# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1850 06 25_S170
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

170

in spite of his following, is and remains true, always and eternally: for it is according to the pure Word of God! Therefore we are also not ashamed of this surname, for the sake of clearness. We know that when Paul says one should not be Pauline or Petrine, he rebuked the carnal attachment to persons, to Paul, Cephas and Apollos; but by no means meant to say thereby that these Corinthians should not adhere to the doctrine of Paul; does he not say (Gal. 1.): "Accursed is he who preaches another gospel than I"? We now cling not carnally to the person of Luther, but to his doctrine in the Catechism and Confession; for this doctrine is nothing other than the doctrine of Paul and of the other Apostles, than the doctrine of the true universal Church of God, according to the clear Bible-word.

God's Word and Luther's doctrine (according to God's Word!) shall pass away nevermore!

In France, my beloved, the Evangelical Lutheran Church is called before the State also the Church of the Augsburg Confession; for the Augsburg Confession is the apple of the eye of our Church. O a pure eye, which moves in the light of heaven, which can suffer nothing unclean, but weeps until this is removed again. And this eye would men put out of the poor Church? What, there should be Christians who would give up an eye, if only the Evangelical Lutheran Church had none left? Might an authority lend hand and instrument thereto, to thrust out that Confession-eye? O Church of the Word, if thou wilt not succumb in the terrible hour of temptation, which comes upon the whole globe, then hold fast that which thou hast, hold thy pure confession in accord with the Word and the pure doctrine of the Confession. The Augsburg Confession is nothing else than the doctrine most conformable to the Word of God; in the first article (of the triune God) it leads to the true knowledge of God; in the second article (of original sin) it leads to the right knowledge of man; in the third article (of the Son of God) the mouth of the fathers speaks of the mystery of the Godhead of the Son of man, not comprehended even by angels, but laid hold of in faith unto salvation by men; in the fourth article, with the doctrine of the justification of the sinner before God by faith in Jesus Christ alone, it leads into the sea of God's mercy. There all the other articles of the Confession flow together, as it were. Behold, it cries, here is God who makes righteous, here is the healing from sin, here is the way in which the merit and power of Jesus is appropriated to us. And so the faithful word of confession sounds through all 21 articles. Thou seest that thy Church is not only called evangelical, but is also truly evangelical; she is the old root-stock of all the rest. Dear congregations of this Church, hold, hold fast what ye have — hold it fast, — the hour of seduction is here.

But if anyone should point scornfully to such as belong outwardly to the Evangelical Lutheran Church, but yet do not "have" the word of repentance and of faith, the word of the patience of God, in a believing heart and life; — to such as accept free grace in impenitence and wantonness; — those who did so would be unfair opponents. Of mouth-Christians there is a greater number in all sects; but the LORD knoweth them that are His, and let every one that nameth the name of Jesus depart from iniquity. Such opponents may know that the Church holds fast to the Word and the confession of faith, by which she is preserved because she believes, not only as to an outward cockade on the state-hat of the Church, but also as to a rose opened for spiritually poor and believing hearts. The believers are strengthened by the life-balm of the Gospel in preaching and Sacrament. But knowest thou whether there is not also still a spark of faith in those seemingly dead? Is not even the spark still a child of the fire? Even the dying, even those fallen deep into the temptation of apostasy, still belong to the care of the Church of God. Where she plants the word of the patience of God, there she plants also the hope that this word shall not return void! Let her but keep the pure Word in confession and doctrine, and she will keep her children gathered about the same. "Holding fast," however, does not mean possessing for oneself alone; hold fast what thou hast, that thou mayest always impart also to others. The Evangelical Lutheran Church shall

II. "hold fast" her calling to mission.

The Evangelical Lutheran Church has, as the Church of the pure Word and Sacrament, the holy mission to bear witness to this very thing, to let her light shine, her salt work. Her calling to mission is not of men, but of the LORD. She knows no ambiguity in confession, therefore also no ambiguity in mission. Not among incidentals, but among chief parts, she counts the Sacraments, and in particular the partaking of the body and blood of Christ in the Lord's Supper. She does not cut back the tree of life of the confession like a dwarf tree, so that it may be a la hauteur of the factions and sects and these may no longer be brushed by its branches.

Let her press not for a false, but for a deep inner unity in God's Word, as it is written: let her not cry "Peace" where there is yet no true peace. Let her give the sinner no rest, not even on the workbench of Christian activity, until he has found the peace of which (Rom. 5, 1.) the first missionary to the heathen testified. She also knows nothing but the word of Jesus the Crucified, but the whole full word of Him in preaching and Sacrament, — not the mutilated, halved one. Like John the Baptist, let her point to the Man of sorrows. Gentler than the breath of heaven, let her cry, upon her preaching of repentance: "Look unto me, all the ends of the earth, and ye shall be saved" (Isa. 45, 22-25.). In the forests of the new land, on the seashore of the islands, let the rushing of the woods and waves be drowned out by her great word: "It is finished." In baptism and in the Sacrament of the body and blood of Christ let her call the little and the great with those words of the Testament: "Died for you, given for you, shed for you." At deathbeds, the deeper and ever deeper the souls descend into the valleys of death, — so much the deeper also let her mission-mouth cry the word of awakening from the sleep of sin, of fleeing from the wrath of God, but also the word of the covenant of grace and peace, sealed to those who believe. Let the Evangelical Lutheran Church lift her hands toward heaven, and "Hear, O ye heavens!" let it sound from her lips, and "Thou earth, lay it to heart: God hath made Him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him."

O dear Church, hold in honor thy calling to mission! Lift up thy hands which hang down and thy feeble knees."

Or shall there be no Evangelical Lutheran mission? Should her members have only a hand and a purse, but not also "feet of them that bring good tidings of peace," and besides a mouth full of praise and teaching? That with which she is filled, should not her mouth overflow with it?*) Without mission she should be, while all churches and communions seek to extend themselves; she alone should not be allowed to grow, — she alone not spread her tent and invite the nations to take part in the richest goods which have flowed to her? Does one demand that? 'Would it be love, to wall oneself in, to let the coffin-lid be nailed down over the Evangelical Lutheran Church and to give or take hush-money? The funeral solemnities would avail nothing; on the third day she would rise again. With her Bible, with her Catechism, with her Confession, with her thousands of holy hymns, with her prayer-books and communion-books, she would wander victoriously over mountains and plains of Christendom; with joyful opening of the mouth she would only the louder speak and sing again, as is fitting, and in the French tongue also she will learn to do it.

*) To pave the way for Evangelical Lutheran mission, should this be suspected? Not to give oneself up, but to cherish oneself, is this to kill others? There is still room . . . and he who is Evangelical Lutheran according to the confession, is so also in mission. Souls who love the Evangelical Lutheran Church soon rejoice in the Evangelical Lutheran mission.

Hold fast what thou hast! Hold fast, O dear Church, thy mission among the nations and churches. That thou hast a calling to mission, the cloud of witnesses of old and new times proves. Also many of her messengers, who have had to go forth in the name and on account of the Reformed churches, while yet, like that Rhenius,