# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1845 08 03_S98
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

confessed it before the world, and defended it until his death. How far Luther was from wanting to follow his own head, separate from the Church, and found a new church, and how much the voice of the true Church meant to him — this we see from how Luther conducted himself when Zwingli attacked not only the papist false doctrines but also a doctrine of the ancient catholic Church of all ages, namely the doctrine that in the Holy Supper the true body and true blood of Jesus Christ are present and are received with the mouth by both the worthy and the unworthy.

He writes concerning this as follows: "Moreover, this article is not a doctrine or proposition devised by men outside of Scripture, but is clearly instituted and grounded in the Gospel through bright, pure, undoubted words of Christ, and has been believed and held unanimously from the beginning of the Christian churches, in all the world, until this very hour. This testimony of the whole holy Christian Church (even if we had nothing else) should alone be sufficient for us to abide by this article, and to give no factious spirit a hearing on it, nor to tolerate one. For it is dangerous and dreadful to hear or believe anything against the unanimous testimony, faith, and doctrine of the whole Christian Church, which from the beginning has now for over fifteen hundred years been held unanimously throughout the whole world. If it were a new article, and not held from the beginning of the Christian churches, or were not held so unanimously by all churches and by the whole of Christendom throughout the world, it would not be so dangerous nor dreadful to doubt it, or to dispute whether it is correct. But now, since it has been held unanimously from the beginning and throughout the whole of Christendom, whoever now doubts it does just as much as if he believed in no Christian Church at all, and thereby condemns not only the whole Christian Church as a damned heretic, but also Christ himself together with all the apostles and prophets, who established this article — when we say: I believe in one holy Christian Church — and testified to it mightily; namely Christ, Matthew 28:20: Behold, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. And St. Paul, 1 Timothy 3:14 [15]: The church of God is a pillar and ground of the truth. — I would rather let not only all factious spirits, but the wisdom and right of all emperors, kings, and princes testify against me, than hear or see one iota or one tittle of the whole holy Christian Church against me. For one may not so trifle with articles of faith that have been held unanimously from the beginning and throughout all of Christendom, as one may trifle with papal or imperial laws, or with other human traditions of the fathers or of councils."

Hence Luther always appeals also to his consensus with the universal Church. As late as 1544 he writes in a certificate of ordination that he issued to a certain J. Neybitz: "He (Neybitz) has promised to remain constant in the Christian doctrine of the Gospel, as it is by God's grace powerfully and unanimously confessed and taught in our church together with the true catholic Church." In another certificate of ordination issued by Luther, from the year 1540, it says: "We have recognized that Johannes Fischer adheres to the pure and catholic doctrine of the Gospel, which our church also teaches and confesses, and that he holds in abhorrence, above all, the fanatical opinions that have been condemned by the judgment of the catholic Church of Christ."

Furthermore, Luther did not even wish to separate himself from the Roman particular church without further ado; he was glad to remain within it, if only he had been left free to confess the pure Gospel; he therefore remained in the fellowship of the Roman Church for as long as he could, until he was cast out by ecclesiastical and worldly force. Thus he still writes in the year 1519: "Although things unfortunately stand at Rome in such a way that it might well be better otherwise, yet there is no reason, nor can there be, so great that one should tear oneself away, or separate, from that church; indeed, the worse things go there, the more one ought to cling to it and hold fast to it, for by tearing away and despising it, things will not get better." (Hall. XV, 848.)

Now after Luther, together with all who accepted his doctrine, had been placed under the ban by the Pope as an accursed heretic and cast out of the fellowship of the Roman Church, and after Luther, in consequence, had himself also renounced the school of Satan which the papacy had now shown itself to be, even then he did not have the intention of forming a church of his own in Germany, into which he would have gathered all the children of God and which he would have wished to make into a wellspring, from which alone the water of life should flow out into all the world and from which alone it would have to be drawn. He states plainly: "This same [Church] cannot be brought together into one heap, but is scattered throughout the whole world; it believes as I believe, and I believe as it believes; we have no offense or disagreement in faith, we all believe in one Christian Church; outside of this Church all is nothing." (Luther's Works, VII, 2347.) Luther writes further: "Augustine directs this passage, Psalm 19:4, 'Their sound is gone out into all lands,' against the Donatists, who confined the Church to a corner of Africa. But it must far more be directed against our new Donatists, who deny that there are believers in India, Persia, and Asia. For wherever the sound and the words of the Spirit of Christ are, there without doubt is also the true Church of Christ; for the Spirit of Christ speaks nowhere except in his Church. Therefore, since the text plainly shows here that the sound of the apostles went out into all lands, and nowhere is it read that it was ever revoked, we have reason to fear that we are not, perhaps, along with the ungodly Donatists — be they these or those, the old or the new — boasting alone of being believers; we who perhaps are nothing less than believers, because we hear the word and the sound of the apostles nowhere." (IV, 1487.)

98

Here perhaps some will say: Well then! If you admit accordingly that the Church is to be sought and found not only among the so-called Lutherans, but everywhere in the whole world, then we are agreed; so you also concede that the Reformed, the Evangelicals, the Methodists, the Catholics, etc., are the Church just as much as the Lutherans! By no means, dear sirs. It is true that the gates of the kingdom of grace of Christ, that is, of his Church, open everywhere that baptism is still administered according to Christ's institution; but those are not therefore the Church who, while outwardly standing in the fellowship of the Church, willfully falsify the Word and Sacraments of Jesus Christ and stubbornly persist in error. For as to who the Church is, Christ has given us the infallible touchstone: "If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." (John 8:31-32.) "If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him." (John 14:23.) "He that is of God heareth God's words: ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of God." (John 8:47.) "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. And a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him: for they know not the voice of strangers." (John 10:5, 27.) "To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice." (John 18:37.) Hence St. Paul says of the Church that it is "the pillar and ground of the truth." (1 Timothy 3:15.)

Now, as surely as Christ has here spoken the truth, just as surely those are not the Church who do not continue in Christ's word, who contradict his voice, which is the voice of truth, who do not keep his word, do not listen to it, but instead falsify and pervert it, and indeed stubbornly persist in these errors. The Church is a pillar of the truth, because through this fellowship of the never-dying children of God and disciples of Christ, the truth is continually testified to, defended, and propagated; but a fellowship which stands as a pillar and foundation of error is — a sect.

We therefore repeat once more: all the Christian parties which have departed from the Word of God and have thereby brought about a division in the Christian Church are indeed, if they have retained baptism and the Word of God according to its essential nature, still within the Church (for only within the Church are there heretics and sects); the Church also lies hidden beneath these heretics and sects; but they are not, on that account, the Church.

We wish to explain ourselves yet more clearly. Every heterodox fellowship within Christendom is to be considered in a twofold way: insofar as it still possesses truths, through which children of God are born within it, and insofar as it spiritually kills the children of God. Now insofar as a heterodox fellowship still possesses truths, to that extent it is still within the Christian —