# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1846 05 30_S78
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

his body and blood are contained, or not? It matters nothing to us whether Christ, in this institution, spoke simple, clear, plain words (as indeed mere men are accustomed to do in pronouncing their last will) or expressed himself ambiguously and obscurely in the manner of pagan oracles, so that each person might understand it however he pleases. Moreover, the doctrine of the holy Supper, like that of holy Baptism, is a secondary doctrine — as the Evangelical Church in Germany likewise holds.

But who says so, where is it written, and what is the proof that this is so? Or is the mere assertion and pretense of the so-called Evangelicals and Unionists in Germany — who, lacking any confession whatsoever, are not a church at all but a new sect — sufficient proof? Are the holy sacraments such ordinances, customs, and practices as the ceremonies of the church, the various estates, and so forth, which have no specific command and no particular promise of grace from the Lord, and which accordingly fall under the proper and fitting use of Christian liberty? Did not the Lord Christ rather, shortly before his suffering, solemnly institute the holy Supper, and shortly before his ascension, holy Baptism, as essential and effective means of grace and lasting ordinances, and command his Church to administer them faithfully? Is it possible that these his holy and almighty words of institution could have a twofold, indeed contradictory, and yet equally valid meaning? And are these words of the Son of God of less importance than others that he spoke — as the blasphemous frivolity of the so-called New Lutherans and Unionists, who are so bold as to assert that the doctrine of the holy sacraments is a secondary doctrine, necessarily implies? Is it not rather the case that precisely these holy and solemn words of institution, which affix the seal of grace to the charter of grace of the holy Gospel, all the more oblige his own to believing, childlike obedience, without any clever and rationalizing doubt? Indeed, will not precisely these words, which all the pseudo- and New Lutherans or Unionists regard as so indifferent and ambiguous, all the more judge them in the hour of their death and on the Last Day, if they do not yet in time repent, and renounce from the heart the potent error and the false, deceitful spirit of union of this age — in which Satan again disguises himself as an angel of light — and return once more to the orthodox Church, now called Evangelical Lutheran? May God grant them grace for this. Amen.

But if, God forbid, they willfully persist in their godless frivolity and their shameful indifference toward the doctrine of salvation, pure in all its articles, then let them know that we will not grant them the honorable name of "Lutheran," that is, orthodox, but will instead call them Unionists, or name them after their chieftains and spokesmen.

The epithet "New Lutheran," which they have so far still been ashamed to finally apply to themselves, we will not, however, give them, because in doing so we would tacitly concede that the true faith and the original confession of the Lutheran Church — even if only in a single article — had become outdated and done away with, and that these false brethren, who up to now have understood nothing but how to deny and negate, had thereby, as it were, discovered something new in the realm of saving truth.

In sum, Old and New Lutheran, as to essence and truth, as we have seen above, do not exist; there is only "Lutheran," that is, orthodox, and "un-Lutheran," that is, erring in faith — whether in this way or that, in many or few points of the wholesome doctrine of the divine Word. But if we are nevertheless to rightly interpret the antithetical designation of "Old" and "New Lutheran," now so current, then we say this: Old Lutherans are those who abide in that same one faith of the orthodox, presently so-called Lutheran, holy Christian Church, and who faithfully hold fast to every single article of saving doctrine in accordance with God's Word; New Lutherans, on the other hand, are those who do not abide in this faith of the Church, who set aside this or that article against God's Word or regard it as outdated and indifferent, and who turn instead to the new "potent error" of the false union of our day.

It is strange, though, to read how these ignorant or insincere people deal with Luther's person; for while they willfully trample his confession — that is, the Church's confession — regarding the doctrine of the holy sacraments into the mire, they flatter themselves and others by showing this or that outward reverence to his person, yet afterward say: Yes, if Luther lived in our time, he too would in many points hold otherwise, and perhaps as we do, concerning the holy Supper — we who search "more in Holy Scripture than in his writings." But if one asks them for the new results of this their study of Scripture, which compel them to abandon the Lutheran, that is, the churchly, doctrine on this article, then nothing is to be found, and they know no other recourse than to borrow this or that broken, rusty shield from the Reformed armory — a shield which Luther had already, 300 years ago, shattered with the sword of the Spirit, that is, with the Word of God.

How far removed Luther was from any alteration of his faith and confession, and how fully he had foreseen such loose and frivolous chatter of future babblers, he testifies in his solemn closing declaration following his confession concerning the Supper of the year 1528, after which he then appends his firm and unchangeable, briefly stated confession of faith. (See Lutheraner, Vol. 2, No. 11.)

How Our German Lutherans Let Themselves Be Caught; or, the Foxes in the Vineyard of the Lord.

The Reverend Pastor C. Weyl has had the statutes and bylaws of his congregation in Baltimore — which likewise calls itself Lutheran — printed in his "Lutheran" (?) Hirtenstimme, No. 7, and has thereby submitted them to the public, and so also to public judgment. These indeed furnish a sad, though thoroughly weighty, proof of the shamelessness of these foxes in the vineyard of the Lord, and of the degree to which the Lutheran congregations have sunk into ignorance and indifference regarding the faith of the Church — for the faithful preservation of which they will one day have to render so heavy an account to the Lord. In what a wretched manner do our unfortunate Lutheran congregations in this country mostly allow themselves to be deceived and led astray — not only by the sects, but by their own ministers!

But it must indeed come to this, that those who will not be obedient to God's truth, according to the law of a just retribution, must let themselves be driven to and fro by every wind of doctrine; and that those who, with the wretched cry, "We are in a free country," resist the voice of the Church in doctrine and discipline, sink into a miserable bondage to men.

While the true Lutheran ministers — who, in order to secure the congregations against the heavy yoke which the clergy of today only too gladly lay upon their necks, seek to ground them upon the confessional writings and upon the old evangelical discipline of the Church — mostly meet with the greatest resistance, or at best are treated with the most distressing mistrust, the opponents, conceited in their own wisdom, set up their nets freely and openly, and all too easily succeed in drawing the congregations blindly into them — so that one hardly knows what to marvel at first and most: the impudence of the ministers, or the dullness and blindness of the congregations, who let themselves be so wretchedly duped.

But to the matter and to the proof.

In the second article of the constitution of "the Evangelical Lutheran Trinity Church in Baltimore," where Mr. Weyl is employed as pastor, it does indeed state: "that the minister, at his installation, must solemnly and publicly promise that he will faithfully and conscientiously present the fundamental and other (?) articles of Christian doctrine as they are taught in the Augsburg Confession"; however, this provision is, in what follows, immediately all but nullified again, for it goes on to say: "Should the minister become heterodox — that is, deny the Trinity of the divine Being, or the deity of Jesus Christ, or reject the atonement through the precious blood of Christ — he shall cease to be the minister of this church, as soon as an investigation to that effect has taken place by

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