# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1846 09 19_S12
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

also — as Mr. M. can at least still learn later — actually the doctrine of the Papists, that Christ, with the keys, granted the power to fabricate church orders and church laws — Mr. M. finally calls attention to the fact that there are sins committed directly against God, and others committed only indirectly. With this learned distinction, Mr. M. now hopes to have given, to all whose enlightened understanding, like his own, might take offense at the literal sense of those words, the long-sought explanation of that saying of Christ. He means, namely, that Christ speaks only of the latter sins, not the former, when he says: "Whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven; whosesoever sins ye remit," etc. To prove why Christ here surely speaks solely of such sins as are committed only indirectly against God, Mr. M. indeed excuses himself from doing — but who would be so immodest as not to believe this son of the noonday light of the Reformation on his mere word? He has, of course, in doing so also failed to consider that in his haste he has proven precisely the opposite of what he wanted to prove. For he wanted to establish that human beings have no power to forgive sins in such a way that they are at the same time forgiven in heaven — and what does the poor rogue do? In his all-too-crude eagerness to bless the world with his new light, he strikes himself in the face and proves that human beings can indeed forgive sin — namely, the sin that is committed only indirectly against God. To illustrate the good man's manner of drawing conclusions, we will set it out here in proper syllogistic form. He concludes thus: What Holy Scripture says, that one must believe. Now Holy Scripture says that only those sins can be forgiven by human beings which are committed only indirectly against God. Therefore one must believe that no sins at all can be forgiven by human beings.

From this one sees that excellent gifts for becoming a skilled drawer of conclusions lie dormant in Mr. M.; we therefore advise him, in order to awaken this gift in him, to study just a little logic.

It will, of course, be hard for him to set about that, since, like all Methodists, he harbors a secret dread of all learning; we hope, however, since he seems to have had a great love for authorship from childhood on, that he will for that very reason overcome his reluctance, so that he may continue further along the literary career he has already so gloriously entered upon.

But we hasten to a close.

We have only this much more to add: that in what follows, Mr. M.'s conclusion-drawing, unfortunately, fares no better than in what has gone before — which surely every sensible person will gladly forgive him, since he is only to study this art in the future. Who would be so unreasonable as to demand that Mr. M. should be, right from the outset, a master-author fallen ready-made from heaven!

[p. 12]

We shall adduce just a few more points. When Luther writes that only the church can forgive sin, because only the church has the Holy Spirit, Mr. M. draws from this the unfortunate inference that, according to Luther, no one can obtain forgiveness of sin through a minister of the church who has not been born again of the Holy Spirit. Further, when we reject the fanatical, wild, methodistic soul-manipulation that often issues in convulsive spasms, Mr. M. concludes from this that we reject the Law and true repentance (although he afterward honestly admits himself that we also demand the latter). When we say that all people, including the impenitent, are obligated to accept in faith the Gospel of Christ, and therefore also absolution, even though the impenitent are, by reason of their condition, unable to do so, Mr. M. concludes from this that we teach that an impenitent person should remain impenitent, merely inventing for himself a fancied faith and manufacturing a human comfort. When our author reads in the Acts of the Apostles that in the apostolic church prayer was made for the miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit upon the believing Samaritans, and that wonderful effects followed, Mr. M. draws the blasphemous conclusion that the hideous, unruly behavior which follows the disorderly praying of the Methodists at their camp-meeting fairs is likewise such a visible effect of the Holy Spirit. When, further, we have written that confession is already to be found in the Bible, he concludes from this that we assert, contrary to the Augsburg Confession, that confession is commanded by Scripture. Finally, when — according to Eberhardt's Synonymik der deutschen Sprache [Synonymy of the German Language], which Mr. M. seems to have "at hand" — "to sin" means as much as "to do wrong knowingly and deliberately," he concludes from this that the holy Apostles, too, according to the sense and manner of speaking of Holy Scripture, no longer sinned.*)

*) The poor wretch, of course, fails to see that an Eberhardt, in consistent unbelief, calls "sin" (something requiring atonement) only what a person does knowingly and deliberately against a moral law; that hereditary corruption is already sin, and that the Law reveals many things as sin which are committed even without knowledge or intent (Romans 7:7) — this Eberhardt could not, in his dictionary, afford to admit! And this the Methodist patiently copies out and grounds his faith upon it. O sancta simplicitas!

In sum: let Mr. Mulfinger go to school for a few more years yet and learn logic above all, if his wisdom, as Luther says, is bursting to get out of his belly. But as long as he cannot or will not bring himself to do that, so long will his impertinent pseudo-wisdom and brashness — with which he pronounces on matters whose meaning and context far exceed his capacity — never enable him to carry off well the assumed role of a theologian. He will, to be sure, have the satisfaction of being gawked at by his cronies as a prodigy, but apart from that, he will only waste pen, ink, paper, time, and his good name by his writing — indeed, for the sake of his own vanity, forfeit even the grace of God. Let no one, then, be surprised if from now on we answer a good deal of Methodist and Weyl-style twaddle with silence. Sapienti sat!

The Hardening of Heretics and Their Sects.

David writes: "He loved cursing, and it shall come unto him; he delighted not in blessing, and it shall be far from him. As he clothed himself with cursing like as with his garment, so let it come into his bowels like water, and like oil into his bones." Psalm 109:17–18. Here we too may all well be afraid, especially all heretics and false teachers. Where the misfortune occurs that one errs in a single point regarding Christ's meaning, there everything is lost, and the whole of Christ is lost with it; as he himself says, Matthew 5:18–19: "Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven. For not the smallest letter nor one tittle shall pass away," etc. After that, one falls into it, and such a mindset goes like water into one's innermost being and like oil through bone and marrow, and becomes one's daily garment. Then it comes about that one party curses the other, and each party's teaching is to the other party sheer poison and curse, while its own teaching is sheer blessing and salvation — as we now also see from our own factions and from the Papists. Here, then, it is lost. The mass does not convert; only a few individuals, whom God has chosen, come back to their right mind, while the others remain in their curse and poison, like the Jews, and hold it to be a precious thing. This, then, is what he means here, that all the enemies of Christ love the curse and hate the blessing, and so they also remain. Therefore St. Paul, too, says in Titus 3:10–11, that one should avoid a factious (heretical) person after two admonitions, for he is perverted. "I have also never read that teachers who begin heresy are converted;" they remain hardened in their conceit; the oil has gone through marrow and bone, and their water has become flesh and blood, has become wholly their nature; they will not let themselves be told or restrained. That is the sin against the Holy Spirit, which has no forgiveness. For it has neither repentance nor remorse, but only defense and excuse, as though it were something holy and precious, and the old Gospel, which teaches against it, were sheer devilry. Luther's Works. Halle edition, vol. V, pp. 94–96.

Available at the office of the "Lutheraner": The Constitution of the German Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and Other States, together with an introduction and explanatory notes. In pamphlet form, stitched with a cover, at 5 cents each; 12 copies for 50 cents; 25 copies for $1.

Received for the Lutheran mission to the heathen on the Cass River, Michigan:

$1.50 from Pastor Löber and his children in Perry Co., Mo. $0.50 from Mr. Schoolteacher Winter, of the same place.

Paid: Year 2: Messrs. Pastor Krauss, Pastor Schuster, Gräb. First half of Year 3: Mr. Pfeiffer. Year 3: Messrs. Pastor Krauss, Pastor Jäbker, F. Bunck, E. Steffenhagen, P. Hoffmann, Jacob Müller, Nic. Helferich.

Printed by Weber and Olshausen.