# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Mai 1856_S154
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

From the Earlier History of the American-Lutheran Church, etc. 154

—death of the aforementioned, to Hamburg, in order to seek a minister there. The Hamburg city ministerium, however, recommended for the assumption of the important post Mr. Berckenmeyer, who at the time was staying in Hamburg as a candidate and was held in very high regard there. Thereupon the Amsterdam Lutheran Consistory, which had been authorized for this purpose by the New York congregation, called the aforementioned man. He accepted the call, was then ordained by the Consistory in Amsterdam on May 25, 1725, landed thereupon, after a fortunate voyage, on September 22 of the same year in New York, and now entered upon his office both at the congregation in this city and at that in Albany, residing alternately for half a year at each of these places.

This Berckenmeyer likewise published a work under the following title: Getrouwe Herder- en wachter-stem aan de Hoog- en Neder-Duitsche Lutheriaanen in dese Gewesten, eenstemmig te zyn; vertoont met twee Brieven en andere Redenen Lutherscher Theologanten: aangaande 't Van Dierensche Beroep, en de Henkelsche Bevestiging. Te Niew-York, by J. Peter Zenger. A. C. 1728." (In quarto, 23 gatherings in extent.) That is, in German: "Faithful Shepherd's and Watchman's Voice to the High and Low German Lutherans in these Regions, to Be of One Accord; Shown by Two Letters and Other Grounds of Lutheran Theologians, Concerning the Call of Von Dieren and Henkel's Ordination."

The occasion for the composition of this work was given by a certain Johann Bernhard von Dieren, of Königsberg, a tailor by trade, who crept about among the Lutheran congregations and everywhere caused division and unrest, and who showed himself all the more hostile as he could obtain the ordination he sought from neither the German nor the Swedish Lutherans. Among other things by which this man caused many disputes was that he asserted that at the celebration of Holy Communion the bread must be broken. Over this he himself lost most of the members of the congregation at Hackensack, who had at first allowed themselves to be persuaded to accept him as their minister. When he wished to introduce the breaking of the bread, many members of the congregation turned to Berckenmeyer, who also received them, declaring himself as follows: "If a minister calling himself Lutheran should undertake to introduce this on his own authority, by compulsion of conscience and against the will of the congregation, and should condemn those who would not let it be forced upon them, one could not withhold such persons, but would rather be bound to receive them, since otherwise they would be compelled either to take the Sacrament against their conscience with the breaking of the bread, or else to abstain from Communion." The book contains, besides the extract which Löscher gives of it, many other important matters, among them the proof that Cranmer, before the Reformed came to England, believed altogether in a Lutheran manner, and expressed this not only clearly but also with great zeal in his Catechism. It would be