# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1846 12 08_S45
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

[continued from Seite 44; a line of type from an adjacent column — "...to set up self-justification against these utterances of the Holy Spirit—" — is interleaved at this point in the scan and cannot be placed with certainty] ...can these be the small, insignificant sins for whose sake the body of the Son of God had to be broken, and his so holy, precious blood had to be shed? If you regard your sin as slight, you regard God's grace and forgiveness as slight; if you want to justify yourself, you rob the Lord of what belongs to him. Your self-righteousness is your greatest sin, and if you persist in it, you turn the blessing of the Lord's Supper into a curse for yourself.

M: I think, pastor, that I want just as good a blessing as anyone else.

Pastor: Then you must also do penance, just as every other sinner who wants forgiveness must. Margareth, you do not believe me in everything I tell you; so at least accept one piece of good advice. Let God be the judge between you and me, and say to him: Dear God, my pastor says such and such, and always wants to make me out to be a great sinner. I ask you, dear Father, show me from your Word whether it is really so, whether he is right. Search me and know my heart; try me and know how I mean it, and see whether I am on a wicked way, and lead me in the way everlasting! Amen. Pray this to God daily, and especially in these coming days, before you go to the Holy Supper; then he will surely help you to the right understanding. Will you do that?

M: That I can certainly do.

Pastor: Then go and do it; and God be with your spirit!

M: Goodbye, pastor!

(Conclusion to follow.)

Does Old Lutheranism Lead to Rome?

(Continued.)

4.) We come now to the last case — one especially to be noted in our time — in which the acceptance or rejection of an otherwise indifferent ceremony is not itself a matter of indifference. It is this: when, by the one course or the other, one gives the appearance of having yielded to the adversaries of pure doctrine, of having become one with them, or of making no essential distinction between the orthodox and the false-believing. The sacred duty, in this case, to proceed with the utmost caution in the use of one's freedom, rests, among other things, on the following passages of Holy Scripture:

2 Corinthians 6:14: "Be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with unrighteousness? And what communion has light with darkness? And what concord has Christ with Belial? — Therefore come out from among them, and be separate, says the Lord." Romans 16:17: "Now I beseech you, brothers, mark those who cause divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrine which you have learned, and turn away from them." To be compared with this is 1 Thessalonians 5:22: "Abstain from every appearance of evil."

Are, then, the orthodox — according to the passages just cited — to break off fellowship with unbelievers and false believers, to separate themselves from them and turn away from them, and so, according to the last-named passage, to avoid even the very appearance that fellowship exists between them: then those plainly act against God's Word who adopt such ceremonies as are distinctive of the false-believing, which have become, as it were, the badges of certain sects, their shibboleth (Judges 12:4–6) — ceremonies by which the erring wish to confess and express certain errors in deed. For by this the members of the orthodox church give the appearance of having united themselves with the erring, of having become one with them, of having given up the rejection of false doctrine, and of having now become, together with the adversaries of pure doctrine, one ecclesiastical body.

For this reason our church's confessional symbols point to this very case as well, where among other things they say: "Just as, on the other hand, such ceremonies are not to be reckoned among the true, free adiaphora, or matters of indifference, as give the appearance, or, for the avoidance of persecution, are meant to give the appearance, that our religion and the papist religion (or some other false-believing religion) are not far removed from one another, or that we are indeed not strongly opposed to it; or when such ceremonies are so intended, so required, or so employed, as though by means of them the two conflicting religions were reconciled (in unam redactae) and made one body, or (cum periculum est) as though there should in turn follow an approach to the papacy and a departure from the pure doctrine of the Gospel and the true religion, or as though this should gradually come about from it. For in this case what Paul writes must and shall hold, 2 Corinthians 6:14, 17: 'Be not unequally yoked with unbelievers; what fellowship has light with darkness? Therefore come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord.'" (Formula of Concord, Solid Declaration, Article X.) Not to be overlooked here is the following expression of the Apology: "The Christian Church does not consist merely in the fellowship of outward signs (externarum rerum ac rituum, sicut aliae politiae), but consists chiefly in fellowship, inwardly, in the eternal treasures of the heart — namely the Holy Spirit, faith, and the fear and love of God." (Article 7.) By this the Apology gives us to understand plainly enough that the outward ceremonies, too, are not wholly to be excluded from the things in which the true Church has fellowship among itself.

If we now apply the doctrine of ceremonies, as we have set it forth here from God's Word and from the confessions of our church, to our present circumstances here, it will not be hard to say what answer is to be given to the reproach that we — who are honored with the name Old Lutherans — wish to restrict the freedom publicly professed by the Lutheran Church, and to reintroduce a papist compulsion of ceremonies.

We do not deny it: we endeavor to retain, in its characteristic components, the outward worship as the old Lutheran Church has already observed for centuries, and to win our congregations' agreement to this; we do not deny it: we are indeed also minded, under no condition, to conform to the peculiar ceremonies of other ecclesiastical communions, such as the Reformed, the Methodists, and others; we hold, finally, that those are no faithful Lutherans who, in the present time and under our present circumstances here, drop all the distinguishing ceremonies of our church and adopt in their place those of foreign ecclesiastical communions. But we do this not because we, like the papists, believed that any ceremony introduced by men were in itself necessary to the truth of the Church, or that under all circumstances we lacked the power to use any innocent ceremony whatsoever it might be; rather we act thus for the very reason that we will not let our freedom in ceremonies be taken from us — that we deny no truth, least of all the important article of Christian liberty — but confess it in deed; that we do not offend the weak; that we do not, even through the seemingly most innocent action, confirm any false doctrine or strengthen anyone in it; and that we wish, with all diligence, to avoid even the slightest appearance of holding with the adversaries of our Lutheran Church and its doctrine, or of having flowed together with them into one church. This is what we want, and what we contend for — by no means the ceremonies themselves, whose use or abolition we too, under other circumstances, hold and declare with our whole heart to be entirely free. Those, then, who set the Lutheran confession of the freedom of ceremonies against our procedure beat the air against us, since there is no dispute at all that these things are in themselves free. The question at issue is rather this: whether such circumstances now also prevail under which, according to God's Word and the confessions of our church, one must not yield even in certain matters of indifference. That we are indeed now in such a case is what we believe, and what guides us in our procedure.

From of old, namely, those on the Reformed side have sought to burden the conscience of the Lutheran Church with the fact that she has altars, images, crucifixes, and the like in her churches; that in administering the Holy Supper she makes use of wafers or hosts and burning candles, and recommends receiving this most holy sacrament kneeling; that the preachers chant the words of institution of the Holy Supper, the intonations, collects, and the Aaronic blessing at the altar; that at Baptism, consecration, blessing, absolution, and marriage the sign of the holy