# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Februar 1856_S60
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

60 A Visit in Amsterdam.

on the deity of Christ; on the thousand-year kingdom; on the Pelagian and Socinian spirit in the Church, etc. One can imagine how important these assemblies are. Sowing is also done through the publication of writings. As a bridge for the rationalistic spirit, von Gerlach's commentary on the Bible is being translated. Furthermore, the following have already been translated: Lehmann's and Schnabel's exposition of the Augsburg Confession, Spener's Catechism, and a prayer book, drawn mostly from Löhe's Seed-Grains. Of the last-named, more than 1,000 copies have already been sold. A Lutheran calendar entitled "Een vaste burgt is onze God" ("A mighty fortress is our God"), with translations from the Nördlingen Sunday Paper and original essays, has been published for 1854 and has gone off briskly.

The Lord is with these brethren. Therefore Satan also rages. There has already been no lack of hostility from without. The Synodal Commissie, the executive church authority in Amsterdam, had addressed to the General Church Assembly — the supreme church council of the Amsterdam Lutheran congregation, also called the Kirchenrath, consisting of 120 members — various questions and concerns regarding the said association, drawn up by a member of the Synodal Commissie who is at the same time attorney general at a provincial court, which quite plainly revealed hatred and rancor against the association. The church council (Kirchenrath) answered thereupon, without, however, hearing the board of the association, in a spirit that betrayed the eagerness to keep the peace at any price. — The synod, which assembles annually after Pentecost, has issued a letter to all church councils or presbyteries and preachers, which reports the above-described steps of the Synodal Commissie, as well as the aforementioned answer of the Amsterdam church council to the questions put concerning the association — in which the latter is designated as a free association standing outside the Church, wherefore the synod will concern itself no further with it. P. Lentz has now thoroughly examined this synodal letter and, with decisiveness, rejected all the un-Lutheran doctrines occurring in it. Nothing can be done to the association under the laws of the free Dutch land. But history has indeed always taught: if one wishes to crucify, there is no lack of pretextual grounds for condemnation. "He has stirred up the people!" — so it was said in Palestine. The members of the church association have declared as their principle: "As long as it is possible, we shall remain in the corrupted territorial church! The Lord may wish to use us as leaven. The good confession of our Lutheran territorial church still stands as valid law. If they drive us out, the Lord will show the way. May He grant only wisdom to know His will, and to will and to do only that will!" —

The brethren there, especially P. Lenz, had wished that I might preach on the Sunday (the 15th after Trinity) in the great Amsterdam Lutheran church. The Synodal Commissie, however, did not permit it, and