# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1845 11 01_S20
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

…an indestructible foundation in rational human nature" — the lofty notions of an unknown, mute, silent God, and the dread of an unrevealed eternity. Comforting doctrine indeed! How well suited to enlighten man concerning his appointed destiny, which is merely to burrow here into the dust of perishable goods! — But so that this should not happen, so that we might possess, against all human delusion, against deceit and doubt, a fixed, written Word of God, shining like a light in a dark place (2 Peter 1:19), the Spirit of Jesus Christ — not merely living, but also personal — inspired certain foreordained witnesses, who had eaten and drunk with Christ after he had risen from the dead (Acts 10:41), with a life-giving letter of Scripture, just as formerly the prophets of the old covenant were inspired (1 Peter 1:11; 2 Peter 1:21), which was to preserve for us, uncorrupted, the doctrine of grace of the gospel — which gives the spirit of faith unto salvation — as well as the letter of the killing, that is, condemning, law (2 Corinthians 3:6f.).

What a work — twelve men of the lowest origin, timid, uneducated people, brought about, through their spoken and written word, a spiritual revolution across the entire globe! What a proof of the Spirit and of power for the truth of the resurrection of Jesus Christ! Do not believe, dear Christian, the crude lie that the copying and collecting of the holy Scriptures took place in such a disorderly and fraudulent manner, and that the New Testament was completed so late. It is true that the closing of its canon — which was preserved, like that of the books of the Old Testament, with rare fidelity and care through God's gracious oversight against all the cunning and violence of enemies and the corruption of heretics — cannot be attributed to any one particular person, nor to any one particular year (the apostle John made the beginning with the four Gospels, which Irenaeus calls a pillar and foundation of our faith); rather, it proceeded gradually, under the guidance of the invisible Head and his ruling Spirit, out of the times and their circumstances themselves, until the church publicly confessed its agreement; but whoever, from the clear and abundant marks, believes in the divinity of the Scriptures themselves, will also never doubt their definite closing and divine safekeeping, since a reliable historical tradition teaches us that already at the beginning of the second century A.D. they were set apart from all other (human, and indeed even useless and spurious) writings as an infallible rule of faith and life (canon).

(Conclusion to follow.)

*) Compare, besides Exodus 17:14; 21:4; 34:27; Numbers 33:2; Deuteronomy 31:24ff.; Joshua 24:26; 2 Kings 2; Jeremiah 30:2; Revelation 1:3,19; etc., especially Isaiah 34:16; Luke 1:1–4; 16:29; John 5:39; 20:31; 21:21; Acts 17:11; Romans 15:4; 1 Corinthians 4:6; Philippians 3:1; 2 Thessalonians 2:2; 3:17; 2 Timothy 3:15–17; 2 Peter 1:16ff.; John 1:1–4. For scholars, this subject is treated most thoroughly by the incomparable Chemnitz at the beginning of his Examen Concilii Tridentini.

