, from all sorts of estates, as for example princes, noblemen, state officials, jurists, physicians, artists, poets, scholars, craftsmen, and so forth; for out of all these various callings that time had chosen disciples of Christ to show.

But what so livingly pervaded all these men, so various in station, calling, education, worldly goods and spiritual gifts, temperament and other peculiarity, and so intimately united them, that was the unity and purity of the churchly confession. Equally far from the superstitious adding of the papists as from the unbelieving taking away of the fanatics, as hostile to the doubts and scruples of carnal reason as against the pretended inward illuminations and revelations of the Holy Ghost apart from and above the Holy Scripture, but rather holding fast to the simple sense of the Word of God as it reads, altogether one in faith, in knowledge and confession, in doctrine and defense, they made no union, but they were the only possible union according to Eph. 4, 3—7, for, born again through the one baptism, joined into one body, animated by one Spirit, confessing and practising the one faith, dwelling-place and workshop of the one Lord and God, they were all true brethren in Christ and sound sons of the Church, manly witnesses and confessors of the same divine truth, in all the articles of the wholesome doctrine; and as they had become one in one faith, confession and doctrine, so they also gave diligence to keep and preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

To these noble and excellent sons of the holy Church there belonged also the Elector John Frederick of Saxony, surnamed the Magnanimous, that is, as we should now say, the High-hearted. We leave it to a more skilful pen to set before our readers at some time the whole outline of the life of this distinguished prince, and confine ourselves here to bringing out of his life such traits as