# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Februar 1857_S62
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

62    Church-Contemporary Matters.

...our conviction, the Elder lacks religion; if he is revived anew, even
before he leaves our city, he may feel very grateful for it. It is
altogether far too much "Knapp" and far too little of the simple, humble
Redeemer in his sermons; too much "bite, or be damned!" — too much
vinegar, too little honey." — When will the American sect-preachers
finally realize that the excitements they produce are not yet
conversions, and therefore return to the old, established measures of the
Christian Church? When will they finally realize that one cannot announce
and hawk conversions in the newspapers like ready-made merchandise? When
will the people finally discover that often the most unruly zealots for
conversion in the pulpits are themselves the most unconverted of men —
clouds without water, carried about by the wind, bare, unfruitful trees,
twice dead, plucked up by the roots — Jude 12-13.

Preachers' Seminary. The proposal of Dr. Kurtz, already mentioned in
"Lehre und Wehre" in last year's December issue, that an institution be
established alongside the Gettysburg Seminary in which older men might be
more practically prepared for the ministry, is moving more and more
toward its realization. The institution, styled the Missionary Institute
of the Ev. Luth. Church, is to be placed in Baltimore County, Md. As
regards participation in the work — according to the "Statutes for the
Government" already drafted, only synods standing in connection with the
General Synod may enjoy it; candidates coming forth from the institution
are not permitted, without the consent of the synod under whose oversight
they stood as seminarians, to attach themselves to another ecclesiastical
body and there seek a preaching license. We fear that this
life-prolonging medicine will not, after all, take effect for the dear
General Synod, which itself perceives that its days are numbered. Exist,
indeed vegetate, it may still for some time, but as for life, that is
over. The time of ignorance God may well overlook, and may meanwhile also
give blessing to him who errs in simplicity; but when the night has
passed and the day has come, then he too must put on the weapons of the
light, or he makes war against God.

Papist Orthodoxy and Consistency. So we read in the Oertel Catholic
Kirchenzeitung of New York, of January 22 of this year: "Protestantism
itself is, by its own principle, branded with a supremely reprehensible
injustice; for if it is true that one can be saved through every
Christian confession, and thus also through the Catholic doctrine, then
to what purpose were the Reformation and all the evils which the
splitting of the faith has brought upon Christendom? It is otherwise,
however, with the Catholic Church. She teaches according to the word of
Christ: he that believeth not shall be damned. (Mark 16:16.) She teaches
further that faith is a saving faith only when it embraces the full truth
revealed by Christ." A few lines further down it says in the same
article: "The Church would fall into contradiction with herself if she
wished to damn, or declare damned, any living person. For she does
indeed teach — grounded on God's word (!!) — that even heathens can be
saved under certain conditions, namely when they are in blameless
ignorance of the Christian truth and faithfully fulfill the natural
law." Mr. Oertel hereby proves again, as so often, that he knows neither
the doctrine of the Protestants nor that of the Roman Church, or that he
is a wretched Jesuit who writes otherwise than he thinks; or he proves
both thereby. Does he know, or does he not know, that according to truly
Protestant doctrine people are indeed saved in the various Christian —
even erring — communions, yet not through the false faith of these
erring communions, but through the one faith that alone brings
salvation, which many carry in their hearts despite their false church?
That, on the other hand, Roman pseudo-theologians at one time say that
one can be saved only through the Roman superstition, but then again
that nevertheless even a devout heathen may indeed be saved — this is
true; for indeed the grossest Pelagianism is found united, as artfully as
intimately, with a constant chatter about the faith that alone brings
salvation, in the Papacy