# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1846 05 30_S79
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

the president and two other orthodox members of the Maryland Synod."

Who does not see that here a Lutheran congregation, under the appearance of safeguards, is being led astray in the most disgraceful manner? And to whom could this happen in so gross a way, if not to a German Lutheran congregation? By invoking the Augsburg Confession, sand is thrown into the eyes of the good German Lutherans, so that they do not see what happens afterward. And what is that? This: that any minister of any other communion whatsoever — be he Reformed, Unionist, Roman Catholic, Methodist, Baptist, Mormon, or anything else — can perfectly well be and remain a minister at this Evangelical Lutheran congregation in Baltimore, and indeed according to its own constitution. For it is well known that all these communions named, and a couple dozen more besides, agree, at least in wording, on the individual points (the Trinity — the deity of Christ — and atonement through his blood); and if the minister merely holds to these three points (how, is likewise a matter of indifference), then according to this constitution he is orthodox, that is, rightly believing; but concerning the holy sacraments, justification, sanctification, regeneration, conversion, the office of the keys, etc., etc., he may believe and teach as Roman Catholic, Reformed, Calvinist, Arminian, Lutheran, or however else pleases him — no one can or may accuse him of false doctrine according to this constitution. He is orthodox. Thus this congregation (and how many other German and English Lutheran congregations in this country!) is, according to its constitution, entirely surrendered to the arbitrary will of false ministers, and brought into the most disgraceful dependence upon human cleverness and human stupidity, and no dam stands against the intrusion of false doctrine — especially given the appalling ignorance and indifference of our members regarding the doctrine of our Church. Whoever the minister happens to be at the time is the infallible pope of the congregation.

Now one might indeed think that the constitution was drawn up in good faith, and that it goes without saying that the doctrines by which the Lutheran Church, as the true apostolic-catholic Church, distinguishes itself from other communions — namely, especially the doctrine of the holy sacraments and the office of the keys (although the falsification of one article necessarily entails, more or less, the falsification of all the others) — would as a matter of course have to be set forth according to the Augsburg Confession in a Lutheran church; or that the fixing of these articles had merely been omitted by oversight. But this hope, which charity would gladly entertain, is put to shame by grievous experience, and it would be a willful closing of the eyes against the distressing truth which experience only too clearly supplies, were one still to cherish such a hope regarding this sort of minister — who, after all, are mostly the very ones who draw up the articles dealing with doctrine.

In the case of the congregations, it may indeed happen out of ignorance that they let themselves be caught in this way; in the case of the ministers, it is deliberate intent. And even for the congregations, their ignorance of the doctrine of their own church, or their indifference toward the encroachments of the ministers, cannot serve as an excuse, but is grievous sin — especially in this country, where the congregations alone call and appoint their ministers.

But is it, then, really deliberate intent on the part of the ministers? Who can doubt it? It is publicly known how the peculiar and particular doctrines of the Lutheran Church are, to the General Synod as a whole, and to Pastor Weyl in particular, not merely a matter of indifference but altogether repugnant — of which the pitiful scrawl that the General Synod sent to Germany as a confession of its faith, for its own justification (and ridiculous enough it is), gives the clearest proof. Anyone who concerns himself even in the slightest with what is going on in the Church knows that these gentlemen contend most vehemently against it, and that they are quite deliberately bent on weaning "the stupid Germans" away from the supposedly foolish and irrational doctrines of the old orthodox Lutheran Church, so that they may smuggle their tidy mixture of Reformed-Methodist rationalist rubbish into the congregations, and thus make themselves masters of the congregations and of their faith, once these have been torn loose from the foundation and soil of the Church. It is indeed only too well known that it is for this very reason that they set themselves so bitterly against those ministers who not only themselves persevere in the faith of the fathers, but who also seek to tear the congregations out of the wretched human slavery in which they must dance to the tune of every impudent newcomer, and to secure them instead upon the foundation of the symbolical books of the Lutheran Church.

For this very reason they slander them and their efforts, and seek, mostly through shameful distortions and under the cry of "love, love, peace, peace," to make them suspect before the congregations, both openly and secretly.

And because they cannot carry on their wretched whoredom with all the sects unpunished, nor introduce it quite so openly into the congregation, as long as the voice of even a few watchmen warns against it, they naturally seek to render these watchmen themselves harmless; and how can this be better accomplished than by dazzling the ignorant and indifferent congregations with the word "Augsburg Confession," and then drawing up such provisions as will let them go peacefully to market, under their protection, with their conjuror's bag of false doctrine and human ordinances?

But, one might say, these people surely have a conscience, and they will surely believe and teach as Lutherans if they pass themselves off as Lutheran ministers and get themselves introduced as such to Lutheran congregations. One would indeed like to think so, especially of a minister — but where, then, is the conscience of these gentlemen, who, as is plain for all to see, are the fiercest opponents of properly Lutheran doctrine, who publicly teach against it, publicly slander it, publicly favor and attempt to introduce a union with all sorts of sects, whose false doctrine the Lutheran Church unanimously rejects in its symbolical books, and whose overtures and attempts to unite churchly with her she has, for conscience's sake, most decisively refused and abhorred for three centuries! Where is the conscience of these people, who do all this openly and in broad daylight, and yet with brazen forehead maintain that they are Lutheran, and endeavor to portray genuinely Lutheran ministers and congregations as sectarian and separatist — in which, unfortunately, they only too well succeed, and must succeed ever better, given the dreadful apostasy of our Church, whereby such stupidity has taken hold of minds that they think they can beat down everything with the stupid and impudent assertion: "The Lutheran Church in this country simply believes this way, and whoever in this country does not believe as we do is no Lutheran, but a sectarian and a separatist."

This is both stupid and malicious at once: stupid, because divine truth — and thus also the one holy Christian Church, the foundation and pillar of the truth — must, as at all times, so also in all lands and among all peoples, be eternally the same; for the Lord has, in his one and only divine Word, revealed only one way to salvation. And that a lie — or, what is the same thing, false doctrine — cannot lead to salvation is just as self-evident as that a wrong road cannot lead to the right destination. This assertion is malicious and impudent, for there is still a considerable part of the Lutheran Church in this country which continually protests against these defilers of the faith, and does not even have church fellowship with them.

To complete the outrage, Mr. Weyl now also brings in conscience, and lays his conscience as bait in the trap, because he knows that we stupid Germans still hold something on conscience.

For in the last article it states (and with this the clause about the Augsburg Confession is completely overturned, and the congregation is led entirely into the deception): "As long as the minister C. Weyl proclaims the Gospel purely and clearly, as he can answer for it with a good conscience and one day before God, he shall be regarded as the minister of this congregation, and shall not be subject to annual re-election," etc. Indeed, this article is the clearest and most lamentable proof of how shamefully our congregations squander the jewel of pure doctrine — inherited from the fathers, and prized by them more highly than life itself — and abandon it to the first-best

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