# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1845 12 08_S30
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

fifth part. For, as a consequence of the violent encroachments of the secular government upon the right — that is, the freedom of confession — and upon the order and constitution of the Lutheran Church in Prussia, and as a consequence of their long and just protest against these encroachments and against the compulsion toward the shameful unionizing of our day, these dear brethren — with whom we are entirely one on the foundation of the same faith, confession, and doctrine — seem to grant to the church orders and liturgies of the Reformation era equal worth with the churchly symbols, and, contrary to Article VII of the Augsburg Confession, to seek the unity of the Church in the unity of liturgical form and constitution.

A seventh part,* finally, of the Lutheran Church here consists of the brethren, mostly emigrated from the Saxon lands, in Missouri and Illinois. These, as appears from their organ, the excellent periodical "Der Lutheraner," have for several years now been very thoroughly purged of the Stephanite delusion, and now stand decidedly upon the sound churchly ground of our symbolical books, and defend the same, in doctrine and in practice, just as decidedly in that paper, which we can, with good conscience, urgently recommend to every sincere and truth-seeking Lutheran.

* Concerning the former Tennessee Conference (English-Lutheran), now, as we hear, called the Synod of Indiana, we have not been able to obtain any written testimony of its churchly disposition; it is said, however, to hold firmly to the churchly confession.

It is this part of our Church, then, that holds the unity of faith, of confession, and of doctrine alone to be essentially sufficient for the unity of the Church — not, however, the unity of ceremonies and of particular orders and constitutions — and that, on this foundation and out of this unity, maintains and defends the pure churchly doctrine and practice against Rome as well as against the sects, and especially against the deceitful unionism of the present day, just as forcefully and earnestly, in holy zeal for the one saving truth, as it is gentle and measured in form and expression.

It is these dear brethren, for the most part, whom we mean by "those of like mind" in the heading to this introduction and to the essays that follow; and since they have as yet no churchly synodical fellowship, and lack a constitutional unity in the government and guidance of the Church, these brotherly words in what follows are addressed especially to them as well — in the hope that, with God's help, the aid of the Holy Spirit, it might perhaps succeed for us first to come to agreement concerning the guiding principles for the formation of orthodox synods, and then, proceeding from these, concerning the outlines of a common synodical constitution. For from the above survey of the present condition of our Church it is evident clearly enough how pitiful and wretched its state is, and how urgently it stands in need of the unanimous joining together and cooperation of its true children into a firm and sound synodical union as well; for it cannot be denied that, through this, on the one hand, it will more and more, the longer the better, awaken anew to a full consciousness of its unity and glory as the true union and concord of the contending opposites striving within the Roman and the Reformed churches, or as the orthodox Church of the pure Word and Sacrament, and that, on the other hand, it will thereby also go forth to battle with united strength and fight the good fight of faith for the preservation of the pure Word against Romanists, fanatics, and unionists.
(To be continued.)

(Submitted by Pastor Keyl.)
On St. Paul's Words: "That Only Christ Be Proclaimed."
Philippians 1:18.

These words are frequently misused in our time; for when someone wishes lightly to dismiss the most culpable indifference toward the strict distinction between truth and error, and the irksome censures for all sorts of errors; when someone seeks recognition, under the pretext that they are genuinely Christian and evangelical, for certain teachers and doctrines, for certain institutions, undertakings, books, and so forth; when someone wishes to comfort and quiet those he has led astray, as soon as they fall into fear and unrest over some discovered false doctrine — then he appeals to the fact that the apostle Paul himself said: "if only Christ be proclaimed." In doing so, one inquires no further into what Paul's actual meaning might have been, but simply passes off his own preconceived opinion as Paul's. And so one writes and cries it after another, especially the champions of the evil cause of today's union: That only Christ be preached!

For a better understanding of this saying, let the following serve. Saint Paul, when he wrote the letter to the Christian congregation at Philippi, was in prison at Rome for the Gospel's sake, in about the year 57 after Christ's birth, under the emperor Nero. He lets them know how things stand with him, and that his imprisonment serves to the furtherance of the Gospel, in that many in the praetorium and among the imperial courtiers had come to the Christian faith, and many brothers in the Lord, with all the greater zeal, preached the Gospel, that is, Christ (chap. 1, vv. 12–14).

Yet they did this, as Paul shows, not all from one and the same intention; for some preached Christ "out of envy and strife," "of contention, and not sincerely," with the intention "to add affliction to his bonds" — for they perhaps wished, by the wider spread of his teaching, to embitter his enemies against him yet further, and thereby to make his imprisonment harder and longer, or even to hasten his violent death, in order then to be sole master. Finally Paul says of them that they proclaimed Christ "as it were of pretense" — that is, under the pretext that it was in real earnest with them. The others, however, preached the right doctrine "of good will," "of love," "in the right way" (vv. 15–18). Now when Paul says: "that only Christ be proclaimed, in every way," he means thereby both that impure and this pure manner or intention, and says not only of the latter but also of the former: "I rejoice therein, yes, and will rejoice" (v. 18).

Now since Paul also says of those who had reprehensible intentions that they preached Christ, one may not, therefore (according to Calov, Hunnius, and Balduin), understand by them, in the first place, Jews who spread all manner of slanders against Paul's teaching, through which then many curious persons came to him and to faith in Christ. Nor, however, can one understand by them such Christian teachers as had corrupted the true doctrine through all sorts of Jewish leaven — for instance, the necessity of the Law for justification (as Flacius, and in part also Bengel and the Weimar Bible, assume).

For that Paul could say neither of the Jews who blasphemed Christ, nor of the Christians who taught false doctrine, "I rejoice therein, yes, and will rejoice" — this the matter itself already teaches, and Paul himself testifies the very opposite when, in chapter 3, verse 18, he speaks with weeping of the enemies of the cross of Christ. Finally, those teachers, had they set forth a doctrine other than Paul's, could not have hoped to attain their aforementioned purpose — namely, by the spreading of his doctrine, to embitter his enemies against him yet further.

Their doctrine, accordingly, was correct, for they preached Christ; only their intention in doing so was reprehensible, for although they did it under the pretext of the honor of God, the spread of the Gospel, and so forth, in fact only personal enmity toward the apostle, love of glory, and the like, drove them to it.

This explanation is given by the church teacher Chrysostomus, in a sermon preached in the year 386 against the Anomoeans (Arian heretics), from which Theophylactus (in the eleventh century) took it.

With this Augustinus also agrees, when he says of these teachers (Quaest. ev. II, 33): "They proclaimed nothing else (as the heretics did), but the very same thing that Paul preached — only not with the intention with which Paul did so."

Dr. Luther was of the same opinion, for he says: one should preach the truth at all times, in all places, in every way — and then cites, as proof, these words of Paul, Philippians 1:18 (Halle edition, XVIII, 2108).

His meaning, however, becomes still clearer from an exposition of this letter by one of