# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1850 04 16_S132
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

132

heart." The worthy example of the Duke was followed by his two sons, to whom the Emperor had sent the Interim with the earnest command to conform to it. But as the preachers consulted by them about it declared it contrary to Scripture and dangerous, they did not accept it. When now the Emperor twice sent one of his councillors to John Frederick, with the command that he should hold his princes to obey the imperial order, he answered thereupon in writing as follows: "He was indeed, as a poor captive prince, willing and ready to obey Your Majesty, so far as his body and goods were concerned. But since Your Majesty knew how he had formerly declared himself to the two Messrs. Granvella concerning the Interim and why he had not accepted it for conscience' sake, Your Majesty would most graciously consider that he could not bid his sons accept that which he himself had not been able to enter into with God and a good conscience." The letters which he wrote at this time to his wife are full of testimonies of his living and sound faith. "I have (he once wrote to her) committed my will to God my Lord, for whether I be captive or free, whether I be living or dead, I am His. For His Son, our dear LORD Christ, has redeemed us by His blood; to Him I commend myself; and so the very hairs of my head are all numbered, of which not one shall fall without His will."

Now as this pious and noble prince in his lifetime showed himself at all times a sound son of the Church, brought up in the words of faith, continuing in that which he had learned, true and firm in the confession, also in disgrace and imprisonment, also in the robbing of his lands and in separation from wife and children: so he showed himself also the same when, about a year and a half after his release and after his return into his land, his little hour struck, and he was to make his joyful journey home out of this vale of tears, to receive as a spiritual king the unfading crown of honor.

On the 21st of February 1554, namely, it pleased God to take from his side beforehand his pious consort, Sibylla, and to gather her to her people. Then the Duke commanded that a place be left for him beside her coffin, and said thereby: "I will soon follow also."

This happened, then, only ten days afterward, on the 3rd of March. The day before, so the eye-witnesses report, he had made, rather early in the morning, his confession and confession of faith in the most glorious and beautiful manner, and thereafter at eight o'clock received the venerable Sacrament of the true body and blood of our LORD Jesus Christ. At nine o'clock he summoned his sons and made to them, among other things, a lengthy admonition: "that they should by all means abide unmoved by God's Word and let themselves be moved to no corruption or falsification of it; if they would do so, God would graciously protect and preserve them under the wings of His goodness, although war and danger might be all around them, and would let that which by God's grace should remain to them in the places of the land of their principalities prosper to peace and profit. But if they should waver and accept any corruptions, pretext and excuse (pretense), God's blessing and grace would be gone from them; they would surely experience it."

When the court preacher, Magister Stolz, comforted him in his suffering, he answered with a strong voice: "dear Magister, I know that; if I live, I live unto the LORD, if I die, I die unto the LORD, of that I am sure."

On the 3rd of March, in the morning, when the Right Reverend Bishop Amsdorf and other several councillors and servants had been with him, he turned wholly and entirely with heartfelt prayer to God, and of himself, without any exhortation, prayed in bed in these words: "Have mercy upon me, LORD God, I am a poor sinner, but yet I can and will not despair of Thy goodness and mercy, which is many thousand times greater than all sin. Have mercy upon me, for the sake of the dear Son; for thus it is written: God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." Thereupon he folded his hands together and said: "LORD, into Thy hands I commend my spirit!" Then the Bishop asked him: "Most gracious Lord, you die indeed upon the only Son of God and believe this saying: God so loved the world, etc., from the heart?" Then he answered: Yes, yes! and so gently passed away that one could not perceive by his gestures that he was dying.

Thus the high and dear prince, confessor and martyr of Jesus Christ, in penitent faith and confession of his and all believers' Saviour and Redeemer Jesus Christ, whom he had confessed and testified before all the world and against all temptation, fell asleep peacefully and blessedly and through death pressed through into eternal life, glory and blessedness. So far the report.

May the gracious and merciful God also in this last and afflicted time, instead of unionistic weaklings with an uncertain conscience and a divided heart, raise up such godly princes in our old fatherland, who are and remain sons of the orthodox church, now called Lutheran, grounded in the Word of God, firm in faith, true in confession, wise in counsel, strong in deed, patient in tribulation, joyful in hope, continuing instant in prayer — princes who are children in faith, men in deed, elders in counsel, fathers in government — princes who from the bottom of their hearts, sincerely and purely are subjects and servants of God the Most High, blessed forever. Amen!

May the courage of faith and the faithfulness to the confession of this dear prince be also a wholesome mirror of repentance for all preachers who, originally belonging to the Lutheran Church, here even without compulsion and pressure, from lack of reverence for God's Word as it simply reads, from lack of thorough knowledge of the one eternal doctrine of salvation of Holy Scripture as the Lutheran Confession sums it up, from immature pietistic sentimental faith, from fawning and man-pleasing, have thrown away the noble jewel of the pure doctrine and have entered with the erring, here and in Germany, into that false so-called churchly union, so contrary to Scripture, which the LORD, however, has used for this very purpose and will yet further use, to shake the Lutheran Church out of its sleep and to awaken it also to the confession of the true union, which is and can be only in one faith, confession and doctrine in all articles of the truth unto salvation. —

(Submitted.)

The Weapons of the Church.

Above all, Jesus' heart will lead our eyes to the weapons with which we fight. He does it in the case of the sons of Zebedee, reproving and threatening them with the words: "Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of." That is a most important point in Christianity, as the Apostle Paul also presents it, when he says: "For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds." (2 Cor. 10, 3. 4.) Commonly it goes with every new awakening as with the first appearance of Christianity, when the disciples still walked at Jesus' side: the measure must be learned, the right strength and power from on high must first come: there are, indeed, fiery souls, burning hearts, but they commonly lack the experience which first makes its school in the love of Jesus and, only at the mercy-seat, by constant tarrying before it, clears their eyes; this love it is which embraces the stumbling disciples here, makes their uncertain steps by degrees more certain, which hands them the rule that hallows and anoints all weapons: "the Son of man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them." For the weapons of the Church are not fire, or the halter, or imprisonment, or hunger, or compulsion — alas, men have often enough dishonored Christ's name thereby and given just cause for the world to blaspheme the good name of the Church — but the fully accepted love of the truth and the fully presented truth in love; they are, in other words, the testimony of the truth, the entreaty in Christ's stead,