# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1844 10 13_S15
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

2:7; Rev. 2:24) — who do not recognize this, but walk in the simplicity of their heart, who, out of weakness of understanding, do outwardly follow the rebels within the kingdom of God, yet know nothing of the evil cause, and preserve in their heart, through God's grace, the true faith in Christ; of which we find a beautiful picture in 2 Samuel 15:11. But whoever willfully errs, or wishes to persist in an erroneously-believing communion against his conscience, cannot at all comfort himself with the thought that he nevertheless belongs to that fellowship of saints, known to God alone, which is spread over the whole earth. Whoever would say, "You yourself have admitted that one can be saved even within a sect; so I too will remain in it, even though I see that abuses and errors are upheld there," would only be deceiving himself. God's Word says plainly: "Come out from among them, and be ye separate." (Read the whole passage: 2 Corinthians 6:14–18.) Further: "Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravening wolves." (Matt. 7:15.) "My sheep hear my voice — a stranger they will not follow, but will flee from him." (John 10:5, 27.) — It is indeed true that some who unwittingly took poison were nevertheless rescued by a powerful antidote; but can he hope for rescue who willingly drains the poisoned cup to the full? So too are many simple souls preserved in the faith by God's keeping, even though their preachers mix the poison of false doctrine into the Gospel; but how can the one who, knowingly and willfully, seeks out such poisoned spiritual food comfort himself with this divine preservation? Whoever has a calling to enter a plague-house stands there under God's sure protection; but what can he expect who, out of impertinence and willfulness, chooses to linger there and expose himself to the contagion? Does not the one who, after coming to know the truth, wishes to remain in a false church, do something entirely comparable in the spiritual realm? — The true, orthodox Church is the ship of Christ, in which Christ himself guides the helm, his pure, unerring Word serves as the compass, and he steers his believers safely across the roaring sea of this temptation-filled world toward the harbor of blessed eternity; many indeed also save themselves on pieces of wreckage, which the false churches still possess as well, but will he reach the heavenly port through Christ's grace who willfully and obstinately prefers to save himself on a plank rather than seek admission into the ship, from which a thousand helping hands stretch out toward him? — Even if these comparisons cannot be carried through in every respect, we nevertheless believe that they can shed a truly splendid light for those who, upon hearing that many are saved even among the sects, fall into the thought that it makes no difference whether one holds to the orthodox Church or to an erring one, or who stand hesitating at the crossroads in choosing a church fellowship.

But — many will finally ask — why must it be precisely the name "Lutheran"? We answer:

We are well aware that the name alone does not settle the matter, for there are countless people who still call themselves Lutherans today who have nevertheless long since abandoned the doctrine that our Church has set down in its symbols, especially in the unaltered Augsburg Confession and in Luther's Small Catechism. Such false Lutherans, however — precisely because our Church has published these public confessions to the world — are easily distinguished from true Lutherans.

Since we have now recognized that it was Luther, and no other, through whom God, in this latter age, brought again to light and onto the [right] path the pure, unadulterated doctrine of God's Word together with the right use of the Holy Sacraments; and since, furthermore, the community of those who have confessed this pure doctrine of God's Word with heart and mouth has therefore, from of old, been called Lutheran and been known — and still is known — under this name: we can now, with the name Lutheran alone, purely and fully confess the faith we carry in our hearts, and if we were to lay aside this name we would at the very least arouse the strongest suspicion that we were either ashamed of the old Lutheran doctrine, or that we no longer held it to be the sole true doctrine agreeing with God's clear Word, and were secretly devoted in our hearts to some new, false doctrine. Therefore, as dear as the truth is to us, as dear as God's honor is to us, and as dear as the salvation of our souls is to us, so little can we, especially in this time of general confusion, give up the name Lutheran, by which we renounce all the erroneously-believing of every age and publicly confess the right faith of every age.

To be sure, we are charged here with the dreadful accusation that by this we tear apart the body of Christ, renounce our brothers, draw the sword against heirs of that same salvation, and declare them our enemies; but this is a mistake. We only renounce the errors in which so many of our brothers are held captive; and we would indeed be acting unlovingly toward them if we failed to testify loudly against that by which they are in such great danger to their souls. It is, and remains, impossible that what is done in obedience to God's express command could redound to the ruin of the kingdom of God. This command can and must remove every hesitation for a Christian when the question arises what he ought to do in any given case.

But the divine command stands there clearly, that we should not merely carry the faith in our hearts, but also confess it with our mouths. For thus speaks St. Paul, Romans 10:10: "For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation." And thus speaks Christ: "Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven." Matt. 10:32–33. Since, then, we carry the Lutheran faith in our hearts, we must also — if we would be saved and not eternally damned — confess it with our mouths.

