# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1847 03 23_S81
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

...thereby received into God's grace and into Christendom." Against this Oecolampadius wrote in his letter to Haller: "Many had taken offense that they signed these articles; and it seems not without reason, so far as the article on Baptism is concerned, and they would not have signed it either, had not the correctness of it been made clear from other statements: they called Baptism a work of God, because God instituted it, even though it is performed outwardly and by men, just as a herald does something by the king's command." Out of the word "fördern" [to further] he made "erfordern" [to require]. "Yes! he adds, the children would be taken into God's grace through Baptism, only insofar as those standing by are reminded of this through it, etc." Zwingli testifies in his confession of the year 1530, which he sent unbidden to the Diet of Augsburg, concerning the sacraments in general: "I believe, indeed I know, that all the sacraments so utterly confer no grace that they do not even convey it, or hold it forth... The sacraments are administered as a public testimony of the grace which each individual already possesses beforehand... I believe that the sacrament is a sign of a holy thing, namely of the grace that has already occurred... The sacraments are only holy ceremonies; but if we were to hold otherwise concerning the sacraments, as though they cleansed inwardly when used outwardly, then a new Judaism would already be present." Of Baptism Zwingli confesses: "The Church, through Baptism, publicly receives him who has already been received beforehand through grace. Baptism therefore confers no grace, but only testifies to the Church that he to whom it is given has already received it." Thus the Reformed nevertheless fell back again into their former error, that Baptism is a mere sign or password among Christians, although they had solemnly recanted this at Marburg.

They proved themselves still more faithless in the doctrine of the Holy Supper. For although they had remained at odds with the Lutherans on this point at Marburg, they had nevertheless promised one another to refrain from harsh writings and words. Yet this promise too was broken first by Zwingli, for he reviled the Lutherans as papists and as men who looked back to the fleshpots of Egypt and chewed Christ's body with human teeth. At the same time he boasted that he would make his teaching on this matter as clear to the Emperor in a few words as the sun in the sky, and that he would let his arguments loose like battering rams against his adversaries. Yet these "battering rams" were nothing other than the same old, wretched goats he had already loosed during the Marburg Colloquy, and which Luther, as is well known, rebuffed so thoroughly that he had to fall silent.

Concerning original sin, the fourth Marburg article states: "We believe that original sin is inborn and inherited in us from Adam, and is such a sin that it condemns all men, and that if Jesus Christ had not come to our aid with His death and life, we would have had to die eternally on account of it, and could not have come to God's kingdom and blessedness." Against this Zwingli asserts in his Augsburg Confession: "My opinion concerning original sin is as follows. That is rightly called sin which is committed against the Law. For where there is no Law, there is also no transgression. And where there is no transgression, there is also no sin in the proper sense, inasmuch as sin is a crime, a wrong, a misdeed, or a guilt. I confess, therefore, that our father committed a sin, that is, a crime, a misdeed, and an outrage. But those who descend from him have not sinned in the same way; for which of us has been in Paradise and eaten the forbidden apple with his teeth? We must therefore admit, whether we wish to or not, that original sin, as it exists in the children of Adam, is no actual sin, as has already been shown, for it is no sin against the Law. It is therefore properly only a disease and a condition. A disease, because we too fall in the same way as he who fell out of self-love. A condition, because we too are born as servants and children of wrath and are subject to death, just as he became a servant and is subject to death. Although I have nothing against calling this disease and this condition sin, after Paul's custom." Likewise he says it is wrong to condemn the children of Christian parents, or even of the heathen, on account of original sin.

According to Zwingli, then, original sin is sin only in name; in reality it is nothing more than a disease. Whoever can so brazenly assert this against God's Word — which teaches with the clearest and plainest statements that original sin is truly and actually sin, which would also condemn us to eternal death, had not Christ redeemed us from it — such a man can also not consider himself bound by his own word, promise, and signature, but must act unscrupulously and break his covenant.

Thus Zwingli likewise shows himself in the doctrine of the external Word. In the eighth Marburg article he had confessed: "That the Holy Spirit, properly speaking, gives no one faith or His gift without preceding preaching or the spoken word, or the Gospel of Christ, but that through and with such spoken word He works and creates faith, where and in whom He wills. Romans 10." Against this he says in his Augsburg Confession: "The Holy Spirit needs no guides nor vehicles, for He Himself is the power and the guidance by which everything is guided; He needs not to be guided: nor do we ever read anything of the kind in Holy Scripture, that outward things surely bring the Spirit with them... We see, to speak canonically or rightly of it, that among all peoples the outward preaching of the apostles and evangelists or bishops preceded faith. Which, however, we ascribe to the Spirit alone."

Enough of this! We now understand the indignation of the otherwise so gentle Melanchthon, who, after reading Zwingli's Augsburg Confession, wrote to Luther about it: "You would simply say of this that Zwingli has gone mad. He is publicly renewing his old errors concerning the use of the sacraments and original sin."

But notwithstanding this clear evidence that the Reformed had already broken their promise, dear Luther nevertheless continued to pray for those in error. Only then did he give up all hope, when after Zwingli's death a book of his appeared which he had not dared to publish during his lifetime, in which he confessed the most manifest unbelief and rationalism. Let us hear Luther himself on this, in his brief confession concerning the Holy Sacrament against the fanatics, of the year 1544, where he reports more fully as follows: "It is true, it is now fifteen years since Zwingli and Oecolampadius, and some of us, came together at Marburg (1529), and agreed on many articles which are altogether Christian, as the printed sheet testifies; but on the article of the Sacrament it remained stuck, so that we were to be good friends, so that the harsh writing against one another might rest, in hope that God, in time, through our prayer, might grant harmonious understanding on this point as well; and I had reasonable hope, because Zwingli and his party yielded so many good articles, that in time the one remaining article would also be found. And so there was a stillness between us as regards writing against one another for several years. Meanwhile Zwingli was wretchedly slain in battle by that party of the papists, and Oecolampadius, far too weak to bear such a misfortune, also died of grief over it. This gave me myself such heartache for two nights that I might easily have succumbed as well; for I had good hope of their improvement, and yet had to be extremely troubled for their souls, because, still sunk in error, they thus perished in their sins.

But after Zwingli's death a little book came out, which he was said to have composed shortly before his end, entitled Christianae fidei expositio ad Christianum Regem (An Exposition of the Christian Faith to a Christian King). This was supposed to be the choicest specimen of all his previous books. And that it had to be his own, Zwingli's own, was shown by the manner of his wild, unruly speech, and his former opinion. At this little book I was greatly alarmed, not for my own sake, but for his. For because, after our agreement at Marburg, he dealt with us with a false heart and mouth, he must (as still now) despair of the salvation of his soul, if he died in such a frame of mind — notwithstanding that his disciples and successors made him out to be a saint and a martyr