# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1846 12 22_S101
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Der Lutheraner.

"God's Word and Luther's teaching shall never pass away, now or ever."

Published by C. F. W. Walther.

Volume 3.

St. Louis, Mo., May 18, 1847.

No. 9.

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

The teaching of the Gospel is not false, although in Christendom there is so much error, offense, factions, and sects.

"The Three Creeds," vol. XXII, p. 106, Leipzig.

Now there are some vexatious, shameful people who can quite scornfully reproach holy Christendom, saying that so much discord, sects, error, heresy, and offense are found within it — as though the teaching of the Gospel should therefore rightly be considered false and wrong, because Christendom is supposed to be harmonious and peaceable. These are very wise, excellent people, who can teach the Holy Spirit how he ought to govern the Christian Church. Indeed, dear friend, if the devil did not wish to bite Christ in the heel, or had to stop doing so, one could easily have a very quiet, peaceable Church. But now that he is Christ's enemy, and ceaselessly stirs up war, sects, and rebellion in His Church, great violence is done to the dear Church when she is blamed for such discord and wild disorder, which she does not cause but must suffer...

It is said that no one can keep peace any longer than his neighbor wishes. The dear Church must indeed be without peace, if she will not listen to the enemy of her Lord Jesus Christ — how else should she act toward him? The heel-biter, the devil, will not rest, nor let his head-crusher have peace; so the head-crusher, our Lord, will not tolerate such a heel-biter either. Be clever and wise, then, and meddle in this quarrel — see what you get for it: you shall receive a peacemaker's wages, in that Christ condemns you and the devil tears you apart. Therefore let it go as it will; do not meddle between door and hinge — you will not reconcile Christ and Belial; their enmity is sworn too hard against each other; one must in the end go under, and the other remain; it cannot come out otherwise. Before Christ's coming, the world was as full of manifold idolatry as no dog is full of fleas around St. John's Day, so that it swarmed and teemed with idols everywhere; yet no devil drove out another, no idol trod on another's head, nor did one bite another in the heel — they could well tolerate and bear one another side by side. So much so that the Romans even gathered together all the idols out of the whole world and built a temple which they called the Pantheon, the temple of all the gods. For the worldly-wise lords wanted to have all the gods in their city. But when this true God, Jesus Christ, came, him they would not tolerate. Is it not a strange thing, to accept all gods, and to reject and persecute this one alone? All the others are quiet and keep peace among themselves; but when this one comes, the game and the discord begin — then all the gods want to go mad, together with their servants the Romans, and beat to death apostles, martyrs, and everyone who dares to name this Christ. To the servants of the other gods they do no harm, but show them every honor and esteem. But had Christ, too, been a devil like the other idols, oh how gladly and gloriously the devils would have let him be accepted and worshiped alongside them. But now, since they all rage and rave against him, they thereby confess that he must be the one true God, who treads on their head and storms their court, overcomes them, and divides up their household goods. Then they cry out and bite him in the heel, blaming him for stirring up discord at Rome and throughout the world, and imagine they are performing a great service to God by persecuting him so fiercely and shedding so much blood. Yes indeed — if we do what the devil wants and let Christ go, we shall have good peace from him; for he can well leave us all sorts of idolatry and error — only this his head-crusher he cannot bear. So too, under the papacy, the world has been just as full of factions and sects as before under the heathen; there are so many kinds of orders, foundations, churches, pilgrimages, brotherhoods, and so forth, that they cannot be counted. These have all had enmity among themselves; the pope has confirmed them all, and they have had to be called holy orders, holy estates, holy pillars, holy lights of Christendom. But now the Gospel comes and preaches of the one common order of Christendom, which in Christ is one body, without sects; for here (says St. Paul) there is neither Jew nor Greek, neither Franciscan nor Carthusian, and so forth, but all are one, and one in Christ. At this the holy orders rage and rave against this one order of Christ, and against no other; thereby they confess that they are the church of factions and the devil's order, and that this order alone must be the true order. Yes indeed — if we were willing to abandon the common order of Christ, and to teach whatever pleased the rat-king and faction-king, the pope, together with his factions, we should have peace with all honors. St. Bernard says, on the saying in Isaiah 38:17, "Ecce in pace amaritudo mea amarissima" (that is: In peace my sorrow is greatest of all): that the Church never stands in worse case than when she has peace and rest. And it is indeed true that when Christians are not at war with the devil, or heel-biter, that is no good sign. For it means that the heel-biter has peace and has his will. But when the heel-biter rages and has no peace, that is a sign that he must go under, and that Christ is storming his court. Therefore, whoever wishes to see or recognize the Christian Church in such a way that she stands in every respect without cross, without heresy, without factions, in quiet rest, will never see her so, or else he must take the false devil's church for the true Church. Christ himself says: Offenses must come, but woe to him through whom they come. And St. Paul: There must be heresies or factions, so that those who are approved may become manifest; one would also have to do away first with the Lord's Prayer, in which we pray that his name be hallowed, his kingdom come, his will be done, and that we be not led into temptation, and so on. For if there is to be no more blasphemous teaching under God's name, then it is time to stop praying "hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come," and so forth. But they will not listen, and take offense again and again; they simply want to make a church the way they would like to have it, quiet and peaceable. So God, too, pays no attention at all to their offense; he lets them go on taking offense, and continues on, and makes the Church the way he wants her to be — until they retain neither church nor window, neither plaster nor stone thereon, as also happened to the Jews at Jerusalem with their temple. Therefore their Lord's Prayer would have to read thus: Thy name is already hallowed. Thy kingdom has come, thy will has been done — that is: we are holy and perfect, we need no more forgiveness of sins, nor any protection against temptation. For they want no offenses, sects, or unrest