# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1846 05 02_S70
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

everywhere sow their seed and breathe out their poison, turning people away from their proper parish churches.

There you see the devil's true step and grip, how he shuns the light and goes mousing about in the dark. Who is so dull that he could fail to notice here that these are truly the devil's messengers? Were they of God and upright, they would first of all present themselves to the pastor and deal with him, declare their calling, and tell him what they believed, and ask whether he would permit them to preach publicly. If the pastor then did not permit them, they would be excused before God, and might then shake the dust off their feet. For the pastor indeed holds the pulpit, baptism, and the sacrament, and all care of souls is entrusted to him. But instead they now wish secretly to bite the pastor out of his whole office, and yet will not reveal their own secret commission; these are true thieves and murderers of souls, blasphemers and enemies of Christ and his church.

Here truly there is no other counsel than that both offices, spiritual and temporal, apply themselves to this with all diligence. The spiritual office must indeed instruct the people constantly and diligently, impressing upon them this point mentioned above, that they should admit no sneak and should certainly recognize such a one as a messenger of the devil, and should learn to ask him: Where do you come from? Who sent you? Who commanded you to preach to me? Where are your seal and letters, to show that you were sent by men? Where are your miraculous signs, to show that God has sent you? Why do you not go to our pastor? Why do you sneak so secretly to me and creep into corners? Why do you not come forward openly? If you are a child of the light, why do you shun the light?

With such questions, I think, one should easily be able to fend them off; for they cannot prove their calling, and if we could bring the people to such an understanding of the calling, such sneaks could well be curbed. Likewise, one should also constantly instruct and admonish the people to report such sneaks to the pastor, which they are also obligated to do if they wish to be Christians and be saved. For if they fail to do this, they thereby help the devil's messengers and sneaks to secretly steal from the pastor (indeed, from God himself) his office of preaching, baptism, sacrament, and cure of souls, along with his parishioners, and so to lay waste and destroy the parish that God has ordained.

If they heard such an admonition and knew that this was seriously meant regarding the calling, then some godly hearts would indeed report such backstreet preachers and backstabbers to the pastor. For, as has been said, by insisting on the question of calling, one can truly make the devil afraid. A pastor can indeed boast that he holds the office of preaching, baptism, sacrament, and cure of souls publicly and rightfully, and that it has been entrusted to him, so that one should seek and expect these things from him; but the outside sneaks and backstabbers cannot boast of this, and must confess that they come from elsewhere and intrude upon and seize an office not their own. That surely cannot be the Holy Spirit, but must be the wretched devil.

The temporal authority, too, must attend to this, and likewise, just as the spiritual office does, press the question of calling, and ask the sneak, or his host: Where do you come from? Who sent you? etc., as above; and also ask the host: Who told you to give lodging to this sneak and to listen to his backstreet preaching? How do you know that he has a commission to teach you, and that you have one to learn from him? Why have you not reported this to the pastor, or to us? Why do you forsake your own church, where you were baptized, taught, and instructed, and to which you belong by God's ordinance, and creep off into a corner instead? Why do you secretly and without commission set up something new? Who gave you the power to divide this parish and to stir up factions among us? Who commanded you to despise your pastor, to judge him, to condemn him behind his back before he has been heard and formally accused? By what right have you become such a judge over your pastor — indeed, even a judge over yourself?

For such misconduct, and much more besides, is committed by anyone who attaches himself to the sneaks, and he ought rightly to be held to account for it. And I have good hope that, were the authorities diligent in this matter, it would produce great benefit, and many godly people would be on guard and would help expose such rogues, if they knew what great danger there was with these sneaks, and how much depends on the calling or commission. Otherwise, if one did not stand firm on the question of calling or commission and press it, in the end no church anywhere would remain. For just as the sneaks come in among us and seek to tear apart and lay waste our church, so afterward other sneaks would come into their church and tear it apart and lay it waste as well, and so on, one sneaking and dividing after another, without end, forever — until nothing at all would remain of any church on earth. This is exactly what the devil wants and seeks through such factious spirits and sneaks.

* What abundant examples of this the present day provides! How many congregations have the Methodists already torn apart and laid waste! How often these enthusiasts, within a few weeks, tear down through their hypocritical talk what another preacher has built up over years amid many sighs and tears! For these men do not, like Paul, go only to places where the Gospel has not yet been preached (Romans 15:20–21); rather, it is precisely where preachers have already laboriously dug and laid the foundation that they most love to build their chapels out of the stubble of human notions (1 Corinthians 3:12), and boast in another man's labor (2 Corinthians 10:15–16), which they have ruined! Preachers who are now experiencing the disruption of their congregations through Methodist sneaks and self-appointed runners may take comfort with the holy apostles, who once had these same experiences. If false teachers were able to deceive, confuse, and estrange from the apostles even the most flourishing of the apostles' own congregations, into which they had crept with their appearance of holiness, what wonder is it if now poor, ignorant, or otherwise unfounded congregations are beguiled by them? D. H.

Therefore the rule stands thus: either prove your calling and commission to preach, or else, in short, keep silent, and let preaching be forbidden you.

For it is called an office — indeed, an office of preaching. But no one can hold an office except by and through commission and calling. Therefore Christ also says in the parable, Luke 19:31: that the master of the house did not give his servants the sums of money with which they were to trade until he had first called them and commanded them to trade. Vocatis servis (the text says) et negotiemini, etc. — "He called his servants," it says, "and told them to trade with his money." Such a calling and commission the sneak must likewise produce, or else leave the Lord's money in peace, or he will be found to be a thief and a rogue.

Likewise, the laborers did not go into the master's vineyard (Matthew 20) until the master of the house had hired them and told them to go, but stood idle the whole day until they had commission and calling.

Thus God also speaks of such sneaks in Jeremiah 23:21: "They run, and I have not sent them; they prophesy, and I have commanded them nothing." It is difficult enough, and takes great effort, for those to preach rightly and remain in right doctrine who have a certain calling and commission from God himself, or through men in God's place: what then must it be to preach without God's commission — indeed, against God's command and prohibition — driven and incited by nothing but the devil? No other preaching can result from that than what comes from the prompting of the evil spirit, and it must be nothing but devil's doctrine, however much it may gleam and glitter.

Who had a greater or more certain calling than Aaron, the first high priest? Yet he fell into idolatry and let the Jews make the golden calf (Exodus 32:4), and afterward the greater part of the whole Levitical priesthood fell entirely into idolatry and even persecuted God's Word and all the true prophets. So too King Solomon was gloriously enough called and confirmed; yet in his old age he fell and instituted much idolatry (2 Kings 11:4). Do not the bishops and popes have a glorious calling and commission? Do they not sit in the seat of the apostles and in Christ's own place? Yet they are, all of them, the Gospel's worst enemies — to say nothing of their teaching rightly and maintaining right worship.

Now if the devil can deceive teachers whom God himself has called, ordained, and consecrated, so that they teach falsely and persecute the truth, how then should he, through teachers whom he himself drives and consecrates without and against God's command, teach anything good, rather than nothing but sheer devilish lies? I have often said this, and I say it still: I would not take the wealth of the world in exchange for my doctorate. For I would truly, in the end, have to despair and lose all hope in the great, weighty matter that lies upon me, had I taken it up as a sneak, without calling or commission. But now God and all the world must bear me witness that I began it publicly in my office as doctor and

* Let the converted — or rather perverted — novices take note of this, those whose newly acquired wisdom is fit to burst their bellies, who therefore say they must preach so as not to bury the pound entrusted to them.