# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1847 03 30_S85
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Der Lutheraner.

"God's Word and Luther's teaching shall never pass away."

Volume 3.

Edited by C. F. W. Walther.

St. Louis, Mo., April 6, 1847.

No. 16.

Terms: The Lutheraner appears once every two weeks, at a subscription price of one dollar for out-of-town subscribers, of which they must pay half in advance and bear the postage themselves. — In St. Louis, each individual number is sold for 5 cents.

(Submitted.)
Return!
A Call to Those Who Have Fallen Away from the Lutheran Church.

"Return, return again! thus once the prophet cried,
when Israel had blasphemed the Holy One's majesty,
when it had turned from the Law to idolatry,
filling the dear, precious land with abominations.

Return, you wayward ones! why do you stand so far off?
O Israel! do you so forget the faithful Lord,
who led you out of Egypt with a mighty hand,
and who with rich grace has so often touched your heart?

You have broken the covenant, sinned against the commandment,
therefore God's jealous zeal threatens you with ruin, curse, and death;
unless you turn back again and confess your guilt,
shun the foreign altar, and plead for forgiveness."

So the prophets call also to you who have been led astray,
you who in false sects seek rest in vain.
The spirit of lies has confounded you with its poison,
so that you have forsaken the truth and now wander in darkness.

The holy church laments, she who bore you in pain;
she laments, as Rachel once did, over her band of children:
"I have raised you, nourished you, taught you, baptized you —
what have I done to deserve that you now run away from me?"

You have grieved the bride whom Christ has loved,
and in doing so you have yourselves deeply grieved the bridegroom,
yet he still speaks, full of grace: "I have reconciled you;
ah, that you would now recognize what serves your peace!"

They have gone after you, the bridegroom and the bride,
and have long looked for you with longing.
O see their tears upon the holy countenance!
They plead: "Return again!" — and do you not hear it?
H. Fick.

The right to judge doctrine belongs not only to preachers, but to all Christians.

Concerning the discerning of doctrine, Luther writes, and the judging of it, belongs to each and every Christian; and indeed to such a degree that whoever infringes upon this right by so much as a hair's breadth is accursed. For Christ himself has established this right in many invincible sayings — for example, Matthew 7: "Beware of the false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing." He surely speaks this word against the teachers, to the people, and gives them the charge that they should avoid their false teachings. But how can they avoid them without recognizing them? And how can they recognize them where they have no power to judge? Now, however, he not only gives them power to judge, but also commands it of them, so that this single passage can be enough to refute the sayings of all the popes, all the (church) fathers, all the councils (synods), and all the schools, who have ascribed the right to judge and to decide solely to the bishops and clergy, and have robbed the people — that is, the church, the queen — of it in a godless and church-robbing manner. For there Christ stands and says: "Beware of the false prophets."

With this almost every syllable of the prophets agrees; for what else do the prophets do than warn the people not to believe the false prophets? But what else is this warning than a showing that the people have the power to judge and to discern? What else is it than a making known and an affirming that they must pay heed to their own conduct and must always stand on guard against all the teachings of all their priests and teachers?

Therefore we conclude here: as often as Moses, Joshua, David, and all the prophets in the Old Testament call the people back from false prophets and warn them, just so often do they proclaim, command, declare, and confirm this same right — the right to judge and discern the teachings of all people. And this they do in countless places...

Let us return again to the New Testament. When Christ says in John 10: "My sheep hear my voice, but they do not hear the voice of strangers, but flee from them" — does he not thereby make the sheep judges, and place the power of discernment upon the hearers? Likewise Paul, when he says in 1 Corinthians 14: "Let one speak, and let the others judge; but if a revelation is made to another who sits by, let the first be silent" — does he not thereby make the hearer a judge? So too, whatever Christ commands in Matthew 24 and elsewhere concerning false apostles and false teachers, and whatever John commands concerning the testing of spirits, all of this comes down to this: that the people have the power to judge, to test, to condemn, and indeed with full right. For just as each person believes rightly or wrongly at his own peril, so also each has a fair duty to see to it that he believes rightly; and even common human understanding, as well as the necessity of salvation, shows that the judgment concerning doctrine must necessarily lie with the hearers. Otherwise it is written in vain: "Test everything, and hold fast to what is good." Likewise: "The spiritual man judges all things, and is himself judged by no one." But every Christian is spiritual through the Spirit of Christ. "All things are yours," he says, "whether Apollos, or Paul, or Cephas" — that is, you have the power to judge over all their words and deeds.

Now you may see from what kind of spirit those wicked, abominable councils proceeded, which dared to act against such important passages and thunderbolts of Scripture, and against the plain sayings, in ascribing to the popes throughout the whole right to judge and to discern, and also to command and to make laws. Without doubt these were thoughts of Satan, by which he has flooded the world with the effects of error and set up the abomination in the holy place; and by which afterward, in the most secure tyranny, the power to judge was taken from the people — a power which would otherwise have made false teachers afraid — so that at last, through the foolish and superstitious obedience and patience of the people, the way was paved for all errors and abominations to break in everywhere.

And since I here call to mind my "Heinz" (King Henry of England, who had written against Luther) and the sophists, who base everything, along with their faith, on the length of time and the multitude of people — it cannot well be denied that the tyranny of this usurped right has lasted well over a thousand years; for already at the Council of Nicaea, which was after all still the best of them, they already began to make laws and to arrogate this right to themselves. And from that time on it has become so entrenched that nothing is more current or more firmly established — since it can be proven by the multitude of people and by long custom — than this right; so that nowadays scarcely anyone can be found who does not hold it to be wholesome, just, and divine. But here you see that it is nothing but church robbery and godlessness against the plainest and most invincible Scripture of God.

Therefore, since so great an error and such church robbery has, with such length of time and such a multitude of people — who either gave it legal standing, or were led astray, or simply went along with it — prevailed against the truth of God, I will here, for the benefit of all sophists and papists, at once pulverize their chief ground to dust and thereby stop their mouths, so that they may see why God does not wish us to believe in any creature, whether it be