# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1846 03 07_S56
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

ble themselves before the Lord, and to bear heartfelt sorrow for the sake of such unbelieving or merely lip-believing members, and thereafter, through prayer and intercession, admonition, rebuke, enticement, entreaty, threatening, and promising, to carry the voice of the Good Shepherd to the lost sheep and seek to win them for him. For pure love should indeed always accompany pure doctrine; and it is indeed present in those who cling to this doctrine with their whole heart — without, that is, that dangerous admixture of spiritual pride and false, fleshly zeal for conversion, which is commonly found as the mere semblance of love alongside the impure doctrine of sectarians and the false holiness of separatists.

(To be continued.)

Complaint over the Decline of the American Lutheran Church.

In No. 52 of the third volume of the "Lutheran Standard" (that is, Lutheran Banner), an English-language newspaper published by the directors of the Columbus Seminary, we find a confession regarding the decline of the American Lutheran Church, which deserves all the more attention since this newspaper is by no means inclined to side with the so-called Old Lutherans — indeed, in the very same issue, in a submitted article, they are spoken of with unmistakable aversion.

After the Reverend Mr. Spielmann, the editor, has mentioned how two distinguished men of the Reformed Church here, the Doctors of Theology Schaaf and Nevin, are now working with good success to lead the German Reformed Church in America back to the doctrine of its own Symbols, which it too had abandoned — especially with regard to the doctrine of the Holy Supper — Mr. Spielmann breaks out into the following just complaint over the apostasy that has taken place within the American Lutheran Church:

"We are filled with sorrow and pain when we consider the present condition of our own Church. We cannot call the state of our own Church a happy and flourishing one, as some do. We think we have more than sufficient cause to humble ourselves before God in dust and ashes, and to call upon him fervently to preserve her from complete dissolution, toward which she seems, alas, to be heading. It cannot be denied that our Church has, to a considerable extent, departed from the principles and doctrines of its Confession, and has, in the same proportion, been absorbed into other denominations. We are far from disapproving of friendly relations with other branches of the Christian Church.... But this can take place without any need to abandon the principles of our Church or depart from its doctrines. The Lutheran Church, like any other, can maintain her standing as such only through a firm and, in every point, faithful adherence to her publicly acknowledged doctrines and principles. We do not mean to quarrel over words, but so far as doctrines and principles are concerned, the conviction forces itself upon us that these ought to be kept in their purity. We regret that this has not been the case, and that so many of our members are so little acquainted with them. It is therefore of the highest importance that at least portions of our symbolical books be soon translated and widely circulated, both in German and in English."

"We recommend a careful reading of the article communicated above" (it was a treatise on the Holy Supper from a newspaper of the Reformed Church), "which we publish, without endorsing it, chiefly in order to present to our readers the views of our Reformed brethren on the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. It should not surprise us if many of our readers should find these (Reformed) views more Lutheran than those held by some members of the Lutheran Church." etc.

It has heartily gladdened us to find, even in the "Lutheran Standard," so frank a confession of the deep decline of our Church here, and so sorrowful a lament over it, expressed before our English fellow believers as well. For that over which Mr. Spielmann here pours out his complaint before all the world is precisely, and nothing other than, what we too, and all those of us who are here so often treated as if we were some new sect and are therefore called not Lutherans — which we merely wish to be — but "Old Lutherans,"*) also lament and would gladly bring to general awareness. Well then, if people will not hear us — perhaps because we were not raised here — when we bear witness against the apostasy that has taken place, let them at least listen to such testimonies as the one above, against which no similar prejudice can be entertained.

*) Rightly understood, the name "Old Lutheran" is of course not the name of a sect, for a Lutheran can properly bear this name of his in truth only if he is an Old Lutheran — that is, if he holds to the old Lutheran doctrine, and not to some new one.

With equal joy we welcome Mr. Spielmann's call for a new printing of the symbolical books of the Lutheran Church in German and English. And as much as we would wish that all these public confessional writings might be published at once in their entirety, we are nevertheless ready, should this seem impracticable, so that at least something be done, to lend a hand also toward having, for the time being, individual symbols of our Church reprinted anew, with a beginning perhaps made with the complete Augsburg Confession, including the three Ecumenical Creeds. We hope in God that in this way the desire for these testimonies may be awakened, and that gradually all the Symbols might be published.

A COMMENTARY ON ST. PAUL'S EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS, BY MARTIN LUTHER. 8vo. $1.50. New York: R. Carter, 58 Canal Street. — Pittsburgh: [illegible] Street. 1844.

Under this title we found, some time ago, an English translation of Luther's exposition of the Epistle to the Galatians advertised in the local "Herald of Religious Liberty." This announcement filled us with great joy, since we had long wished that those Lutherans acquainted only with the English language might also get into their hands a book by Luther from which Luther's true doctrine could be fully learned. However, after procuring the work itself and examining it more closely, we find our hope disappointed. It does indeed contain a fairly faithful translation of the Latin original text, made as early as 1575 in London and recommended by Bishop Edwin Sandys, but many important passages have been omitted. The rebukes of the error of the Sacramentarians (the Reformed, who deny the real presence of the body and blood of Christ in the Holy Supper), which occur not infrequently in the original text, as well as the refutations of those who wish to establish church peace (union) at the expense of the truth, are entirely missing in this English translation, so that the English reader cannot come to know the whole, or the true, Luther from it. We cannot say who is guilty of this dishonest mutilation of Luther's work — whether the translator of 1575, or the one who prepared the new New York edition of 1844. Would the "Lutheran Standard" not care to alert English-speaking Lutherans to the mutilation we have noted, and to supply a good translation of the omitted passages as a supplement?

We wish here to call attention to just one such instance. Omitted in the English translation is what Luther says, for example, on Galatians 4:17: "Just so we too, in this our time, must hear from the Sacramentarians that they charge us with being all too stiff and stubborn, and with tearing apart all love and unity in the Christian congregations by censuring their doctrine of the Supper and refusing to speak favorably of it; they think it would be much better if we closed our eyes a little and made some concessions to them, especially since not much depends on it — since, they say, for the sake of this one single article, which after all is not supposed to be one of the foremost, we cause such great discord, division, and strife in Christendom, when otherwise they oppose us in no other article of Christian doctrine but this one alone, concerning the Supper. To this I answer thus: Cursed be any love and unity for the preservation of which God's Word is allowed to fall into misunderstanding."

That is, to be sure, not the kind of language one is accustomed to hearing nowadays, but is it not the height of dishonesty that such passages have been struck out, and yet the title page promises the whole of Luther's Commentary, indeed the preface assures the reader that the original text was "most sincerely translated into our language"?

Dr. M. Luther's House Postil.

Our readers will still recall from an announcement made in No. 1 of the second volume of this paper that those who wished to subscribe to the above-mentioned work would have to send in payment for it in cash once it was nearing completion. A few days ago we received word that the work will be finished by April 1, 1846. All those, therefore, who have subscribed to the said book through the editor of Der Lutheraner are hereby urgently requested to send in, within the next few days, the amount for each copy ordered — namely, $2 for a bound copy and $1.50 for a stitched one.

Mr. H. Ludwig, the publisher of the House Postil, hereby announces to the subscribers "that he has chosen a larger format and larger print than he originally intended; although this raises the cost somewhat, he hopes that the number of subscribers will make up for it. Should the undertaking meet with a favorable reception, then, with God's help, the printing of Dr. Luther's Church Postil will also be undertaken, on the same terms and in the same format."