20

1) For the canonical authority of the writings of the Old Testament — aside from the citations of Christ and the apostles in the New Testament, which we set aside for now — there is credible historical evidence in Sirach ch. 48–49, esp. v. 12 (around 234 B.C.), and the important account in Josephus, Against Apion I.3, which is also found again in Eusebius, Church History III.10, and which, after he has listed all the canonical books of the Old Testament (22 in number, if the book of Ruth is counted with the book of Judges and the Lamentations of Jeremiah with his prophecies — compare the catalog of Melito in Eusebius IV.25), reads, precisely translated, as follows: "From Artaxerxes onward (that is, Artaxerxes Memnon, under which Persian king the last prophet, Malachi, prophesied) down to our own time, everything has indeed likewise been written down, but these writings are not accorded the same credibility as is given to the earlier ones, because the exact succession of prophets no longer holds there. From the very fact itself it is evident how highly we hold our books; for although so great a span of time has already elapsed, no one has yet dared to add anything to them, or take anything away, or to alter anything." (Compare Deuteronomy 4:2; 12:32; Proverbs 30:6; Revelation 22:18f.) But it is implanted in all Jews, from the very moment of their birth, to accept these as God's ordinances, to remain steadfast in them, and, should it be necessary, gladly to die for them. (Compare with this the statement of St. Paul, Romans 3:2; 9:4; Hebrews 11:32f.; the history of the Maccabees.) For the New Testament canon (that is, the list of the books received and accepted as divine), besides Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons, d. around 202 A.D. (Against Heresies III.1,11f., where mention is made of most of the sacred writers of the New Testament), and Tertullian, African presbyter, d. 220 (in his refutation of the heretics, where he appeals to the original writings still extant, and against Marcion, books IV and V, where he speaks in clear terms of an evangelical and apostolic canon after whose pattern Marcion had formed his own — thus already before the year 127 A.D.), especially Eusebius (d. 340) in his Church History III.24,25 — with which, however, the catalog of Origen (d. 250), in Homily VII on Joshua (also Eusebius VI.25), and of Athanasius (d. 372), in his Epistle 39, and others, are to be compared. These principal testimonies stand so unshaken, through the agreement of the whole of (Jewish and) Christian antiquity, and the citation of the individual books and their text among the church fathers from the earliest times, as well as through the general translations, that even Celsus and Porphyry sought to cast doubt only on the content, but by no means on the authenticity, of the sacred books. — But if they really were, which is ridiculous to suppose, nothing more than so-called apocrypha, books invented under false names (for the Apocrypha in our editions of the Bible are not fabrications, though also not of divine origin, for which reason they were called libri ecclesiastici in the ancient church), then the writings of the church fathers, of the heretics who make the same mention of them, of the non-Christians who mock them — indeed all the works of heathendom and Judaism — would have to be the very same thing. The prophets of the Old Testament had their prophecies publicly posted, so that they might become known to all (compare Habakkuk 2:2), and after some days had passed they were taken down by the priests and laid up in the temple archive, since the priests were often obliged, even against their own will, to preserve them for posterity (see Calvin's preface on Isaiah). How, then, could a fraud have slipped by before the eyes of an entire people, among whom countless copies were later circulated abroad as well? And so little time passed between the death of the apostles and the public promulgation of the New Testament writings that deception cannot be thought of here either — fraud is simply impossible.

Now, however, since the holy canon has been established, no appeal is any longer valid to new revelations (Psalm 19:8f.; John 8:31f., 36; Galatians 1:8f.; Hebrews 1:1–2 — for whoever hears the apostles hears Christ himself, Luke 10:16), nor to oral traditions (see the preceding note) — as the enthusiasts and the sectarian defenders of the Roman traditions would have it.

The Fruit of Sinful People-Pleasing.

When Emperor Charles V, who after Luther's death wished to reunite the Lutherans with the papists, once came to Augsburg, the emperor's chancellor, Dr. Soldius, proposed to the chief pastor of Augsburg, Caspar Huberinus, that he might indeed preach in the style and manner of the Lutherans, but that, in the presence of the imperial courtiers, he should not speak against the pope, and should altogether refrain from using the word "papists" from the pulpit during the emperor's presence in the city. Huberinus, who was otherwise a faithful teacher of the pure gospel, allowed himself to be persuaded by this same Soldius, who was his brother-in-law, to suspend for a time the rebuking of false doctrine. But what happened? Not long afterward, poor Huberinus's conscience awoke; he recognized with terror that he had denied the truth, and fell into great anguish of soul; no comfort would help him any longer; he despaired, and at last departed this life amid great lamentation. — Oh, that many a preacher of our own day might be warned by this example, who, out of a false love of peace, will rebuke no error, and thus esteems the honor of men more highly than the honor of God.

A Terrible Will.

Dillherr relates the following in his "Path of Life": A merchant, who had previously practiced a trade, fell mortally ill. He had a notary fetched along with witnesses to draw up his will, but began thus: First of all, I bequeath my body and my soul to the devil and to all the spirits of hell, to eternal torment and pain. Startled, the dying man's wife heard this speech and asked, in order to turn him from it, how he wished matters to stand with her. You shall, said he, burn with me in the fire of hell, for you were the reason that, for the sake of money and goods, I served the devil; I could never provide enough luxury, and for that reason had to give up my craft and become a merchant, overcharging people, lying and cheating; therefore you shall and must have it no better than I, and must burn eternally with me.

Paid:

Volume 1: Mr. Bücher.
The first half of Volume 2: Messrs. Alt, Leibrock. Volume 2: Mr. Succop.

Received from Mr. Stock, 56.19.

Der Lutheraner may always be obtained at the residence of the distributor, Mr. Gräber (South Fifth Street, opposite the oil mill), also from Mr. Quast (Olive Street, between Second and Third, below the theater), and from the publisher.

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