# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1846 09 19_S8
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Christendom has done. We invent nothing new, but hold to and remain with the old Word of God, as the old Church had it; therefore we, together with it, are the true old Church—one and the same church, which teaches and believes one and the same Word of God. Therefore the papists again blaspheme Christ himself, the apostles, and all of Christendom, when they call us a new church and heretics. For they find nothing in us but the old character of the old Church,*) namely, that we are like it and are with it one and the same church.

*) If the aforementioned new church is asked about this, oh, it must utterly blush and fall silent!

Fifth, no one can deny that we hold, believe, sing, and confess the Apostles' Creed, the old faith of the old Church, entirely in agreement with it, adding or making nothing new in it; by this we belong to the old Church and are one with it. Therefore this point, too, does not allow us to be truly charged by the papists as heretics or a new church; for whoever believes and holds the same as the old Church belongs to the old Church.

Sixth, no one can deny that we have, in common with the old Church, the same prayer, the same Our Father, inventing nothing new or different in it; that we sing the same psalms, and with one accord praise and thank God with our mouths, just as Christ taught, and as the apostles and the old Church themselves used, and commanded us to do after their example. And in this, too, the papists cannot brand us as heretics nor call us a new church without first having to reproach Christ himself, together with his dear old Church, etc.

Seventh, no one can deny that we teach and hold, together with the old Church, that worldly authority should be honored, and neither cursed nor forced to kiss the pope's feet. This, too, we have not newly invented; rather, St. Peter, in his second epistle, 2:10, curses those who would newly invent and practice such things in time to come; and St. Paul, Romans 13:1ff., stands with us and with the old and whole of Christendom, so that in this too we cannot be, or be called, something new (though the papists thereby blaspheme God himself in us); rather, we are and belong to the old, holy, apostolic Church, as its first children and members. For we have been taught always to be most faithfully obedient to our authorities, whether emperor or prince, have ourselves done so, and have prayed for them heartily.

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Eighth, no one can deny that we praise and extol the estate of marriage as a divine, blessed, and well-pleasing creation and ordinance for the fruit of the body and against fleshly unchastity. And we have not newly devised this, still less forbidden it as new teachers; but just as God created it from the beginning, as Christ confirmed it, and as the apostles and the old Church honored and taught it, so we too have remained in that same old rule and ordinance of God, and are thereby like the old Church—indeed, are its own true and proper members. By this one may see how the papists again falsely charge us with innovation.

Ninth, no one can deny that we suffer "the very same sufferings" (as St. Peter says in his first epistle, 5:9) "that our brethren in the world" endure; for we are persecuted in every place, strangled, drowned, hanged, and beset with every affliction for the sake of the Word, and it fares with us just as it did with the old Church, and in this we are like it beyond measure, so that we may well say: We are the old, true Church, or at the very least its fellow-partakers and companions in suffering; for we do not invent this anew, but feel it well. Indeed, we are (as was the old Church too) made like the Lord Christ himself upon the cross. There before the cross stood Annas and Caiaphas, together with the priests, and blasphemed the Lord besides, even as they crucified him—just as the pope, cardinals, and monks have condemned, damned, and murdered us, and shed our blood, and blaspheme us on top of it. There stood the soldiers, that is, in part the worldly authorities, and they too blaspheme us; and to this the rogue, the thief on the left, Heinz Wolfenbüttel (Duke Henry of Brunswick), together with his own—whom God has already condemned and hanged in chains to hell—must add his blasphemy as well, so that this feature, as an old mark of the old Church, is seen abundantly upon us.

Tenth, no one can deny that we do not, in turn, likewise shed blood, murder, hang, and take revenge, though we could often have done so, and still could; but rather, as Christ, the apostles, and the old Church did, we endure, admonish, and pray for them, even publicly in the churches, just as Christ our Lord did and taught, and as the old Church likewise did; so that in this too we hold entirely to the old character of the old Church.

Since, then, the papists know that we are like the old Church in all such points, and whatever others there may be, and may rightly be called the old Church (for such points are not new, nor invented by us), it is a wonder why they dare so shamelessly to lie about us and condemn us as ones who have fallen away from the Church and set up a new church, when they can find nothing new in us that was not held in the old and true Church in the time of the apostles. So that I truly reckon this to be the time of which Daniel 7:9 speaks: "The Ancient of Days, antiquus dierum, took his seat, after the little horn had finished its blaspheming, and the judgment was held." For the former old Church shines forth again (like the sun after the clouds, behind which that same sun was, though not shining brightly), and the horn of blasphemy is about to go down and all things are to come to an end, as it stands there, and the work is showing itself; there is no time here to deal with that.

But someone might say: There is still one thing lacking, namely fasting; for you heretics do not fast (so they say). — Ah, dear God! If there is one point in which we resemble the old Church, it is, alas, fasting. If there is one point in which the papists resemble the new church, it is that they do not fast and live in revelry, even on fast days, rather than on feast days. Indeed, we not only fast, but suffer hunger (with St. Paul, 1 Corinthians 4:11), which we may plainly see daily in our poor pastors, their wives and little children, and in many other poor people whose hunger shows in their eyes, who scarcely have bread and water, and go about nearly naked besides, having nothing of their own. The peasant and the townsman give nothing, the nobility takes; so that few of us have anything, and yet cannot help everyone. There the foundations and monasteries ought to serve—but the others are so greedy that Lazarus must die of hunger for it. At this the papists laugh. But by this they bear witness that we are the old Church, which suffers mockery to its harm at the hands of the devil's children.

(With this we conclude for this time; in the next issue we shall let the continuation follow, in which Luther now sings the new Roman Church its little song.)

(Conclusion to follow.)

Supplementary Explanations
to the Synodical Constitution
Communicated in the Previous Issue.

—

On Chapter II, § 5, "the preacher" (1.)

1) It is, unfortunately, the prevailing custom—or rather, malpractice—in this country that the ministers of the Word are hired on a trial basis for about a year, like hired hands or herdsmen. Now it is, to be sure, true that many congregations imagine themselves compelled to this measure, because so many uncalled spiritual vagabonds, even under the Lutheran name, roam about the country here in order to deceive congregations. But these congregations ought not even to accept such fellows, who stand in connection with no orthodox synod, on a trial basis at all, nor let them preach at all, since they can already cause incalculable harm to souls through a single sermon. This practice of trial acceptance is therefore not to be excused, even from the outside, as a kind of necessity; for no such necessity in fact exists for any congregation for which the provision of its pastoral care is a matter of heartfelt earnestness, and which will surely know the way to an orthodox synod in order to be provided for by it. It is therefore all the less fitting for a preacher or candidate of the holy pastoral office—and it conflicts with all scriptural grounds, with all church practice, and with the dignity of the pastoral office—to let himself be hired and engaged by congregations temporarily and only on trial. Holy Scripture and the Church know only of a call for life, after the one to be called has, of course, been carefully examined (by the synod) and found competent, according to disposition, knowledge, and teaching ability, to take up the holy office; only such a call, proceeding from the congregation, is a proper one and