# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1846 07 25_S94
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

[p. 94]

(g) the elect children are incorporated even before their baptism; "the communion of saints," which consists in this, (h) that under the Old and New Testaments they essentially had one and the same covenant. "The resurrection of the flesh," whose properties (i) will not be like those of the angels.

Notes: (a) Synod of Dort, c. 5, art. 6, 7, 8, p. 773, 884. (b) Calvin, Institutes, [book] 3, c. 24. (c) Trigland, De Trina Gratia, p. 355 & 504. (d) Calvin, Institutes, [book] 4, c. 14. (e) Chamier, tom. 3, l. 9, c. 5, §. 2, p. 123. (f) Pareus, in Synod of Dort, p. 314 and following. (g) Calvin, Institutes, [book] 4, c. 15 & 16. (h) Masson, part 4, Anatomia, c. [—], p. 42. (i) Idem, part 3, p. 315, 325 & 327.

(Submitted by Pastor Keyl.)

DESCRIPTION OF THE BURIAL
OF DR. MARTIN LUTHER.

When Luther had passed away in the Lord, Count von Schwarzenburg and his wife also hurried to the scene, and those standing by called out to one another in alarm to try everything possible to warm the body, which was growing ever colder, if there were any way to do so; and after this had been done for two hours without success, they lifted him onto a bed prepared nearby, made up of many mattresses, in the hope — as all wished and prayed — that God might yet be pleased to grant the grace of bringing the departed life back again. Meanwhile Dr. Jonas went into an adjoining room and dictated to the secretary of Count Albrecht von Mansfeld the already-mentioned letter to the Elector of Saxony, Johann Friedrich, in which he gave him preliminary notice of Luther's final illness and blessed end, promising that a more detailed report would soon follow — this being the same report, already mentioned, which Jonas composed together with Coelius and Aurifaber, the originals of which are kept in the archive at Weimar. He also asked for instructions regarding the funeral, and closed by apologizing that, in his great grief, he had not been able to write everything himself.

The Prince of Anhalt and Count Albrecht von Mansfeld likewise sent similar letters, written in their own hand, to the Elector; and the former — who had once been among those who presented the Augsburg Confession — closed his letter with the words: "He fell asleep very gently, with good sayings on his lips. May God the Lord graciously help us likewise hereafter, Amen." All three of these letters left Eisleben on the morning of February 18 and arrived that same evening in Torgau, where the Elector's court was then residing.

While Luther's body still lay on the bed — from four in the morning until nine — the Prince of Anhalt, the five Counts of Mansfeld, and many other distinguished persons arrived before daybreak, and later more and more residents of Eisleben as well, and gazed upon the dead body of this dear man of God with hot tears and weeping for five full hours. After this they dressed him in a white burial garment of the finest Swabian linen and laid him out on his bed in his bedchamber, and soon afterward placed him in a tin coffin, in which many hundreds more, most of whom had known him in life, once again gazed upon him with deep sorrow.

In order to preserve a faithful likeness of Luther's pale countenance for lasting remembrance, two painters were engaged to fulfill this wish: one did so on that same day, the other, Lucas Furtenagel of Halle, after the body had already lain a night in the coffin. The original of the latter painting is kept in the university library at Leipzig, and a faithful reproduction by the famous engraver Bernigeroth appears in Dr. Hoffmann's commemorative writing (Säcularschrift) of the year 1746.*

On the morning of February 19, Dr. Jonas's letters arrived in Wittenberg, and the professors instructed Philip Melanchthon to inform the students of the sorrowful news that had come. When the students had gathered as usual, numerous as always, at nine o'clock that morning for his theological lectures on Paul's Epistle to the Romans, he delivered to them a short address in Latin, in which he informed them that he would not be able to continue his lecture that day, since word had just arrived, unexpectedly, of Dr. Luther's death. He then briefly related what the readers have already heard concerning Luther's final hours, doing so in particular to forestall any false distortions in times to come. He called Luther his venerable father, indeed his dearly beloved teacher, and cried out: "Alas, gone now is the charioteer and chariot of Israel, who governed the Church in this last age of the world." Finally he exhorted them to hold dear both his memory and his teaching, and to take heed of the great calamities and changes that would follow upon this death. At this address, as Selnecker relates, all the hearers were seized with such consternation and dread that it seemed as though even the walls wept, and no one could look upon another any longer without pain and grief.

On that same day (February 19), Melanchthon sent, in the name of the University, a reply letter to Dr. Jonas in Eisleben.

* A third portrait of Luther is found in the Lutheran hymnal and catechism published in Philadelphia, with the note that it was drawn after an impression taken in wax while Luther's body lay in Halle, an impression said to be kept at the library of the Marienkirche there. But apart from the fact that this portrait is not mentioned in the historical record, and that the woodcut reproduction is poorly executed, there is also something quite unnatural and disagreeable about it: Luther is depicted in it with open eyes, sitting at a writing desk in his clerical robe. It is likewise striking that precisely these two books should place before their readers a picture of the dead rather than of the living Luther — and yet the picture is portrayed in such a way that one is meant to believe one is looking not at the dead but at the living Luther.