# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1844 09 23_S8
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

given him up as incorrigible. The Silesian and other independently-organized Lutherans of Prussia now have full freedom in quiet practice; but according to reliable report, a law of the land is said to be underway by which they are to be recognized as the Old Lutheran Church, with their own consistory and superintendent. Yet a good deal about this is still questionable.

Under Dr. Rudelbach's leadership, a convention of Lutheran theologians and clergy from Saxony, Prussia, Bavaria, Hanover, and other lands assembled last autumn for several days; and this gathering, which still seems to promise much and which certainly aims at nothing other than a true union and gathering together of the Lutheran confessors scattered here and there, is to be repeated annually. The proceedings of their meeting last year have been publicly set forth in Dr. Rudelbach's and Dr. Guericke's theological journal. To be sure, the opponents, of coarser and of subtler kind, are nevertheless very, very, very many more; but the Lord is nonetheless in the field with us, and therefore we are of good courage! —

Another remarkable piece of church news, from another, yet no less reliable pen, is the following:

Great excitement has recently been caused by "the Leipzig confessional controversy," through which the thoughts of many hearts have been laid bare. It is well known that already 40 years ago Superintendent Rosenmüller in Leipzig introduced, in place of the Apostles' Creed, a most unbelieving formula shaped by reason and the spirit of the age, to which the poor catechumens had to confess themselves every year at confirmation. After the congregations and their pastors had for long enough kept silent about this, at last, before Palm Sunday of this year, at the request of most of the Leipzig schoolmen, a conference of the local clergy was held, in which, by a large majority of votes, the necessity of retaining the Apostles' Creed was recognized; and just as a Rosenmüller, as superintendent, had once been able on his own authority to abolish it, so now the present superintendent, Dr. Grossmann, by virtue of his office, ordered it to be reintroduced. But whereas people had once accepted the erroneous confession mostly willingly and without resistance, now such a fierce struggle and controversy arose against the orthodox confession that the matter was even brought, quite improperly, before the town council, which promptly resolved that the Rosenmüller confession should be retained. Even the magistrate wanted nothing else, and therefore submitted a complaint to the Ministry of Religious Affairs, which — given the great agitation of feelings — wished to see the previous Rosenmüller formula retained at least for this year. — Meanwhile the matter had become increasingly known throughout town and country through all sorts of published writings.

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The advocates of unbelief publicly accused Dr. Grossmann and his ever-growing following of "deliberate obscurantism, a relapse into dead literalism, Catholicism," and the like. Grossmann, however, likewise answered publicly, in a manner as calm as it was forceful, and refuted that outcry with such emphasis that the ecclesiastical necessity of the Apostles' Creed was increasingly felt, and its speedy reintroduction may be looked forward to with hope.

This controversy has, among other things, had to serve the purpose that many honest minds, who for a long time had let themselves be turned against the confessional symbols of the church, must now recognize how necessary it is, amid today's ecclesiastical fragmentation, to hold fast to them, and to resist the boundless, presumptuous arbitrariness of the so-called Protestant clergy. God help us further!

G. H. Löber, P.

Luther's Declaration Against Those Who Think That, for Love's Sake, One Should Also Tolerate Something Erroneous in the Church.

—

A good-hearted person (as one calls him) might say: What harm is there, then, in keeping God's Word while also letting all these things, or at least some of them, remain alongside it, since they are tolerable (namely, papal abuses)? I answer: They may be called good-hearted people, but they are wrong-hearted and misleading-hearted people; for you hear that it cannot be that one should teach something else alongside God's Word, serve another alongside God, or light another flame alongside the light while being placed by God in darkness. It is certainly a will-o'-the-wisp and an error, even if it were but a single point; for the church shall not and cannot teach lies or error, not even in a single point; if she teaches one lie, then it is entirely false, as Christ says in Luke 11:35: "Take heed that the light in you is not darkness; if then your whole body is full of light, having no part dark, it will be wholly light" — that is, it must be wholly light with no part of darkness present. The church must teach nothing but pure God's Word or truth, and no error or lie. And how could it be otherwise? For God's mouth is the church's mouth; and again: God indeed cannot lie, therefore neither can the church.

It is indeed true, speaking of life as it is lived, that the holy church is not without sin, as she confesses in the Lord's Prayer, "forgive us our trespasses," and in 1 John 1:3: "If we say that we have no sin, we lie, and make God a liar" — he who calls us all sinners alike, Romans 3:23, Psalm 14:3, 51:7. But the doctrine must not be sin, nor blameworthy, and does not belong under the Lord's Prayer where we say, "forgive us our trespasses"; for it is not our own doing, but God's own Word itself, who can neither sin nor do wrong. For a preacher, once he has preached, must not pray the Lord's Prayer or seek forgiveness of sins for it (if he is a true preacher), but must say and boast with Jeremiah (17:16): "Lord, you know that what has gone out of my mouth is right and pleasing to you"; indeed, he must say defiantly with Paul, with all the apostles and prophets: Haec dixit Dominus — this the Lord himself has said. And again: I have been an apostle and prophet of Jesus Christ in this sermon. Here it is not necessary — indeed, not even good — to ask forgiveness of sin, as though it had been wrongly taught; for it is God's word and not mine, which God is not to nor can forgive me for, but must instead confirm, praise, crown, and say: You have taught rightly, for I have spoken through you, and the word is mine. Whoever cannot boast this of his preaching should leave off preaching altogether, for he certainly lies and blasphemes God.

If the Word were to be sin and wrong, by what standard could life direct itself? Then surely one blind man would lead another, and both would fall into the ditch, Matthew 15:14. If the plumb-line or the carpenter's square were false or crooked, by what could the master then work? Then one crookedness would produce another without end or measure. So also here: life may indeed be sinful and wrong — indeed, alas, it is all too wrong — but the doctrine must be straight as a die and certainly without any sin at all. Therefore nothing must be preached in the church except the sure, pure, and singular Word of God alone. Where this is lacking, it is no longer the church, but the devil's school.

All this has now been said to show that the church must teach God's Word alone and be certain of it, whereby she is called the ground and pillar of the truth, built upon the rock, holy and blameless — that is, as one rightly and properly says: the church cannot err, for God's Word, which she teaches, cannot err. But whatever is taught otherwise, or is in doubt as to whether it is God's Word, cannot be the church's doctrine, but must be the devil's doctrine, lies, and idolatry; for the devil cannot say (since he is a liar and the father of lies): This God has said; but rather, as Christ says in John 8:44, ex propriis — of and from himself — he must speak, that is, lie. So too must all his children, apart from God's Word, speak from themselves, that is, lie. See Luther's Works, Halle, XVII, p. 1684.

(Submitted by P. Schieferdecker.)

St. Bernard,

the famous Abbot of Clairvaux, who died in 1153, is a remarkable example of how the most pious and the best men under the papacy, when they fell into great spiritual trials, cast away all trust in their own human holiness, in their own works and merits, or in the intercession of the saints in heaven, and comforted themselves for their salvation with the full merit of Jesus Christ alone.

Although in his life Bernard devoted himself to the strictest holiness and ascribed to the monastic state so high a merit that he held it to be a second baptism (Apolog. ad Guilielm. Abb.), he nevertheless confessed, when he once fell into a severe trial concerning his salvation: "I confess that I myself am not worthy, nor can I attain heaven by my own merit. But my Lord Jesus Christ has a twofold right to heaven: first, because he is the natural heir, and second, because he acquired it through his meritorious suffering. The first right he keeps for himself; the second he grants to me. Through this gift, heaven becomes rightfully my own; therefore I cannot be lost."

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