# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1845 11 15_S23
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

them neither faith, love, patience, nor other good fruits. We too have the Spirit, they say, which works in us faith, love, patience, contempt for temporal honor and goods, steadfastness in all kinds of affliction, distress, and death. They are proud, presumptuous hypocrites, who can judge and condemn everyone; they see the speck in our eye but do not notice the beam in their own. Therefore let them go their way. — Wherever these hypocrites intend to go with their spirit, I do not intend to go there. May the merciful God indeed protect me from the Christian Church in which there are nothing but sheer saints. I want to be, and remain, under the Church and the little flock in which there are fainthearted, weak, and sick people, who recognize and feel their sin, misery, and wretchedness, and who without ceasing sigh and cry to God from the heart for comfort and help, and who believe in the forgiveness of sins, and who suffer persecution for the sake of the Word (which they confess purely and unfalsified). Satan is a cunning rogue; through his fanaticism he wants to make the simple believe that there is nothing to the preaching of the Gospel, that we must go about it differently — namely, by leading a holy life, bearing the cross, and suffering much persecution; and by such an appearance of self-chosen holiness (which is contrary to God's Word), many a one is led astray. But our holiness and righteousness is Christ, in whom — and not in ourselves — we are made perfect, Colossians 2:10. And in this I take comfort and hold fast to the word of St. Paul, where he says, 1 Corinthians 1:30, that Christ was made unto us by God wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. — Luther, on 1 John 1:7.

(Submitted.)

The False Doctrine of the Methodists Concerning Justification, Demonstrated from Their Church Order.*

* The present essay was submitted to us already several months ago; it could not, however, be published until now for lack of space. — The Editor.

As a result of the proof he set forth in No. 18 of Der Lutheraner, "that the Methodists are a sect," the writer has now, in several issues of the "Apologete," already been charged with slander, so that it becomes a duty — not for the sake of his own honor, for a Christian ought not to seek that, but for the sake of God's honor — to answer this thoroughly. For since the Methodists insist on the claim that they hold the so important article of justification in purity, though it is plainly falsified and disfigured by them, the honor of God and the salvation of many sinners must necessarily suffer under it, when they pass off their counterfeit coin as genuine, and their error as truth.

They appeal, indeed, to what they say on page 13, Article IX, of their Church Order concerning justification, where it reads: "We are accounted righteous before God only on account of the merit of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, through faith, and not because of our works or merits; and that we are justified by faith alone is a most wholesome and comforting doctrine."

With this confession the Methodists believe they have sufficiently demonstrated their orthodoxy on the point in question. And we would gladly grant them this, if this confession did not stand in all-too-glaring contradiction with the rest of their doctrine and practice. We hope they will not feel aggrieved if we show them this contradiction from their own Church Order, since this is done only for their own good, and the refutation of such errors, publicly taught against God's Word, cannot rightly be confused with that sin which is forbidden in Luke 6:37.

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Before, however, I demonstrate this contradiction, I must express my astonishment that in the whole book bearing the title "Doctrine and Church Order of the Episcopal Methodist Church," so little attention is drawn to the importance of the article of our justification before God.* Not a single time is it mentioned how difficult this article is — that we become righteous and blessed without any works at all, by grace alone, through a merit not our own — to grasp and believe, not only for the world, but even for true Christians. Not a single time is it emphasized with forceful words that this article — namely, the righteousness that God himself works in us without our own contribution — is the only comfort to which a terrified conscience can flee for refuge. Nothing is mentioned of the causes which, even for the honest Christian under trial, obscure this comfort and refuse to let it into the heart. Concerning the distinction between Law and Gospel nothing at all is taught, and concerning the distinction between faith and works it is by no means taught in such a way that the glorious article of justification would thereby receive more light and clarity. Nowhere in the whole book does any concern appear for turning souls away from all false comfort and trust in their own works and piety, taking from them everything of their own, while giving them, in turn, everything — namely, the whole Christ with all the riches of his grace, freely and for nothing, and for all who wish to rejoice in it.

* The disproportion between the 13 pages of doctrine and the 190 pages of new measures and other rules, and the low esteem for doctrine and high regard for human ordinances that shines through from this, has already been rightly criticized several times by others.

But if our opponents object that the book's purpose is not to lay the foundation of faith, but is meant to be only a church order, they must nevertheless admit that the purpose of their little book is at the same time also an edifying one. For on every occasion it exhorts one to "work out" one's salvation; it is calculated so that a person, where possible, might already be awakened and converted by reading this very book. One should therefore have good reason to expect that, above all, the article of justification would be carefully treated in this book, and placed at the very top as the highest article, to which all other statutes and precepts are subordinate. But this has not happened; instead, law upon law, precept upon precept, rule upon rule is given, and the most comforting and most necessary article of justification is dispatched briefly in a couple of words, so that it becomes almost invisible under the ballast of statutes, and it becomes far less likely that anyone would ever come to think that it is the precious pearl which must be preserved above all else and guarded as the dearest jewel. Therefore let no one persuade me that our opponents are in earnest about justification by grace alone, through faith, without our works and merits, and that they can say from the heart with Dr. Luther: "In my heart there rules alone, and shall also rule, this one article, namely, faith in my dear Lord Christ, which is the sole beginning, middle, and end of all my spiritual and divine thoughts that I may have continually, day and night."

Let us now turn to the contradiction itself, in which the whole remaining doctrine and practice of the Methodists stands with regard to the article of justification which they claim to hold so purely; and here, unfortunately, the admittedly grave charge must be brought against them, that they make of Christ a Moses, that is, a new lawgiver. On page 58 of their Church Order stands the question: "What is the most effective way to preach Christ?" And the answer reads: "to present him in all his offices, and to proclaim both his Law and his Gospel to believers and unbelievers alike. Let us press forcefully and decidedly for outward and inward sanctification in every respect." They speak, then, of a law of Christ, as though the Law belonged to his office just as much as the Gospel. According to Holy Scripture, Christ did not come as a second Moses, to give laws to the world, but to redeem and set free all who are under the curse of the Law. John 1:16–17. "And of his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Christ."

Here St. John makes a definite contrast between Moses and Christ, between Law and Gospel; therefore the two are to be kept far apart from one another and by no means confused. Moses' office is not Christ's office, and Christ's office is not Moses' office; otherwise Moses would be just as much a Savior as Christ. It is not my intention here to set forth at length the distinction between Law and Gospel; nor do we deny that Christ