# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1847 04 20_S93
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Rev. Mr. Schmidt.
Dear Brother!

Since a notice published earlier in the Lutheran Church paper made it publicly known that we, the undersigned, as ministers of the Lutheran Church, at the celebration of the dedication of a church in Toledo, gave the aforementioned building the name "Evangelical-Lutheran and Reformed," and since we have also learned that this proceeding has already caused offense to our Lutheran Church, we would like hereby once more, for the sake of the cause of our Lord Jesus Christ and his Church, of our Lutheran Zion, to lay before the readers of the Church paper a few words concerning this course of action, for their consideration. It is obvious that the above-mentioned notice can show its reader nothing other than a Unionistic course of action. How could it be otherwise, since nowadays, among the many different Christian denominations, one can hardly think of anything else under the name of the denomination itself, as well as under the name of each individual congregation, than that it is the title page of its confession! Although we, unfortunately, to the offense of the Church, placed upon the Word of God proclaimed in the congregation—that is, upon the confession of the Evangelical-Lutheran Church laid down therein—through the aforementioned name a false, that is, the so-called Unionistic title page, our conscience is nevertheless free in this matter, in that we have withheld nothing of the truth in Word and Sacrament and have remained faithful therein to the confessional writings of our Lutheran Church. We could, indeed, still shed further light on this course of action with various excuses, and prove from the church record book and the history of the congregation that, after it had been gathered by us as an "Evangelical-Lutheran" congregation and had borne this name for over three years, it gave itself, at the incorporation necessary for the church building, without its pastor being present, the name "Evangelical-Lutheran and Reformed," and that the circumstances of the congregation compelled us to let the church, which had once been built under the said name, keep that same name at the dedication. To this one might also perhaps have asked whether, in such cases, in peaceable congregations, one might not, following the example of the Apostle in 1 Cor. 9:20-23, become all things to all people, so that some of them might be won and helped toward life; or whether, in such cases, according to Rom. 14:1, the weak in faith ought not to be received. Especially when, as was the case in this congregation, members of the Reformed Church are willing, in a constitution drawn up for them, to subscribe to the Evangelical Lutheran confession of faith, and through it to let themselves in all willingness be led into all truth, though admittedly still weak in faith, and, for example, not yet able immediately to renounce the name "Reformed." However, this would not cover over the mistake we once made, and we hereby publicly confess that, after a closer examination of the matter, we have come to the conviction and resolve that cases of this kind shall never again occur among us, and that it is better, amid the stormy movements of our present time, to apply that other teaching of the Apostle, 1 Thess. 5:22, namely: "Avoid all appearance of evil." Finally, it should be noted that the aforementioned congregation in Toledo, upon the installation of Pastor Lochner, to whom it was entrusted, unanimously returned to its original name, on which occasion each member additionally obligated himself, without reservation, to unite with the Lutheran Church.

Respectfully, etc.
G. Cronenwett.
Fr. Schmid.

Concerning Hotheaded Preachers.

Of these Luther writes the following in his exposition of Psalm 8 (v. 3):

There are many anxious and useless preachers, who burn, are hotheaded, and want to push their way through headlong, not knowing that it is one thing to plant and to water, and another thing to give the growth, 1 Cor. 3:6-7. As soon as they have said it, they want it also to be done at once; for whom it is not so much a matter of desiring to be heard because they speak God's Word, but rather that they themselves are the speakers of the word; they want, therefore, that the instrument be praised more than the one whose word they are to preach purely, without any self-seeking of their own.

Of the same kind, too, is this trait, that some set themselves out, with choice, well-considered words, to sting and bite now this one, now that one, and soon to convert them; whereupon it comes to pass, by the wondrous counsel of God, that they accomplish and effect nothing less than exactly what they had intended. For man feels by nature that the word is directed against him and at him with cunning, and smeared with human dung, as Ezekiel 4:12 says—that is, defiled with human evil desire and inclinations; therefore he feels disgust and horror at it and becomes rather embittered than converted. But then a man is moved more, when he hears the word preached freely and honestly, without any cunning of the preacher and teacher; for he wills that the word be preached freely and honestly to the crowd within the congregation, and that it should touch and strike those whom the preacher himself neither knows nor is acquainted with, as we read many examples of this here and there.

Therefore it belongs to us only to lend our mouth to the word, while it belongs to God to give the accomplishing and the growth. Thus Christ did, when he sent out two of his disciples to fetch the donkey and the young colt, Matt. 21:2-7; he told them beforehand that they would find them, though the disciples had not seen them and knew nothing about them, yet they went and were willing to bring the unknown animals. Therefore we should lay aside this foolish confidence, as though we ourselves could effect something in the hearers by the word; but rather we should apply ourselves diligently to prayer, that God alone, without us, may make the word powerful and effective in the hearers—the word which He speaks in and through the preacher and teacher. For it is He who speaks, Matt. 10:20. It is He who hears, and who works all in all, 1 Cor. 12:6; we are His vessels and instruments, which have power neither to give nor to take, except that He give and take. (Luther's Works, Halle ed., IV, 763-65.)

—

Luther on the Necessity of Sanctification.

The Antinomians*) preach very finely, and (as I cannot think otherwise) with genuine earnestness, of the grace of Christ, of the forgiveness of sins, and of whatever else is to be said concerning the article of redemption. But this consequence they flee as they would the devil—namely, that they should tell people about the third article, sanctification, that is, about the new life in Christ. For they think that people should not be frightened or grieved, but should always be preached to comfortingly about grace and the forgiveness of sins in Christ, and that one should by all means avoid these and similar words: "Do you hear this—you want to be a Christian, and yet remain an adulterer, a whoremonger, a drunken sow, arrogant, covetous, a usurer, envious, vengeful, malicious," etc.; but instead they say this: "Do you hear this—are you an adulterer, a fornicator, a miser, or some other kind of sinner? Only believe, and you are saved; you need not fear the Law; Christ has fulfilled it all."

Dear friend, tell me now, is this not granting the antecedent and denying the consequent? (that is, does this not mean admitting the premise while denying what follows from it?) Indeed, it means taking away and annulling Christ in that very act, at the very moment he is preached most highly. And it is all mere yes and no in one and the same matter. For such a Christ is nothing and nowhere—one who died for such sinners as do not, after the forgiveness of sins, cease from their sins and lead a new life. Thus they preach Christ, quite finely, according to a Nestorian and Eutychian dialectic (the art of reasoning), such that Christ both is and yet is not; and they are indeed "fine Easter preachers, but shameful Pentecost preachers." For they preach nothing de sanctificatione et vivificatione Spiritus Sancti, of the sanctification of the Holy Spirit, but only of the redemption of Christ—although Christ (whom they rightly preach highly) is Christ, or has earned redemption from sin and death, precisely so that the Holy Spirit should make us into new men out of the old Adam, that we, dead to sin, and to righteousness

*) Antinomians, in German, opponents of the Law, were people who taught that in the New Covenant the Law was no longer to be preached, and that even repentance was to be taught solely from the Gospel.