# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1850 07 23_S187
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

187

not honor them. So would God's commandment be nicely abolished, utterly and entirely.

14. In like manner I would know no brother, sister, cousins, nor any friend, and would always pretend that I did not know that they belonged to me, since I should be uncertain who my parents were, etc. But such a spirit I would (if I were lord in the land) serve in turn, and forbid that he should retain, expect, or receive from his parents any inheritance, neither house nor farm, nor a single farthing, and would thus play with him according to his own faith, until the spirit should become flesh to him again. For since he would neither know nor believe his parents, he must also neither know nor believe their goods. O what a fine, laudable government would there come to be in the world, where no one would be another's child, brother, sister, cousin, friend, heir, or neighbor. Nothing better than among the wild wolves with such Christians!

15. Item, thus would I also be subject to no prince nor lord, and pretend that I did not know whether he was born a prince, since I had not seen it, but must believe the people. And so I would once more be a free fellow, abolish God's commandment, and have no authority, but run from men among the wolves, where such commandment of God to honor parents and authority counted for nothing. And that the devil would gladly have this in these Anabaptists appears well from this, that such Anabaptists already (as it is said) forsake wife and child, house and home, and simply and alone would go to heaven. More of this hereafter.

16. Yea, I might also well say that Holy Scripture were nothing, Christ were nothing, the apostles had never preached either: for all this I have neither seen nor felt, but have heard it from men. Therefore I would not believe it unless it were all made, done, and enacted anew before my eyes. Then I should be for the first time a true free fellow, free also from all God's commandments. Thither would I go, says the devil, if I could. That is called laying a foundation of rebaptism, that nothing may remain, neither in heaven nor on earth.*)

*) O dear Luther, shouldst thou live now, thou wouldst see with astonishment how our present Friends of Light, Communists, Socialists and the like vermin have actually built further upon the foundation laid by the Anabaptists, and now consistently maintain that there is nothing to the Bible and Christianity, because they were not present when these things were born!  Ed.

17. Thou sayest: Hast thou not thyself taught that one should believe God alone, and not men? Indeed, in this fashion thou wouldst smite me well with my own sword. But since thou art so contentious, I ask in turn: Ought one also to be obedient to God, since he commands to honor parents and superiors? If thou sayest: Yes, then I answer: How knowest thou then which they are, if thou wilt believe men not at all? How standest thou now? Thou lackest this (as I well see), that thou wilt not understand what it is to believe men, and dost plunge in headlong, as enthusiasts are wont.*) Therefore hear:

*) So it goes now with our dear Unionists also, who likewise say that one may have no Symbols beside the Bible, for one may not "believe men."  Ed.

18. When it is taught that we should not believe men, it is meant, to be sure, that they are men alone for themselves, and God is not with them, that is, that they speak as men of themselves, without God's Word and work, what they invent, and can prove it neither by God's words nor works. For who would call that man's doctrine which is set forth by God through men? And who would say that such believing of such doctrine would be called believing men and not God? For therefore St. Paul rebukes man's doctrine, Col. 2:23, that it has never seen what it teaches; that is, what it says is invented, and it cannot prove it with any word or work of God. Therefore, when thou hearest that men are not to be believed, thou must understand that there no word or work of God is shown or proved, but it is a mere human fiction, so that thou mayest simply (as the words sound) distinguish believing men from believing God.

19. Now behold, when thou art born, it does not happen secretly, nor is it invented by men, but it is God's work, which comes openly to light, and no man can gainsay it. And if anyone would gainsay it, as the Jews undertook against Christ's miracles, yet it has no standing. For the others will still prevail, who see and testify the divine public work, and stop the mouth of the others with deed and truth. For God's ordinance goes strongly here, that "in the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established," Deut. 19:15. Behold, such people one must truly believe, for they testify the work of God, namely thy birth, and prove that it comes from thy parents. Moreover, no one takes thee up but thy parents; neither does anyone fight and labor for thee but they alone. And so God's work goes so openly that no one withstands it, neither devil nor man, but everyone knows and confesses it as surely as he confesses that thou livest.

20. Behold, that is called not believing men, but believing God: for God's work is testified to thee. And in sum, where God's work is shown and testified to thee, and is not invented by men, and moreover is gainsaid neither by devil nor men, there thou believest God and not men: for it is God's work, which he displays so openly that even the devil cannot oppose it.

21. But that some children are at times put away and sent off, and know their parents not for certain all their life long, this has nothing to do with these matters: for we are speaking here of the common divine public ordinance. But such children are begotten dishonestly, secretly, and contrary to God's ordinance: therefore it is no wonder if it also goes otherwise with them: and as they are begotten secretly, so also they may not know their secret parents. Darkness it is, darkness may it remain, what the devil does; but God's ordinances go in the light.

22. If thou now askest me why I believe that the man and the woman are my parents, I say first: I am sure that I am a work of God and a man, and must needs have father and mother, and have not sprung from a stone, since God says to men, Gen. 1:28, "Be fruitful and multiply." From which one must conclude that all men come of man and woman, that is, have father and mother. Which he also confirms with his commandment, where he says to all men, Ex. 20:12, "Honor thy father and thy mother." (Christ, as God's Son, is of right excepted here and there.) Since it is now certain that I have men for parents, and have not grown upon a tree, I am constrained further, in the second place, to believe that the man and the woman are they who are pointed out to me by men, through the saying, Deut. 19:15, "In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established." Herewith God constrains me to believe such people.

23. In the third place it is also God's work that no one in all the world takes me up as a natural child in his own name, except these two persons, or in their name (if they are dead) the friends or pious people, and all this remains unchallenged by devil and men, like any other public work of God. For public works of God neither world nor devil can assail; and if they undertook it, it is nothing. But God's Word (since the work is still hidden), that he can assail masterfully.

24. Thus, that I believe the man to be my prince and lord, is first of all the cause: God's Word says, Rom. 13:1, "Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers." From which I take it that I must have a superior, and be "subject." In the second place, since all the world testifies and says that this one it is, and everyone holds him for it and no one gainsays it, as a public work of God, I must believe such witnesses. And if anyone should gainsay it, it would not stand; everyone at last says: he lies. In the third place, there is the public work of God, that no one else takes me up as a subject, I live under his protection, shelter, right and peace, as it