# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1846 08 17_S101
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

[Page 101]

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., August 22, 1846.

No. 26.

Terms: Der Lutheraner appears once every two weeks, at a 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.

(Submitted by Th. Brohm.)

Luther and the Bohemian Brethren.

One of the most engaging, most delightful episodes in the history of the Reformation is Luther's repeated brotherly contact with the Bohemian Brethren. This was a small band of Christians in Bohemia and Moravia who confessed the very same faith that the holy martyr John Huss sealed with his blood at the stake in Constance. Soon after Huss's death, the great mass of his followers abandoned their spiritual knighthood and became, instead of soldiers of Christ, a band of wild, violent soldiers. Yet among the Hussites there were also a number of simple, pious souls who preserved in faith and patience the good inheritance Huss had left them. Later, sects and divisions arose even among these; but the Lord preserved for himself, even in the midst of these disruptions and, in part, under the harsh persecutions that came upon them, a holy seed, in that in the midst of the darkness of the papacy the light of the Gospel shone brightly. The old, sincere-hearted Amos Comenius, one of their last preachers, has preserved for us a brief history of this branch of the true Church, from which, together with what is found on the subject in Luther's writings, we communicate the following to the dear reader.

Three years after Luther's birth, in 1486, the Bohemian Brethren, who resided mostly in the mountains of Bohemia and Moravia but seem to have greatly increased in number by this time, held a gathering to deliberate how they, in their strict and lawful separation from the false papist church, should guard themselves against the reproach that they were also separating themselves from a true church. They agreed to send four men into the lands of Christendom to find out whether there was anywhere a congregation that served Christ in purity and to which they might join themselves. After a long absence, these men brought back the distressing news that they had found nothing but the utmost corruption of Christians in doctrine and life. The Brethren then sent out several men once more, into the western lands of Europe; these now found here and there one of the old Waldensians, who complained of the tyranny of the papacy but, out of fearfulness, did not dare to come forward openly with his confession; a few times they witnessed the burning of so-called heretics because these had declared the pope to be the Antichrist. In great sorrow the Brethren heard these reports and came to the following resolution, which they also set down in writing as a rule for their descendants: "That, if God should anywhere raise up a godly teacher or reformer of the church, they would unite themselves with him." How faithfully the children kept that resolution of their fathers is shown by their conduct at the dawning of the light in Germany. As soon as they received word of Luther's undertaking and of the progress of the Reformation, they joyfully sent two men to Luther in the year 1522, Johann Horn and Michael Weiss, to congratulate him on the light of the truth he had recognized. How greatly Luther was gladdened and refreshed by this visit he himself confesses in several letters to his friends. In the same year he also wrote a letter to the Bohemians assembled at the Diet in Prague; he confesses to them that he had formerly considered them heretics, when he himself still sat in papal darkness, but that since he himself had been enlightened by God's Word, he had come to praise their disobedience toward the papacy, and had thereby drawn upon himself much hatred; he says he had once even wished to come to Bohemia himself, out of a desire to see them and to learn their faith. He exhorts them by no means to fall back again into the papacy, to which a part of them seemed inclined; for by doing so they would be condemning the holy blood of John Huss and of Jerome of Prague, together with their teaching; he warns them against sects and discord, and that they should not be led astray if not all things should at once come into the condition in which they ought properly to be; he also expresses the hope that the Germans and the Bohemians would through the divine Word yet come to share one mind and one name, but that meanwhile they should wait with patience for the mercy of God, and, where one party lacked something, should for the time being bear with it. For, he added, all things cannot be changed in an instant, nor by force. In the following year the Brethren wrote to Luther, and since they had apparently complained about the church discipline still lacking in Saxony, Luther replied: We are not yet able to bring it about that such a practice of doctrine and life should come to pass as we hear exists among you. Things among us are still crude and proceed slowly. But pray for us. About this time Luther received from the Waldensians (as the Bohemian Brethren were also called) a little book called the Apologia, in which they expressed a number of offensive statements on several articles, particularly concerning the Lord's Supper. He therefore addressed a treatise to them: "On the Adoration of the Sacrament."

In it he acknowledges that he no longer regards them as heretics as he once did; he goes through their articles of doctrine, praises what is praiseworthy, and does not conceal what displeases him; he asks that they kindly accept his objections, in case, from lack of knowledge of the Bohemian language, he had not fully grasped the sense of their statements; he exhorts them not to despise the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew languages, which are so necessary for preachers if they are not to fail in the right understanding of Holy Scripture; he praises their outwardly chaste conduct; he makes it a duty for them likewise to point out to him wherever they discover a fault in him, and he expects the best of them as sensible men. In the year 1524 Luther addressed his splendid treatise, "How Ministers of the Church Should Be Chosen and Installed," to the Bohemians, and since he had heard that they had it in mind to have priests ordained by papist bishops, he earnestly advised them against this and prescribed for them a proper ordination, by which, without any involvement of the pope or of papist bishops, they should themselves choose and ordain ministers of the Word. What effect this treatise had is difficult to determine, apart from the fact that Luther's teaching found ever more general acceptance in Bohemia.

In this same year a second embassy also came to Wittenberg, consisting of the same two men, Horn and Weiss, in order to become more closely acquainted with the church discipline in the newly awakening church. But since they saw, as Comenius writes, that no thought was yet being given there to the maintenance of church discipline, they discontinued contact with Luther for about eight years. It may well be supposed that these good men placed too great a weight on the outward form of the church's discipline, thereby fail-