# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1846 05 30_S77
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Der Lutheraner.

"God's Word and Luther's teaching shall now and nevermore pass away."

Edited by C. F. W. Walther.

Volume 2.

St. Louis, Mo., May 30, 1846.

No. 20.

Terms: The Lutheraner appears once every two weeks, at the subscription price of one dollar for out-of-town subscribers, who must pay half of this in advance and bear the postage themselves. — In St. Louis, each single issue is sold for 5 cents.

A Word to the Younger Brethren Who, as German- or English-Lutheran Ministers, Are Connected with the General Synod.

Dear Brethren!

For a long time now I have waited and hoped that another and abler brother than I would take up the word and address the subject that is only to be touched upon here. For, dear brethren, the article which the Evangelical-Lutheran (so-called) General Synod trumpets here and there as truth, in its circular letter to the mother church in Germany — namely, that all ministers connected with the said General Synod, with a few older teachers and church members excepted, had long since abandoned Luther's particular view of the bodily presence of the Lord in the Supper — ought not to be passed over in such silence, lest silence lend to the lie the appearance of truth. Or is it true, what stands written in the Lutheran Hirtenstimme, Vol. 5, No. 2, p. 1, column 3, lines 4–11? Have we all together departed from the pure, unadulterated truth? Have we abandoned the pure doctrine of the holy sacraments, and with it our dear mother church? Has not one — not a single one — remained faithful to the careful, loving mother who bore us, nursed us, nourished us, cared for us, and provided us with the pure and wholesome bread of life? Have we all thrown ourselves into the arms of the venal harlot? Well then, it serves us right if we are accused and held up before all the world as breakers of covenant and oath. But if this is not so, how can we, how dare we, keep silent and let such a stain remain upon us? Therefore arise, dear brethren, you who love your church, you who still hold the truth dear: show yourselves to be her faithful sons, and confess her even unto death.

Send your confession to the "Lutheraner," St. Louis, Mo., and ask the other periodicals of our church to publish it as well. And let us freely confess that we cannot hold with those who waver, but with those who believe and save their souls. Commended to God.

J. G. Kunz,

Evangelical Lutheran Pastor in Indianapolis, Ind.

(Submitted by Dr. Sihler.)

Are There Old and New Lutherans?
(Conclusion.)

Now if, as to their essence, there are neither Old nor New Lutherans, but only Lutherans, that is, confessors of the orthodox Church, then we may fairly ask: whence, then, comes this antithetical designation, and what is it meant to say? Whence it stems is not hard to say: namely, either from lack of understanding, or from ill will, or from a mixture of both. As to the name "Old Lutheran" first of all — in Germany it originates with the so-called Unionists (also called Evangelicals or Protestants), and among these first with the members of the royal Prussian state church; here in America it comes from the same sort of people, also from the Methodist sects, indeed even from the pseudo-Lutherans, that is, from the so-called Lutheran General Synod; for all of these agree in this, that they have, in this point or that, fallen away from, and are at variance with, that one and the same faith of the holy Christian Church which the Lutheran confession testifies to. These points, however, are chiefly the doctrine of the holy sacraments, in which, for example, the pseudo-Lutherans here have exchanged the new superstition for the old Reformed unbelief; for, without anywhere having thoroughly demonstrated from Holy Scripture as erroneous the ancient doctrine of the Church concerning the holy sacraments — which Luther already 300 years ago maintained and defended against papists and enthusiasts — it simply suits their pleasure now not to accept it. And these retreats into Reformed unbelief they further choose to call progress; while those, on the other hand, who remain faithful to the one and the same faith of the holy Christian Church must be called "an Old Lutheran party that lags behind the age,"* as though the faith of the Church were a shifting faith of the times, and not a firm and certain foundation of doctrine that never wavers nor wobbles. But we may fairly ask these so-called New Lutherans: who is "a party"? Those who believe the eternal Word of God as it stands, also in the articles concerning the holy sacraments, and thereby show themselves to be the Church which is "a pillar and ground of the truth" (1 Timothy 3:15), that is, a bearer and confessor of the pure and complete saving truth of the divine Word — or those who, in a self-willed, pretentious superficiality, have fallen away from the one and the same faith of the Church and from the pure and simple Word of God, and have gone over to unscriptural, fanatical false doctrine? Or, again, we ask these Schmuckerians or Kurtzians, these Reformed Methodists or Methodist Reformed — for they are certainly not Lutheran or orthodox Christians — where, then, are the supposed advances in their study of Scripture, which they are always talking about, and by which, for instance, they claim to have been compelled to depart from the Lutheran Church's doctrine of the Lord's Supper? Where is their proof from Holy Scripture that this doctrine is no longer tenable and valid? Nowhere. It is enough for these loose and frivolous people to puff out their cheeks with wind, to strut about pretentiously, and to say that this doctrine "has long since been abandoned by the great majority of their ministers"; and with that the matter is settled. But what else does this show, except that they have no true, unfeigned reverence for God's Word — that they pick out whatever suits them, and set aside, or interpret according to fashionable opinions of the day, especially according to the unionist indifference to doctrine, whatever does not suit them? This is also evident from the fact that they say: "We regard the distinguishing views between the Old Lutheran and the Reformed Church as non-essential"; and likewise: "Concerning the manner and meaning of the presence of the Lord in the Supper, freedom is permitted, as in the Evangelical Church of Germany."

*This is indeed how the pseudo-Lutheran General Synod writes in its printed report, which it recently sent to Germany concerning its own condition, and in which it openly declared its falling-away from the confession of the Lutheran Church.

That is to say, in other words: it is unimportant and a matter of indifference whether the solemn parting and testamentary words of the almighty and truthful Son of God — in which he institutes the holy Supper as a lasting ordinance and glorious legacy — are true or not; that is, whether truly and really (even though, admittedly, the how cannot be comprehended) in the blessed bread and wine

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