# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1846 05 16_S74
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

felt the inner prompting and comforting power of the Holy Spirit, until he has thereby obtained a clear, perceptible assurance of it and has been overwhelmed with the sweetest joy. We reject this method of conversion as unscriptural, for, first, it attacks at the root the doctrine of justification, which takes place in heaven, and second, it leads to a comfortless Christianity. For, first, the feeling and the sweet assurance of grace does not precede faith but follows faith; it is not justification itself but a fruit of it (Romans 5:1–2). And further, the testimony of the Holy Spirit is not always felt by believers in the same degree; indeed, hours of trial come in which it withdraws so deeply into the hidden places of the heart that it seems to fall entirely silent, so that only a secret sighing after grace remains, and almost nothing is felt but the condemnation of the heart (1 John 3:20). Abundant examples of this are given us in the Book of Job and the Psalms, in which the changing state of soul of God's pardoned children — how they stand now in the sweetest feeling of comfort, now in numbness — is sketched for us by the very pen of the Holy Spirit himself.

Whether the testimony of the Holy Spirit is present, then, must be judged not solely according to our feeling, but above all according to our faith in the word of grace. If, therefore, one teaches trust in the changeable feeling of one's own heart rather than in the unchangeable heart of one's dear Father in Christ — that is, not trust in the mere word of the Gospel and its visible seals, the holy sacraments — then one plants beneath souls a false ground of faith, makes the fruit of justification into its foundation, and plunges those so guided into the danger of either making their own feelings into their Savior, or of feigning the constant enjoyment of grace that is demanded of them, or, when God hides himself in the heart, of losing heart and falling into despair.

On this important subject, which sheds a great light on the whole of more recent Methodist Christianity — and on that of not a few pseudo-Lutherans, Evangelicals, and other sects as well — we will therefore let a few beautiful testimonies of experienced men follow, for the most earnest consideration of the Christian reader.

The Formula of Concord says: "Concerning the presence, working, and gifts of the Holy Spirit, one should not and cannot always judge ex sensu — that is, by how and when one feels it in the heart — but rather, because it is often hidden and proceeds under great weakness, we should be certain, from and according to the promise, that the preached and heard Word of God is an office and work of the Holy Spirit, through which he is certainly powerful and active in our hearts." (See the Solid Declaration, Article 2, On Free Will.)

Luther: "God forgives guilt in two ways: secretly, so that we do not feel it — just as he charges and retains guilt against many people who do not feel or notice it at all; and second, openly, so that we do feel it, just as he charges guilt against some in such a way that they feel it, as through punishment and terror of conscience. The first forgiveness is always necessary; the second is necessary only at times, so that a person does not despair. ... The first forgiveness is bitter and hard for us, but it is the noblest and best of all; the second is easier, but so much the lesser. The Lord Christ shows both in the case of Mary Magdalene. The first, when he turned his back to her and yet said to Simon, 'Many sins are forgiven her' — then she had not yet peace; the second, when he turned to her and said, 'Your sins are forgiven you; go in peace' — then she found contentment. Thus the first makes clean, the second makes peace. The first works and brings, the second rests and receives. And there is an immense difference between the two. The first is by faith alone and merits much. The second is in feeling, and receives the reward. The first is used with mature persons, the second with the weak and those just beginning." (On Luke 7:47–50.)

Scriver: "Here a troubled heart might say: Alas, I do not feel such a testimony of the Holy Spirit within me; I know nothing of his inward speaking, of his comfort, peace, and joy; for the most part I feel in my soul nothing but terror and anguish; sometimes in my distress not a single verse of Scripture comes to mind, or, if one does come to mind and is held up to me by others, I can draw no strength from it — it does not reach my heart; I pray with poor devotion and find no sweetness in it, and so forth. I answer: One must not judge this most important and comforting matter according to our feeling and sensation, but according to the Word of God, which teaches in plain statements that believing hearts are temples of the Holy Spirit, that he dwells in them, that he bears witness to their spirit, that he is their Comforter and Helper who remains with them forever. Nor does it follow: I feel no peace, no joy in myself, therefore the Holy Spirit and the kingdom of God are not in me; I do not feel the testimony of the Holy Spirit and his comfort, but rather the roaring and defiance of the hellish spirit of murder, therefore my heart is not capable of such testimony; I cannot believe that I am a child of God, therefore I am not one. This, I say, and the like, does not follow — just as it does not follow: the tree is not green and does not blossom in winter, therefore it has no sap but is withered. So long as even a small and weak sighing after God is present in a person, so long has the Spirit of God not departed from him; the soul's longing for God's grace has its origin from the Holy Spirit." (See Treasury of the Soul, Part II, Sermon 12.)

Heinrich Müller: "If you do not feel the joyful stirring of the Spirit, do not let it trouble you. This feeling is not actually necessary for salvation. Christ says: Whoever believes shall be saved. Mark 16:16. Now faith is grounded not on feeling but on the promise of God; indeed, this is the highest power of faith, when, without and even against all feeling, it nevertheless holds firmly to God's promise — as is written of Abraham, Romans 4:18, that he hoped against hope. And for this very reason God often withdraws his sweet comfort, in order to test faith, to see whether it will hold fast to his Word even so." (Heavenly Kiss of Love, ch. 13, § 59.)

Albrecht Bengel: "Insistence on assurance of justification can, at first, only confuse and dishearten honest souls, and can drive impure souls into a self-willed kakozelia (mere aping). But there can be no greater insistence than when one denies a soul its justification, or calls it into doubt, simply because that soul cannot proclaim its assurance with full mouth." (Sketch of the Brethren's Congregation, p. 478.)

Dr. Burk: "We must first learn to trust God, and experience comes afterward; first take the food into the mouth, and afterward it begins to taste good. Otherwise it comes out backwards. Afterward, though, God also grants the tasting, and then we trust so much the more. The reason, however, why some impure souls sometimes draw the important conclusion too soon — that they have forgiveness — is precisely this: through the strict insistence on assurance it happens that afterward, when one thinks one has caught hold of something of the kind, one falls upon it greedily, regards it as a prize seized, and rests content in it." (See his Book on Justification, §§ 13–14.) "Even the testimony (of the Holy Spirit) is not constant. One does not bear witness to a thing merely for the sake of it all the time, but rather when it comes into doubt, when it is disputed." Ibid., § 30.
(To be continued.)

(Submitted by Dr. Sihler.)

Are There Old and New Lutherans?

One now hears and reads so much about Old and New Lutherans that uninformed hearers and readers may easily come to think that such people actually exist. We shall soon see, however, that they only haunt the minds of such people as phantoms — people who either do not know, or do not want to know, or at least pretend not to know, what a Lutheran actually is in the first place. It will therefore be most advisable, for the sake of the sincere among the uninformed, first to show what Lutherans, or Lutheran Christians, really are, and then to demonstrate that in essence and in truth there neither are, nor ever will be, Old and New Lutherans. May God grant his blessing to this end! Amen.

Lutherans, then, are those Christians who do not base and steady themselves on Luther's person — as, say, the Papists do on the person of St. Peter or of the Pope, and all sorts of fanatical and factious spirits on the names and persons of their own sectarian would-be popes and leaders — but who instead stand with Luther upon the same old and ever