# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1845 06 28_S88
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

they shall nevertheless remain a bright light for us in this last, dark, and dreadful age. But what, finally, are we to say of how Mr. N., following Mr. Saxer, describes the Church before and after the Reformation? To waste a word on this in the hearing of a Protestant seems altogether superfluous. The description is so abominable that it disgusts us to repeat it. Let Mr. N. seek his reward for it from His Holiness the Pope at Rome; for truly, if a Protestant does not earn at least a cardinal's hat by this, we do not know how a Protestant could ever attain to such an honor. How Mr. N. could bring himself to call his authority, Mr. Saxer, an honest Lutheran, and to serve up to his readers the gibberish of his church-historical developments as evidence of his honest Lutheranism, is something we cannot comprehend. This much is clear to us: that in the head of Mr. Saxer, and of all who approve his view, there haunt thoroughly crude, carnal, papistic notions of the true form of the Church — that they picture by it a well-organized church-state; hence the outrageous assertion "that at the time of the Reformation (the reshaping of the Church) the Church came to an end!" (p. 9.) Indeed, reading such things in Mr. N.'s book, one might think one had the Cincinnati "Wahrheitsfreund" in one's hands. Shame, shame, that Mr. Nollau still dares to reproach us Lutherans with a questionable leaning toward Rome, while he himself becomes a traitor to the Protestant Church in favor of the Roman, and hands the Roman Catholics weapons against us — confessing, as he does, that with the Reformation the true form of the Church perished, and that the Roman Church "continually maintains the character of the Church above the other ecclesiastical parties"! (p. 10.) Shame, shame, that a Protestant can so revile and blaspheme the blessing of the Reformation, and can be so blind as not to know that the public preaching of the pure Word — be it even at the stake or in the dark chamber of the Inquisition — gives the Church its true form, and makes it, this kingdom of the cross, into a city set on a high hill; into a lighthouse that shows storm-tossed ships the way to the true harbor! Shame, shame, that a Protestant can still so court the outwardly respectable form in which the Roman Church can make its appearance before the world, and can look with envy upon the earthly power, pomp, splendor, and military order of the papal church! Mr. N. evidently does not even understand this much: that the false cohesion of the papal realm, extorted by external means — or, as he calls it, its external organism — is the most total misshaping of the Christian Church. Such notions of the true form of the Church as live in Mr. N.'s heart, and as he seeks to awaken in his readers, give us the key to why so

88

many new believers now go over to the Roman sect, while nothing of the kind is heard of so-called Old Lutherans.* The spirit of the false union necessarily leads there. In the so-called Evangelical Church, out of manifest jealousy of the great, imposing organic body of the papacy, people likewise seek to gather people together in such a way that they do not ask whether people carry one faith in their hearts and therefore confess one doctrine, but are content if people merely consent to belong to the new, broad, and wide church, in which there is room enough for people of different faiths. What else is the vaunted and envied unity of the Roman Church? At bottom it consists in nothing more than that the bishop cowers under the Pope, the priest under the bishop, and the layman under the priest, and that all cry out at the top of their lungs: We belong to the Catholic Church and believe what it commands us to believe! — while scarcely from two pulpits is the same doctrine heard.

In the next number we intend to show what sort of doctrine and conception of the Church, especially of the Lutheran Church, Mr. N. falsely foists upon us, and how he has thereby revealed that he was, as we hope, simply not able to grasp our clearly presented doctrine in its context — since otherwise we should have to fear that he had distorted our doctrine against his better knowledge and conscience.
(To be continued.)

* Mr. N. will perhaps think he can point us to Mr. Oertel as an example of an Old Lutheran converted to the papacy; but there he is mistaken. Mr. Oertel had penetrated no more into the true doctrine of the Lutheran Church than all of us former Stephanites had. It was not too strict an adherence to Lutheran doctrine that made us Stephanites, but a complete, though unconscious, departure from it. It therefore does not help Mr. N. and his Methodist brethren in the faith in the least, when, in order to combat the old Lutheranism, they can always speak of nothing but our straying into Stephanism.

Faith Is a Miracle.

Faith is truly a miracle: in a man who is otherwise a poor, weak creature, it produces such great courage that he becomes so bold as to be able to say: Though all devils fell upon me — yes, though all kings, emperors, heaven, and earth were against me — still I believe and know that I shall be preserved. — Luther on Exodus 14.

It Is Not the Multitude That Makes the Church.

When, under the reign of the Emperor Constantius, almost all the teachers of the Church had been infected by the Arian heresy, the emperor — who was himself of Arian mind — called out to the Roman bishop Liberius: "What fraction of the whole earth are you, that you alone hold with this godless man (Athanasius) and disturb the peace of the whole world?" To this the bishop replied: "That I stand alone takes nothing away from the word of faith. For once, too, there were found only three who resisted the (royal) command." (Daniel ch. 3.)

Laymen, Too, Must Be Certain of the Doctrine.

Every man must see to it for himself that he is certain and sure of sound doctrine, and must not rely on other people's debating and reasoning; if he does not, the Holy Spirit will soon let him see a fall. If you are to be saved, you must be as certain, for yourself, of the Word of grace, that even if all men spoke otherwise — yes, if all the angels said no — you could nevertheless stand alone and say: Still I know that this word is right. — As Christ says, John 10:3, 5: "My sheep hear my voice, and know me; a stranger's voice they do not know and will not hear." The sheep must be certain of the voice, must close its eyes and ears, and refuse to listen no matter how many, how great, how wise, how pious the people may be who teach otherwise. If it fails to do this, lets go of its certainty, and wants first to hear how the matter will finally be decided, it has already been led astray — carried off — from the Shepherd. (Luther on Acts, ch. 15–16.)

A Good Answer.

A Protestant and a Catholic sat together in a tavern, drinking brandy and chatting about religion. The Protestant maintained that his religion was the true and better one; the Catholic, on the other hand, wanted the preference given to his own. While they thus chatted, argued, and quarreled, they emptied one glass of brandy after another, until they were completely drunk. In this condition the Protestant turned to the pious Pastor Neff, who had meanwhile come in, with the words: "Isn't that so, Pastor — our religion is the best?" Neff answered: "You good people are certainly wrong to fall into such a quarrel, for you seem to have one and the same religion: you are both brandy-drinkers."

Der Lutheraner may always be obtained at the residence of the paper's carrier, Mr. Gräber (South Fifth Street, opposite the oil mill), likewise from Mr. Quast (Olive Street, between Second and Third, below the theater), and from the editor.

Printed by Weber and Olshausen.