# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1844 09 23_S7
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

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everywhere that there were still Christians who believed from the heart in Jesus Christ and his holy Word, and who let themselves be turned away from this sole saving faith by no ordinances of men — or who at least, in the extremity of death, finally took refuge in it. That our doctrine is not new, but was already known everywhere before Luther, is granted us even by the Roman Catholics themselves, against their will. For they have unceasingly reproached us that Lutheran doctrine is merely the reheated heresy of the Waldensians, the Albigensians, and the Hussites. But how old and how widespread the teaching of these groups actually was, and in what their supposed heresy really consisted, is described by a certain Reinerius, who had at first feigned adherence among the Waldensians, then entered the order of preachers, and finally became Inquisitor General against the heretics. He reports:

"Among all the sects that exist and have existed, none is more pernicious to the Church" (namely, the pope's) "than that of the Poor Men of Lyon" (so the Waldensians were called), "and that for three reasons. First, because none is older than this one; for some say that it has existed since the time of Sylvester, others trace it back to the time of the apostles. Second, because none is more widespread than this one; for there is scarcely a country in which this sect has not covertly established itself. Third, because all the other sects arouse abhorrence by their open outrage against God, whereas the sect of the Waldensians and Lyonists alone has a great appearance of piety, because they live uprightly before men and believe rightly concerning God in all things, and accept all the articles contained in the Creed. Only the Roman Church do they revile and hate, saying that she is the church of the ungodly and the whore who sits upon the beast in Revelation; also that she fell away under Sylvester, when the poison of temporal, worldly things crept into the Church. They also say that the pope is the head of all errors and full of ambition and greed for money."

Since the Roman Catholics thereby themselves admit that such witnesses to the apostolic faith, and against the unapostolic papacy, have always existed, and confess that Luther only brought to light again the teachings of these witnesses to the truth, they thereby manifestly confess themselves that the Lutheran Church, even before Luther, had its members in the very midst of the papacy; for it is not the name but the doctrine that matters in the church.

(Conclusion follows.)

Church News from Germany.

Preliminary Note. — A particularly important ecclesiastical phenomenon of our day, which will soon be treated more fully in these pages, is the so-called Union, or unification, which is being sought between the Lutheran and Reformed churches. This would indeed be something very gratifying, if it took place on the basis of divine truth and if, according to Ephesians 4:4–6, people united in true unity of spirit into "one body, one Spirit, one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and one God and Father." But since the Reformed church has now for 300 years not renounced the errors of a Zwingli, a Calvin, and others, and continues to teach a false doctrine of election by grace, and regards the holy Sacraments as mere symbolic signs — so that holy Baptism is not truly a bath of regeneration, and in the Holy Supper the true body and true blood of our Lord Jesus Christ are not present in, with, and under the blessed bread and wine and are not actually received and partaken of with the mouth of the communicants — since, therefore, this church has another Christ and another faith than we Lutherans have according to the express divine Word, it is a very distressing thing that so many of our former fellow believers have let themselves be beguiled into denying their well-grounded faith and joining that Union, in which those important differences of faith may no longer even be spoken of. For although people are constantly given the impression that each may keep his own faith, and that the only intent is no longer to stand apart from one another but to stand together in love and peace, we nevertheless know from Romans 10:10 and from other clear statements of the divine Word that one must not only believe in Christ from the heart but must also confess him with the mouth, and that while a Christian should indeed, so far as it lies in him, live at peace with everyone, in the confession of pure doctrine he must not ask whether all the world, or even his own household — father, mother, son, daughter, and the like — will be angry with him for it. — (Matthew 10:21–22 and verses 34–36.) But all who have received with us "that same precious faith, in the righteousness given by our God and Savior Jesus Christ" (2 Peter 1:1), are now likewise driven by the precious Holy Spirit to love one another from the heart and to remain at peace, of one mind; and they are most earnestly exhorted in that same Word of God, which preaches the sword of the Spirit against all unbelief, to add to their faith, along with all other Christian virtues, brotherly love and love for all. (2 Peter 1:5–7.)

That this true love, which comes from true faith, is not to be found in the aforementioned striving for Union, is evident already from the fact that the Lutherans, particularly in the Kingdom of Prussia, have been assailed by the government with every violent means — with distraint of goods and imprisonment, even with military force — whenever they wished to remain faithful to the faith of their fathers, into which they had been baptized and confirmed, and refused to accept the imposed, false church liturgy.

For this reason, thousands from those Prussian and other lands have already preferred to leave their fatherland and have fled here to the United States, in order to be able to build here, freely and securely, upon their Evangelical Lutheran faith. A more recent company of such Lutherans, as we hear, is expected in New York within these weeks; others, however, have preferred to remain in the fatherland for the time being and to continue there the struggle against the dangerous drive toward Union. And into this struggle the following reports — which were indeed not intended for public communication, but were written to us by a trustworthy man — let us at least catch some glimpses, which are meant to encourage us and our Christian readers to the hope and heartfelt prayer that it may please our gracious God, even in our old, beloved fatherland, where his church once flourished so gloriously, not to let it die out altogether, but to make the dead bones live again, to bring back those who have gone astray, and once more to fulfill the promise he gave in Psalm 12:6:

"Because the wretched are laid waste and the poor sigh, I will now arise, says the LORD; I will bring about help, so that one may teach with confidence."

The Lutheran faith is now in Germany in a state of fresh blossoming and growth, and indeed not only in those lands where the Union has not yet been ecclesiastically introduced, but also in those where it had already become dominant. In Pomerania, for example, a society of nearly 100 preachers has been formed, who have publicly declared, in opposition to the false Union, that they intend to remain steadfast in the Lutheran confession. Professor Härless in Erlangen publishes a journal which contends against the existing Union with such great resolve and skill that even Professor Hengstenberg, in this year's preface to his church newspaper, has declared it unmistakable that Lutheran orthodoxy threatens to become dominant once again. — This preface defends the Union in a specious and deeply seductive manner; and therefore Professor Dr. Guericke of Halle, who last year in a small treatise entitled "The Right Union" had labored in vain to open a way toward a church union on the basis of the divine Word, now felt compelled to wield anew, with fresh strength and joy, the old weapons of the Lutheran spirit. He has, in fact, now published this year another small treatise, under the title "Calvinism, Vehicle of Union and Crutch of the Church," on account of which his former unionist friends and his superiors have now