# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1846 09 29_S14
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

delivered us out of it, for which be to him praise and thanks forever.

Seventh, who commanded you to make this innovation, that you have forged new keys — indeed, two false picklocks — with which you neither forgive nor retain sin as the old keys do, among us and in the whole old Church, but instead newly establish sin and murder where otherwise there would be none, in your new apostate, murderous church? You do this by using unbearable, innumerable laws to snare and bind, terrify and kill Christian consciences, in matters of eating, drinking, clothing, places, days, and similar outward things which Christ commanded to be free, Colossians 2:16, and which the old Church likewise held to be free, without any sin or danger; and besides this you depose kings and princes, as though you yourselves were God? Who is apostate and a new church here? May the devil remain with you in this blasphemous, murderous, sinful, ruinous article — he will indeed remain with you; as for us, we have returned to the old Church, God be praised and thanked!

Eighth, who commanded you to preach otherwise than Christ has commanded, contrary to the custom of the old Church and against Christ's own command? Matthew 28:20: "Go and teach them to observe all that I have commanded you" — it does not say, whatever seems right and good to you. John 14:26: "The Spirit will teach you all things and remind you of everything I have said to you." But you have filled all the churches and schools so full of your filth — that is, of human teaching and lies — and have vomited your gullet so full, that (as Isaiah says, chapter 28:8) there is no more room left; and yet you still wish to be praised as the church! And this article, alongside the private mass, is one of the worst abominations, whose harm and plague cannot be fathomed or numbered, by which you have built a new church for the devil and thereby served him, so that it has become nothing but the murder of souls — the true child-devouring Moloch, who, unlike that old Moloch, does not merely let the bodies of children be burned while their souls are saved, but rather lets the body live a little while and burns the soul forever. I cannot, for horror, dwell much longer on the misery of the countless false, idolatrous, murderous doctrines in the papacy — that is, in your fine new church.

Ninth, who commanded you to make this presumptuous innovation in the Church, which is a spiritual kingdom, that you set up a bodily head and call him the Most Holy, when in fact no other head can exist for it but a spiritual one, which is Christ? This is the third-worst abomination in your most holy — indeed, most hellish — new church; for the old Church knows nothing of this, but has remained with its true head, just as we have. But that this is the devil's own doing, and that it was to come for the sake of sin, the old Church knows well and has clearly proclaimed it, 2 Thessalonians 2:3–4: "The man of sin, the son of perdition, will set himself up in the temple of God and set himself forth as though he were God." For he even lets himself be called by you an earthly god. So too Daniel has said, chapter 11:37, that he would despise the God of his fathers and set up another, new god, and new churches (which would help to strengthen his new god) for himself. Who, then, has a new apostate church now? Do the ancients and the old Church have one? Or is it rather those who worship this new devil's-head, kiss his feet, gladly let themselves be blessed by his two fingers, exalt his teaching above the Word of God, and honor the old, rightful head only with a bending of the knee — indeed, scarcely ever thinking of him again, or valuing the blessing which he earned for us with his whole body and blood — or is it we, who have remained with the old, rightful head, and flee and avoid the new devil's-head? But this abomination is too horribly horrible for it to help much to speak little of it, and yet to speak of it rightly no tongue of angels would suffice. What God's own mouth calls an abomination must be a greater abomination than any tongue can express.

Tenth, who commanded you to set up this new idolatry, that you institute the veneration of saints, canonize saints, appoint fast days and feast days in their honor, as though they were God himself, so that people rely and comfort themselves upon the saints' merit more than upon Christ himself and all his blood and merit — whom you have set before us as a judge, whom we must supposedly reconcile and win grace from through the merit and intercession of his mother and all the saints, together with our own service to the saints? So that your church, in this respect, has become nothing other than the church of the heathen, who worship Jove, Juno, Venus, Diana, and other deceased human beings; and just as the Romans built a Pantheon (a temple of all the gods) in their city of Rome, so you too have built a Pantheon in the churches — that is, a church of all the devils. You will not find this in the writing of the apostles, nor in the young Church that came after, which in earlier times would not even tolerate images of the saints, and much blood was shed over that — let alone that they should worship or invoke the saints, which belongs to God alone.

Eleventh, who commanded you to make this innovation, that you condemn the estate of marriage, slander it, and judge it unclean and unfit for the service of God? Have you learned this from the apostles, or from the first, old Church? Yes indeed you have — for St. Paul says, in 1 Timothy 4:1ff., that in the future there would come those who would separate themselves from the faith and the old Church and run off, like a true devil's-whore, who would receive such teaching from the devil and preach against the estate of marriage, while themselves living, under a false pretense of chastity, in all manner of unchastity. We see this innovation, together with its noble fruits, in the fact that the earth will no longer bear you, and that God has already begun to intervene with his judgment, consecrating such a new holy church into the fires of hell, and will not be turned aside from doing so — this we know, God be praised!

Twelfth, who commanded you to make such an innovation, that you rule and wage war with the worldly sword, and use it above all to shed innocent blood? Have you ever seen, you sharp-eyed bats, that the apostles or the old Church conquered the world by the sword, or increased the church through war? Where, then, do you come from, you who boast of being heirs of the old Church and revile us as the new apostate church — we, who hold with the old Church and descend from it, while you descend from the runaway devil's-whore, your new murderous church of lies?

There are still many more of the new articles — such as purgatory, relic-veneration, the consecration of churches, and a whole swarming filth and valley of filth of vermin, and besides that innumerable books full of nothing but new inventions, of which the old Church knew nothing, nor did the apostles. For who can recount the full extent of this sand, or this filth — indeed, poison and devilish lies? Let this suffice for now to prove how shamefully the papists lie through their Heinzes when they revile us as the new apostate, heretical church; rather, this poisoned sword of theirs turns back through their own heart, and it is found that they have forsaken the old Church and its old bridegroom, becoming apostate like an arch-devil's-whore, and are not merely heretical (for that word is too mild and too honorable for such a shameful hussy), but are the antichristian and God-opposing one — indeed, the one who exalts herself against God (just as her bridegroom in heaven, Satan, also wishes to do) — the devil's last and most shameful bride. We, however, because we avoid and flee all such devilry and innovation, and hold instead to the old Church, the virgin and pure bride of Christ, are surely the true old Church, free of all whoredom and innovation, which has continued down to us, and from which we have come — indeed, have been newly born again of her, just as the Galatians were of St. Paul, Galatians 4:19. For we too were once stuck fast, with all seriousness, in the backside of that hellish whore, the pope's new church — which grieves us, that we spent so much time and effort shamefully in that hole. But God be praised and thanked, who has redeemed us from the scarlet blaspheming whore!

If only such innovation in the papacy were mere, plain innovation, or could be so, then it might still be tolerated to some degree for the sake of peace, just as one wears or puts up with a new coat: but now this devilish poison and hellish murder cling to it, so that it must be called a commandment of the Church and holy divine service, a good life, a spiritual estate — in which one earns grace and life (if one keeps it) or wrath and death (if one does not keep it); that is, to make truth out of lies, God out of the devil, heaven out of hell, and the reverse as well. Therefore the pope's church is so full of lies, devils, idolatry, hell, murder, and every misfortune that it swarms with them, and it is time now to hear the voice of the angel, Revelation 18:4