# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1850 08 06_S198
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

198

lium; and secondly, what has been said above is not meant to prove the impossibility of a union — a right union is also the wish of our heart — but it is meant to prove that the lust for union, as it now stirs in evangelical or unevangelical heads, is an unchristian one. We say:

1. No union where our Lutheran Confessions are suppressed or treated as an empty form!

2. No church that does not say in all things what it believes!

3. No league of faith with unbelief!

4. No union where worldly considerations count, where there is haggling with wretched cunning!

5. Finally, also no so-called evangelical league, such as is spread by the chapel theology of the Reformed-English sects, not only for the Reformed, who are divided among themselves, but also against the unity of confession of the Evangelical Lutheran Church (confederation or alliance of indifference in several chief articles)! Such tendencies carry on the old building of union under new names, as one can perceive from the doings of the French Union evangelique and of many an undertaking for "inner mission," here and there in Germany and from Basel for Alsace. All this does not "fulfill" but dissolves the church faithful to the confession. Take heed!

(Submitted.)

A Word against the Missionsbote at Massillon, Stark Co., O.

Justice requires that I give a defense against an accusation which is found in the Missionsbote No. 7, p. 51. I would indeed gladly have laid this aside, as I have many other accusations, because on account of our long acquaintance I do not lay many things to the editor's charge, — but since in this article he attacks my office, my doctrine and congregation with mischievous things (and that merely from hearsay), I may no longer keep silent.

The Missionsbote says: "In the said county (Coshocton Co., Ohio) a preacher calling himself Lutheran lately settled, who from the very beginning worked to destroy the constitutions of the congregations, which were drawn up by a very venerable old Lutheran preacher but are favorable to union, and to draw up a new constitution. He laid before the congregations a constitution drawn up by himself, etc."

Now I will say nothing, either of the preacher (who, however, was no preacher, but only a farmer) who whittled this constitution after his own fashion, or of the constitution, a wretched piece of work, which happily concerns only the externals of the congregation, since I have no account to give for either; but that the Missionsbote lies in this, when it writes that I laid before them a constitution drawn up by myself, I cannot pass over in silence, and my church council will at the close issue a testimony to the contrary. Further the Missionsbote says: "in which (the constitution), among other extremes in opposition to the Reformed, the following article is found: To this congregation can belong only he who believes that in the Lord's Supper we receive in the bread the natural body (natural in contrast to the glorified), as it hung on the cross, and in the wine the natural blood (again in contrast to the glorified blood), as it flowed in Christ's veins"; — and he (namely the Missionsbote) calls this, naturally according to his conception set forth by him in the bracketed words, a partaking in a material and Capernaitic manner.

The dear reader will permit me to quote the said article word for word, as it stands in my constitution, which a member of the congregation asked of me to read:

"§ 7. The Holy Supper.

The Holy Supper shall be celebrated at least every quarter after preceding confession. Everyone who wishes to go to the Table of the Lord has to announce himself before confession to the father confessor and to submit to the loving admonition to a worthy approach, as also to the necessary instruction concerning this holy act, according to § 25 of the Unaltered Augsburg Confession.

"Members of the Reformed Church can receive the Holy Supper with us only if they at least declare before the church council their accession to the Lutheran congregation, and accept the doctrine of the Holy Supper as the Lutheran Church confesses it according to the Word of God. The doctrine is: That it is the true, natural body of Jesus Christ, which hung on the cross, and the true natural blood, which flowed from Christ's side, which is received with bread and wine orally, yet in an unsearchable and supernatural manner. That Christ is present in this unsearchable manner in the Supper, and is partaken of by the unworthy as well as by the worthy. Whoever does not believe this, but regards this holy sacrament only as a sign or remembrance, or as a merely spiritual enjoyment of Jesus Christ, who reigns merely in heaven, is regarded by the Lutheran Church as unbelieving toward the Word of Jesus and, because the partaking of the Holy Supper is also a confession of a congregation (belongs to confession), is kept away from the Supper." —

This then is the "extreme," according to which I indeed act strictly, and thereby greatly anger dear Union and her neighbor, the Reformed Church, and must also see how those of unionistic mind flee this new way, as they call it, and leave me alone with the stupid Lutherans!!

But every Lutheran Christian must call this procedure honest, even if the Missionsbote & Co. chides it as dishonesty and lack of love. But why then is he so dishonest and does not say that the bracketed remark "natural in contrast to the glorified body," and again "in contrast to the glorified blood," is his own work, as it is an editor's duty to remark? for if that had been done, I should not be under suspicion as a false teacher.

But since he has already accused me before my own, the Michigan Synod, as a veritable sectarian on account of the expression "natural body," and has styled me as one who covers his ignorance with Old Lutheranism; and speaks of the Old Lutheran shouters, upon whose standpoint Cronenwett and I as non-theologians (which he likewise cries out the members of the Missouri Synod to be) stand, I must nevertheless give account concerning the word "natural."

1. The expression "natural body" is Lutheran church doctrine and is found in Chap. 7 of the Formula of Concord twice, likewise Art. 1 of the Saxon Visitation Articles. I stand, then, as to the word, upon the standpoint of the Lutheran church doctrine, which for nearly 300 years has held good with all orthodox teachers. I belong to a synod which, according to its new constitution, demands unreserved acknowledgment of all the symbolical books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, and therefore accepts no preacher who serves united congregations as such. Finally, I confess myself not only from the heart to all the symbolical books of the Lutheran Church, but was also, at my introduction into my two principal congregations, pledged to all the symbolical books of the Lutheran Church. Now the Missionsbote says in his letter against me to the synod: "You have drawn up a constitution which, if it is adopted, can produce nothing else than a Lutheran sect, of which there are very many today; if you let yourselves be pledged again to the Formula of Concord, I can no longer be at one with you, for I am firmly convinced that the union will go through in America also. On your standpoint you stand like a sect which differs only in little from the Old Lutheran sect." I marvel how the Missionsbote can judge so here also, since he has not yet read a word of the synod's new constitution! But he has heard of the unreserved pledge to the symbolical books of the Lutheran Church, and how hostile he is to these, he has sufficiently proved in his paper No. 3; but if he can sell the Book of Concord for the sake of money and gain, then, in his view, may