# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1850 05 28_S159
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

159

properly, and partly to make those who have been instructed firm and certain in knowledge. If the latter nevertheless dissemble, so that in that approving and disapproving, acknowledging and rejecting they mean otherwise in the heart than they have declared with the mouth, the preachers do not thereby become partakers of this their sin of hypocrisy, but the guilt and the judgment of God, if they do not repent, remain upon them alone.

Likewise it is and remains in this matter absolutely necessary in fact, and does not depend upon the view and manner of acting of this or that Lutheran pastor, that those instructed, after that confessing of the truth and rejecting of error, also logically give their assent to the truth, so that through the Supper that follows, received from the hands of the Lutheran pastor and with a Lutheran congregation, they actually go out from their former communion of faith and enter as members into the Lutheran Church.

For if, for example, Lutheran preachers, as is unfortunately the case in the Ohio Synod, do not require this assent and this confession by deed (as they likewise do not require from Union people and Reformed that rejection of the Reformed error spoken of above), they thereby only promote a new hypocrisy and work indirectly into the hands of the false Union of our day. For in such a case the Reformed, through the fault of the preachers, remain hanging in the delusion that one can well acknowledge the Lutheran doctrine as thoroughly agreeable to Scripture, and yet as a member confess and adhere to a church which teaches otherwise, and therefore erroneously, in this and that article of doctrine; and that one can with a good conscience go to the holy Supper with a Lutheran congregation and receive it from the hands of a Lutheran pastor, and yet remain Reformed or Union in heart and in name.

How Professor Schuppius at Marburg Divided Europe among the Marburg Students.

Johann Balthasar Schupp (or Schuppius, as the name began to be Latinized at that time, and so it has remained since) of Giessen was for ten years professor of eloquence and history at Marburg, and not only a very learned professor, but also a skilful and extremely zealous teacher, who took it greatly to heart that the students should learn something solid from him. Money he took almost nothing for his lectures, so that in the ten years he perhaps did not receive twenty ducats. The distinguished and rich students, of whom there were many at Marburg at that time, had been especially recommended to him by their parents or by friends of Professor Schuppius, and so he would take nothing from them for friendship's sake; to the poor, however, and there were such then also, and poorer even than nowadays, he preferred to give money besides, lent them his books, allowed them free access to him early and late, and helped them everywhere in their studies, as much as he ever knew and was able. For this he enjoyed the general love and the greatest confidence among the students, and it did not readily happen to any of them that anything befell him without his asking Professor Schuppius for counsel, which this man faithfully gave, and mostly in such a way that he added the deed to the counsel. Now when in the Thirty Years' War (for during this time Schuppius was professor at Marburg), after the death of Duke Bernhard of Weimar, the Swedish-French army under the Duke of Longueville came unexpectedly into Hesse, Upper Hesse especially fell into great distress and confusion. The university believed itself in danger, several professors went away, and all instruction came to a halt, all lectures ceased. Then there came some poor students, natives of the lands of various lords, to Professor Schuppius, and asked him this time also, as they had often done, for counsel what they should do? In Marburg they had nothing more to do, nor anything to live on until quiet should return in the land and in the city; if they should go to their parents, these had as little as they, and besides the house full of soldiers. Then the honest Schuppius had great compassion on the poor young men, gave his servant the key to his cellar, commanded him to take them with him into his room, and to refresh them richly with wine, and also to speak comfortingly to them, and to bid them to come to him again the next day, the Herr Professor would see, with God's help, how they might be helped. Thereupon Schuppius shut himself up in his little room, and spent the whole night in writing, so that the morning sun found him still at his desk. When now at six o'clock in the morning the students came to him again, he said: Dear friends, the earth is the Lord's, and it seems to me our Lord God has taken me on as your quartermaster. I will divide all Europe among you. To you I will assign the seaports. To you Denmark. To you Prussia. To you Livonia. To you France. To you Holland. To you the free imperial cities, and so on, and herewith he gave to each some urgent letters of recommendation for the countries and cities that he had assigned him (and Dr. Schuppius was well known and highly esteemed in all those regions), took leave of them and said: Go forth, and seek your fortune; the Lord our God be with you. And God blessed this trusting undertaking of the worthy Schuppius; the students went out, were well received at the places to which they had been directed, on Schupp's recommendation, and sufficiently supported; and not a single one among them was there to whom God had not helped quite especially and visibly, so that they all became men in good circumstances, and partly even men of repute. Long after the death of their benefactor they still told with joyful gratitude how Dr. Schuppius, in trust in God the Lord, had divided the world among them, and blessed the memory of the worthy professor at Marburg.

(Communicated.)
Church News from Northern Illinois.

Whereas the Evangelical Lutheran St. Matthew's Congregation U. A. C. at Dutchmans Point (twelve miles northwest of Chicago), which until now had been served as a filial of Pastor Hoffmann, desired a pastor of its own and for that reason had turned to our Synod, Mr. Georg Küchle, who had prepared himself for the holy ministry in our seminary at Fort Wayne, was sent to it after a well-passed examination. After the congregation had regularly called Candidate Küchle, he was ordained on the 30th of April in the midst of his congregation by Pastor Selle, with the assistance of Pastor Volkert, by commission of our Synod, and installed in his office. Pastor Volkert preached the sermon on Acts 20:28: "Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood." Besides the members of the congregation, who were present in large numbers, Pastors Brauer and Hoffmann also attended this solemnity.

May the faithful Chief Shepherd of His flock be shield and support to the dear little congregation, as well as to their dear pastor, so that amid the many outward conflicts which especially prevail there, the confession may remain pure and clear, and the firm confidence in His powerful help ever unchangeable!

The address of the dear brother is: Rev. G. Kuechle, Dutchmans Point, Cook Co., Ill.

(Communicated.)
Of Absolution.

My sins are now forgiven me:
Blessed comfort of absolution!
Therewith my Saviour, JESUS, God's Son,
Gives me salvation and life,
Who speaks to me through His servant:
"Be of good cheer, my child, and fear not!"

Countless is the multitude of my sins,
Greater than I can perceive.
My ruin I cannot fathom;
When I look at myself in the holy mirror
Which in the Law GOD holds before me:
Ah, how sin has disfigured me!

In myself I find no holy beauty,
Only a poor sinful picture of misery;
And Sinai's thunder-tones affright me,
Because I have not fulfilled the commandments.
Woe is me! by the Law I am condemned,
And the wrath of the Judge threatens and flames.