# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1845 07 12_S91
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Hänsel, indeed, and those around him still maintain the old position. But not a few of the younger theologians are Lutherans in the noblest, most spiritual sense of the word, and I am convinced that if you, if your fellow ministers, were to come here, we would shout for joy that one Spirit drives us, and that our views of the present state of the church are entirely the same, because the standard by which we measure is the same.

You are now editing, I hear, a periodical. That is right. Now that you have been melted in the furnace of tribulation, let the pure gold ring out. Be no longer so timid; the time of wrath is indeed past, your garments are washed, and you may joyfully lift up your heads. So become, then, a salt of the earth; it is a good pound that God has entrusted to us. — Without reserve you may join yourselves to the preachers and schoolmen proceeding from Bavaria and Dresden. — The times have changed, and everywhere a holy love has awakened, not only toward the Lord Jesus, but also toward his bride, the church. —

Everywhere here in Germany, as a result of the exhibition of the Robe of Christ at Trier, so-called German-Catholic congregations are tearing themselves loose from the hierarchy, but with few exceptions they cast away, along with Roman superstition, the Catholic faith as well. It is the church of rationalism with its tricolor (three-colored) coat of arms: God, Virtue, Immortality. The applause of the world is boundless; Johannes Ronge, the new reformer, is said to have already received some 12,000 thalers in gifts, and yet his opposition is purely negative (tearing-down), without scriptural ground, without any spiritual character whatsoever. —

I ask you: wherever you see one of those who stood closer to me (of whom I would have to make a long list), greet them from me with the brotherly greeting of the most heartfelt love in Christ Jesus, and tell them: we will keep the good deposit that we have received, we will hold fast to faith and practice love, and sooner let our tongue cleave to the roof of our mouth than that we should forget Jerusalem. —

Now, my dear brother, may the Lord our Savior equip you daily with new strength from on high, and bless your office, whether you preach or write. May he be over the congregations in St. Louis and Perry County a sheltering roof, and around them a wall of fire. May he make them all into gardens of God through his almighty grace. May his outstretched arm help you visibly in all tribulation. May he be with you, that the fire may not scorch you and the floods not drown you. May he be with you, my dear W.

Inseparably yours and yours all,
Delitzsch.
Leipzig, March 30, 1845.

91

(Submitted.)

Protest Against the Designation "Old Lutherans."

The name "Old Lutherans" is now becoming ever more frequent, particularly in the periodicals. It is true that people commonly add the word "so-called" before "Old Lutherans," but I have never yet read any evidence as to who first called them by this name. I do not know exactly whom is meant by it exclusively, but I do see clearly that, among others, all those are reckoned among the Old Lutherans who agree with the teachings and views of the Lutheraner published here. But why are these designated by such a separating name? For the Lutheraner itself has not given itself this name; it has kept its ordinary name, nor has it declared any intention of setting up a new party; rather, it declared at the outset, and still declares, what it understands by a Lutheran, namely one who believes and confesses from the heart the doctrine of the Evangelical Lutheran Church as laid down in her confessions; and furthermore, the Lutheraner has not yet been shown by any paper to be introducing some new doctrine into the Lutheran Church, on account of which one would have to give it a special name. It is true that the "Lutherische Hirtenstimme," in No. 12 of this volume, unmistakably alluding to the "Lutheraner," says that "exaggerated assertions" are being put forward, and it brotherly requests the "Christlicher Apologete" "not to adopt it as doctrine of the Lutheran Church and trumpet it out into the world, should unreasonable propositions contrary to God's Word be set up by the Old Lutherans"; but unfortunately no elaboration of these charges is given, no proof of these accusations. It truly astonishes me that the "Lutherische Hirtenstimme," which complains about the disparagements made by a layman in the "Apologete," should itself become guilty of similar disparagements of the so-called Old Lutherans. For do not such statements necessarily arouse ill prejudices against the so-called Old Lutherans in readers of the "Hirtenstimme" who are not acquainted with the matter? It would have been far better and more Christian if the "Hirtenstimme" had instead directly exposed "the unreasonable, exaggerated, and God's-Word-contradicting" assertions of the Old Lutherans; then the erring could also have been convicted and corrected. One should rebuke one's brother, not slander him! It also astonishes me that the "Hirtenstimme" makes so much of the fact that the so-called Old Lutherans have only recently arrived in America, as though for that reason they might not raise their voice in the Lutheran Church of America. How long, then, must one be in America in order to be a proper Lutheran? Can not a good Lutheran also come from Germany? Is nativism, perhaps, also to be introduced into the church? What a degrading of the church into worldly, political affairs! However honorable the name "Old Lutheran" may sound — inasmuch as it might be interpreted to mean that one intends to remain with the old Gospel and not deviate from it by a hair's breadth, which God has given back to us again through the ministry of the blessed Dr. Luther — I nevertheless believe that we must protest with all earnestness against this name, because through it Christendom, already divided enough, is only further divided, and because it is also directly against God's command to keep making and approving ever new designations within the church. (1 Corinthians 1:10 and following.) We wish to be Lutherans; we wish to accept nothing in matters of doctrine that does not agree with the confession of the Lutheran Church, because we are firmly convinced that this confession is the confession of the pure Word of God. But should one, perhaps, give us a special name for the reason that we distinguish ourselves from other Lutherans by ceremonies and similar external things? The diversity of ceremonies and constitutions cannot abolish the unity in doctrine and in spirit, nor make a new church! See the Augsburg Confession, Article 7. Or does it make us into a new party if we brotherly rebuke errors that seek to creep in among Lutherans? That is, indeed, according to James 5:19–20, an act of Christian love! If there exist in America communities that call themselves Old Lutherans in order to form thereby a new party, then we do not wish to join ourselves to such — unless it should finally come to pass (which God forbid) that a false Lutheran church should, by means of this name, exclude the true Lutherans from itself; in that case we would have to, and would, bear even this name as a cross of Christ.
F. Bünger.

Dr. Martin Luther's Exhortation to the Mayors and Councilmen of All Cities of the German Lands, that They Should Establish and Maintain Christian Schools.

(In excerpt.)

We now experience through and through how everywhere the schools are being allowed to decay, and how no one wishes any longer to let children learn, or study. That the evil devil should put it into the hearts of worldly, carnal men to abandon the children and the young people in this way is no wonder, and who would blame him for it? He is a prince and god of this world. How should he permit young people to be brought up properly? Indeed, he would be a fool if, in his own kingdom, he were to allow and help establish that by which it would most swiftly be brought to ruin — as would happen if he were to lose this dainty morsel, the dear youth, and had to suffer them to be raised, at his own cost and goods, for the service of God. For wherever harm is to come to him, it must come through the young people,