# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1844 09 01_S4
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

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3	...those had been expelled who had fallen away from the old faith and abused the name of the Catholic Church for this very purpose, to bind consciences to their human ordinances. To demonstrate this thoroughly is the task whose solution we have set ourselves as the goal of this paper. For the present we refer our readers only to a few testimonies of Luther himself, from which it is clearly to be seen that it was not at all his concern to spread his own human opinions, but that he had insisted solely upon God's Word. Thus he says, among other things, at the close of his excellent Church Postil: "O, that God would grant that my expositions and those of all teachers should perish, and that every Christian should himself take up the bare Scripture and pure Word of God alone. You see from this chatter of mine how immeasurably unequal God's words are to the words of all men; how no man at all can with all his words sufficiently attain to and expound a single Word of God. Whoever could arrive there without glossing and expounding would have no need at all of my glosses or those of any man—indeed, they would only be a hindrance. Therefore in, in, dear Christians! and let my exposition and that of all others be only a scaffolding for the true building, that we may grasp, taste, and abide in the bare, pure Word of God itself, for there alone God dwells in Zion." Even Luther's most bitter enemies have therefore had to testify that it was Holy Scripture upon which he above all insisted, and which he therefore spread among the people. To prove this I will cite only one passage from the writing of a Roman Catholic scribe, a certain Floremundus Raemundus, who otherwise wrote most vehemently against the Protestants and took an active part in their persecution. He says the following in his "History of the Origin, etc., of the Heresies of the Sixteenth Century": "The common people (in Luther's time) everywhere carried the Bible about with them, which had been translated into the mother tongue. One saw it lying on all tables and stands. The craftsmen had the Bible in their workshops, and the women had it lying on their knees. The whole world occupied itself with reading the Bible. — The sectarians armed with these books, whenever they encountered a priest or a member of a religious order, at once started a dispute with them. One demanded that he should show him the Mass; another, purgatory; this one, infant baptism; that one, the Trinity, in Holy Scripture. In the end they wanted every article of faith proved by express words, and rejected the unwritten Word of God and the apostolic ordinances. — For the archheretic Luther had taught: that Scripture, the interpretation of which he permitted to all, was alone the judge of all controversies in religion." —
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5	Who, indeed, could have devised a lovelier picture of the awakening of a new life through the old truth in the age of the Reformation, and better defended Luther against the accusation that he had brought forth a new doctrine, than this zealous adherent of the Pope? — But as to whether Luther despised the true Church and wished to found a new church, let him also be heard speaking on this himself. He writes, among other things, in the year 1532, "Against Certain Factious Spirits*), to the Margrave Albrecht of Brandenburg," as follows: "I would rather let not only the wisdom and right of all factious spirits, but of all emperors, kings, and princes testify against me, than hear or see a single iota or tittle of the whole holy Christian Church raised against me. For it is indeed not a matter to be trifled with, articles of faith which have been held in unity from the beginning, and throughout the whole of Christendom, as one may trifle with papal and imperial laws, or other human traditions of the fathers or of councils."
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7	*) This writing is directed chiefly against the Zwinglians, who taught that the body and blood of Christ are not truly present in the Holy Supper.
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9	From this one sees that Luther by no means despised the Church, as he is so often accused of doing, but that he was an obedient son of it. Little as the authority of any man counted for anything with Luther, he by no means wished, as unfortunately so many do now, to stand on his own feet in a false manner, in conceited self-sufficiency. He believed that a rightly believing Church had remained throughout all the centuries; he therefore did indeed ask how it had taught through all ages; the testimony of the true Church and agreement with it did indeed matter to him; he regarded it as a pillar and a foundation of the truth, and therefore wished to stand in rank and file with the whole great host of warriors, the rightly believing teachers of the Church, from the time of the Apostles down to himself. That one must hear the Church and obey it (Matthew 18:17), this Luther never denied; this is therefore also not the point of contention that was once, and still is, at issue between the Lutheran and the Roman Church. The question is rather whether one must obey those who indeed claim churchly authority for themselves because they hold the church office, but who thereby command something that contradicts the Gospel. This Luther denied, maintaining that when he does not hear the voice of Christ, he then does not hear his bride, his true Church, either, but rather false prophets, who wear the name of the Church only as a sheep's clothing, under which they seek to conceal the ravening wolf. From these false prophets, who would not tolerate any true reformation, Luther separated himself, but not from the Church. (To be continued.)
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11	A Testimony from the History of the Council of Nicaea, Showing that Our Faith Rests Not on Human Wisdom, but on the Power of God.
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13	Many Christian readers will be familiar, from the confessional writings of our Church, with the Nicene Creed, which contains, against the false doctrine of the Arians, some further biblical clarifications of the oldest biblical confession of faith. These Arians taught, namely, that the Son of God had once not existed, but had been created by God the Father, so that God set him at the beginning of all created things and called him the Word, the Son, and Wisdom, through whom he then also created us and all creatures. Against this dangerous false doctrine, which denies and disputes the eternal Godhead of our Lord Jesus Christ, the famous general council was held at Nicaea in Asia Minor in the year 325 after Christ, where, besides a great number of presbyters, 318 bishops alone were assembled, among whom many still bore on their bodies, from the previous times of the most terrible persecutions of Christians, the marks of the Lord Jesus, and some were mutilated in eyes, hands, and feet. To this venerable assembly there had also come some heathen philosophers, partly to satisfy their curiosity concerning Christianity, partly to entangle the Christians in a mass of subtleties and bring them into embarrassment, or to enjoy the pleasure of hearing them dispute with one another. One of them distinguished himself quite particularly by lofty pretensions to learning, in which he mocked the Christians for their supposed ignorance. On this occasion an old Christian, who had shown great steadfastness in the persecutions, but otherwise had little knowledge of the rules of worldly wisdom, took it upon himself to answer the philosopher. Those who cared more for the satisfaction of their curiosity than for the truth sought to raise a laugh at the old man's expense, while upright souls fell into distress at seeing so unequal a contest arise. However, respect for him required that his wish be granted. And so he began thus: "Hear, philosopher, in the name of Jesus Christ. There is one God, the Creator of heaven and earth and of all things visible and invisible, who made all these things by the power of his Word and established them by the holiness of his Spirit. This Word, whom we call the Son of God, had compassion on the children of men, who were going about in error and wickedness. He resolved to be born of a woman, to walk among men, and to die for them, and he will come again as judge over everything that men have done here in the world. That all this is so, we believe in simplicity; do not therefore take vain trouble to refute things that must be accepted by faith, or to investigate the manner in which these things can be or not be, but if you believe, then tell me so."
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15	Struck by this simple yet powerful address, the philosopher said, "Yes, I believe"; confessed himself overcome, exhorted the other philosophers to follow his example, and added that he had been moved by a divine power which he could not explain. — Thus Sozomenus relates to us in the eighteenth chapter of the first book of his Church History.
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17	Luther's Own Judgment on His Sharp Writing.
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21	I know well also that almost all my writings have been of such a kind that they were at first regarded as though they were from the devil, and people feared that heaven would soon fall in, but afterward it was soon otherwise. It is now another time, when one dares to attack the great heads, unaccustomed as this was before: and what God has in mind, one will see in due time. Not that I excuse myself by this, as though there were nothing human in me; but that I can boast of this with St. Paul, that although I am too harsh, I have nevertheless always spoken the truth, and no one can accuse me of having played the hypocrite. If I must ever have a fault, I would rather speak too harshly and thrust out the truth too bluntly, than that I should ever have played the hypocrite and held back the truth.
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23	Printed by Weber and Olshausen.
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