So have all upright Lutherans thought and acted in every age. When, among others, George, Margrave of Brandenburg, heard at the time of the Reformation that people were calling him a Lutheran in order to insult him, he declared: "I was not baptized in the name of Dr. Luther; he is not my God and Savior; I do not believe in him, and I am not saved through him; and in that sense, therefore, I am not Lutheran. But when I am asked whether I confess with heart and mouth the doctrine that God has again given me through his salutary instrument, Dr. Luther, then I have no

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hesitation or reluctance to call myself Lutheran, and in this sense I am, and will remain, a Lutheran my whole life long."

As much as Luther, on the other hand, contended against it as an abomination that anyone should call himself Lutheran out of idolatrous trust in his person, it is nevertheless self-evident that even he could not have found it objectionable when a person finds himself in the position of having to distinguish himself from the erroneously-believing, and to confess himself to the orthodox Church, by bearing this name. Of this case the dear man writes as follows: "I see that a good exhortation is needed for those whom Satan is now beginning to persecute; among whom there are some who think they can escape the danger, when they are attacked, by saying: I hold neither with Luther nor with anyone else, but with the holy Gospel, and with the holy or Roman Church — so let them be left in peace — while they still keep my teaching in their hearts as evangelical, and remain with it. Truly, such a confession does not help them, and is just as much a denial of Christ. Therefore I ask that such people take good care. It is true that you should not, upon body and soul, say: I am Lutheran or Papist; for none of these died for you, nor is your master, but Christ alone, and you should confess yourself a Christian. But if you hold that Luther's teaching is evangelical, and the Pope's is unevangelical, then you must not simply cast Luther aside altogether; for otherwise you throw away his teaching along with him, which you nevertheless recognize as Christ's teaching. Rather, you must say: let Luther be a rogue or a saint, that is nothing to me; but his teaching is not his own, but Christ's own. For you see that the tyrants are not merely concerned with killing Luther, but wish to exterminate the doctrine; and it is on account of the doctrine that they rightly lay hold of you, and ask you whether you are called Lutheran. Here you must truly not speak with wavering, reed-like words, but freely confess Christ, whether it was Luther, Claus, or George who preached him. Let the person go, but you must confess the doctrine. So too St. Paul writes to Timothy, 1 Timothy 1:8: 'Be not thou ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner.' If it had been enough for Timothy merely to confess the Gospel, Paul would not have charged him also not to be ashamed of himself — not of Paul's person, but of him who was bound for the Gospel's sake. Now if Timothy had said: I hold neither with Paul nor with Peter, but with Christ — while knowing full well that Peter and Paul taught Christ — he would thereby have denied Christ himself. For Christ says in Matthew 10, concerning those who preach him: 'He that receiveth you receiveth me; and he that despiseth you despiseth me.' Why is that? Because they treat his messengers (who bring his Word) in this way; therefore it is just as if he himself and his Word were being so treated." (Luther's Works, vol. XX, p. 136.)

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Luther's Industry.

The following facts, which Professor Stowe cites in his Biblical Repository, in the article on Luther's writings, prove the admirable industry of this man:

"From 1517 to 1526, the first ten years of the Reformation, the number of his published writings amounted to 300; from 1527 to 1537, the second decade, their number was 232; and from 1537 to 1546, the year of his death, 183 writings were published by him. This gives, over these 29 years, a total of 715 writings — an average of 25 per year, or one book every 14 days of his public life. To be sure, he did not write all these works with his own hand; many of his published works were taken down by his students from Luther's oral lectures; it is also true that several of Luther's writings are only short treatises, but many of them are also large and thoroughly worked-out books. Given the circumstances under which he wrote, the translation of the Bible alone would have been a gigantic task, even had he devoted his entire lifetime to it alone."

What, then, are we to think of certain people who seek to arouse dread of Luther and his teaching among the common people by saying that Luther was a man who caroused day and night, ate and drank well, loved a merry, idle life, and therefore left the monastery and took a wife? Can so many, and such, books as Luther wrote possibly be written by a life of riotous living and revelry?!

A Christian Is Always Becoming, and Never Having Become.

Thus it is with the Christian life: that whoever has begun it does not consider himself to have already attained, but rather stretches forward and continually presses on, so that he may lay hold of it. Hence Paul says, Phil. 3:13–14: "Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." For indeed nothing is more harmful to a believer than to imagine that he has already attained it, and that it is no longer necessary to keep seeking. For this is precisely how it happens that many fall back, and wither and grow slack through complacency and idleness.

Thus Bernard also says: "To stand still on the way of God is the same as going backward." Therefore, whoever has begun to be a Christian is still obliged to bear this in mind:

A Christian is