# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1846 10 27_S28
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

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Lutherans in their simplicity failed to recognize; and it is furthermore also plain enough, after this, what is to be thought of people who now renew that reproach — indeed, who go even further in their accusations, and maintain that old Lutheranism leads straight back to Rome again — and who nevertheless wish to be regarded as good Lutherans! This is done, among others, by Mr. Weyl, the editor of the so-called "Lutherische Hirtenstimme" (Lutheran Shepherd's Voice) in Baltimore. He writes the following in his paper:

"That this sect (the Old Lutherans), however, leads to Rome is proved, first, by their liturgy, dedicated by Pastor Löhe in Bavaria to Pastor Wyneken in Baltimore, because it gives instruction in Catholic practices, such as: making a threefold cross over the baptized child, invocation of Mary at the consecration of the host, the setting up of a crucifix in the church, and the burning of wax candles on the altar in broad daylight at the time of the Lord's Supper, etc., etc. Does that not smell of Rome? We do not say that these things are expressly commanded in this liturgy, but they have made their appearance in a church where it has been introduced and the American [liturgy] displaced. The time of childish games is past, and the worship of God in spirit and in truth is enjoined upon us. And who can still be in doubt as to where this sect will finally end up, when one considers that Pusey, Newman, and their associates began their struggle and their wanderings in the Episcopal Church with that very same doctrine: 'We eat flesh and drink blood in the Lord's Supper'? And where are these men now? They have returned to the papacy. It makes no difference what language one speaks; whoever takes this road and pursues it must arrive at the same goal. We warn against it."

The manner in which Mr. Weyl conducts himself here is a sad proof of how low a man finally sinks when he willfully resists the testimony of the Holy Spirit in the Word of God, which he must nevertheless acknowledge to be God's Word; he sinks at last to the level of a common liar and a complete hypocrite.

Mr. Weyl proves himself here to be a common liar, namely, when he writes that the Löhe liturgy gives instruction for "invocation of Mary at the consecration of the host." In this Mr. Weyl evidently follows the old, well-known maxim (principle) of all master liars: "Calumniare audacter, semper aliquid haeret; etsi enim sanetur vulnus, manet tamen cicatrix" — that is, slander boldly, something always sticks; for even if the wound is healed again (by the exposure of your lies), a scar nevertheless remains. — Let us then see how the words actually read in the Löhe liturgy which Mr. Weyl uses for the accusation that it calls for the invocation of the Virgin Mary. In the entire order for the Lord's Supper, only one prayer contains the name of Mary; according to the liturgy in question,

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immediately before the singing of the words of institution, the congregation is, according to ancient custom, to sing the so-called "Sanctus," that is, the following hymn:

"Holy, holy, holy is God, the Lord of Sabaoth!
Heaven and earth are full of your glory!
Hosanna in the highest!
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord,
Mary's Son, the Passover Lamb!
Hosanna in the highest!"

Who, then, is here blessed, or, if one wishes to call it so, invoked? Whoever the spirit of lying has not yet so blinded that he can no longer construe the very simplest sentence (that is, perceive the relations of its words to one another) will, we hope, recognize clearly enough that it is not Mary who is invoked here, but Mary's Son — just as, for example, the hymn "We All Believe in One True God," etc., says: "Of Mary the virgin a true man was born," by which it is of course not said that we believe in the holy Virgin, but that we believe in him whom she bore at Bethlehem, namely Christ. For the ancient church was accustomed often expressly to call the Son of God also the Son of Mary, because there had been heretics who either flatly denied that the Son of God had assumed true human nature, or who indeed maintained that he had not taken it from Mary but had brought it down from heaven, or else that Mary had borne only a man, and not the Son of God, so that Mary might well be called the mother of the man Jesus, but not also the mother of the Son of God. The latter were called Nestorians. Now since the Löhe liturgy gives instruction to call upon Christ and to confess with the ancient church that he, the blessed Son of God, worshiped by all the angels, is also Mary's Son, Mr. Weyl uses this to spread the report that the so-called Old Lutherans commit the idolatry deeply abhorred by all Lutherans, and, like the papists, invoke the holy Virgin. We therefore hereby declare Mr. Weyl, so long as he shall not have retracted this, in the sight of the whole Lutheran Church of America, to be a blasphemous liar, who has forfeited even the credibility of an honest man (we say nothing of a Christian).*)

Yet Mr. Weyl here reveals himself not only as a willful liar, but also, as has been said, as a complete hypocrite. He promises here to prove that the so-called Old Lutherans are a new, un-Lutheran sect that leads back to Rome; and what does he do? — He takes the field against the old, true Lutheran Church. For he finds fault with the fact that the so-called Old Lutherans (apart from that invocation falsely attributed to them) observe, or at least approve, practices, and confess and defend teachings, which Luther and all orthodox Lutherans have observed, or at least approved, and confessed and defended, for three hundred years down to this very hour! What, then, does it mean that Mr. Weyl does not say outright that he considers the Lutheran Church itself, with its teachings and practices, to be a forecourt of the papal church and a bridge leading out of Protestantism into the kingdom of Antichrist? The reason for the remarkable game that Mr. W. plays here lies at hand. Mr. Weyl, that is, does not wish to lose the appearance of being no adversary of the Lutheran Church, but rather of belonging among its faithful watchmen. That Mr. Weyl really wishes to wear this mask we see not only from the very title of his paper; he also states this expressly in the very issue cited, where he writes: "They (the Old Lutherans) are not persons who hold fast to the purified doctrine of Luther or to the Reformation of the sixteenth century, for to these we too, and the whole Lutheran — indeed Protestant — Church of America and Germany, have the honor of belonging." Indeed, further on Mr. W. writes that the Old Lutherans stir up discord, "and all this under the fair name, so dear to us, of Lutheran and Old Lutheran ... The honor and welfare of the whole Lutheran Church in America lie close to our heart ... That is one of the reasons why we give warning. Or should we, as watchmen, not blow the horn?"

One truly does not know whether to laugh or to weep over this conduct of Mr. Weyl's. We ask: can a man carry shameless hypocrisy any further than he does here? First he writes that the doctrines of the Gospel are taught in the Augsburg Confession only "purely in general" (so that individual doctrines taught falsely in it must therefore be excepted; see Hirtenstimme IV, 21); that the ceremonies of the Lutheran Church and its doctrine of the presence of Christ in the holy Supper lead back into the papacy (see above); that in holy Baptism a man is by no means, as the Lutheran Church teaches in the Small Catechism, born again, but that through Baptism the new birth is only signified (see the 18th number of the Hirtenstimme); that "it is high time that no evangelically minded Christian should any longer say: I am of Apollos, I of Paul, I of Luther," etc. (see the same, V, 4), and the like; indeed, Mr. Weyl even brands as heretics those who would rather suffer everything than knowingly depart from a single letter of Lutheran doctrine, declares them the greatest enemies of his church, and calls them, on account of this their holding fast to the old Luther—

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*) Mr. Nast has gone about it more cleverly in this case. For in his Apologete he ascribes to Pastor Wyneken an "invocation or naming of the blessed Virgin Mary." By the addition "or naming," he secures for himself a line of retreat, in case someone should likewise accuse him of lying. For then, when called to account, Mr. Nast can say: I did not mean the word "invocation" as maliciously as it sounds; the addition shows that by it I understand only a "naming"; it is really this latter that I am charging Pastor Wyneken with. — A burnt child fears the fire.