# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_M rz 1858_S75
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

On the Divisions in the Lutheran Congregations Here. 75

John 10:5: "and a stranger they will not follow, but will flee from him." Luther (XVII, 2440): "Whoever knows that his pastor teaches Zwinglian doctrine should shun him, and rather go without the sacrament his whole life long, rather than receive it from him, yes, rather die and suffer everything over it." (Page 2446): "And in sum, to come away from these matters, it is dreadful for me to hear that in one and the same church, or at one and the same altar, both parties should take and receive the same sacrament, and one party should believe that it receives mere bread and wine, while the other believes it receives the true body and blood of Christ. And I often doubt whether it can be believed that a preacher or pastor could be so hardened and malicious as to keep silent about this and let both parties go on, each in his own delusion, thinking they receive the same sacrament, each according to his own faith, etc. If there is such a one, he must have a heart harder than stone, steel, and diamond; he must be an apostle of wrath. For Turks and Jews are much better, who deny our sacrament and confess it freely; for by that we remain undeceived by them and fall into no idolatry. But these fellows would have to be the very worst archfiends, who give me mere bread and wine and let me hold it for the body and blood of Christ, and so miserably deceive me. That would be too hot and too harsh; God will soon strike at that. Therefore whoever has such preachers, or trusts himself to them, let him be warned against them as against the devil incarnate himself." Further,

2 John 10-11: "If any one comes to you and does not bring this doctrine, do not receive him into your house, nor even greet him. For whoever greets him takes part in his evil deeds."

We see that the same holy apostle who otherwise so urgently exhorts to brotherly love: "Beloved, let us love one another, ... whoever does not love does not know God ... My beloved, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth" — that this same apostle, whom surely no one would dare accuse of harsh, inconsiderate, Old-Lutheran ways, forbids in the most decided terms all brotherly fellowship with those who do not have pure doctrine; one is to neither "receive into the house" nor "greet" such people. Oh, what heroes of love there are in the Lutheran church, how well they know how to strut about with "sweet words and splendid speeches"; such Bible passages as ours they do not know, do not recognize, do not heed — that is too coarse for them, wholly unsuited to American conditions; that is only something for the Old Lutherans, for the "green" Germans fresh off the boat; they, on the other hand, are with their brotherly love far beyond the apostle John himself — even when someone comes and does not bring the pure doctrine, he is still to them a "dear, dear brother."

Luther says (IX, 455): "Some uncomprehending spirits pretend