# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_September 1858_S287
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Church and Contemporary History.                    287

who know the doctrine of justification, that Pastor Löhe already fell away
from the chief article ten years ago, and that there is therefore now no more
holding back from saying that he is bound to fall from one error into another,
so long as he does not recognize that fall and return penitently to the
gospel.

     Concerning Dr. Baumgarten's Dismissal from Office and His Theology,
there is an excellent essay in the Rudelbach-Guericke journal (3rd quarterly
number of this year) by the Superintendent Mr. A. Brömel in the Lauenburg
territory. Among other things it says: "Whoever looks at the matter plainly
and without trends of the current spirit will scarcely let himself be
impressed by the phrase-makers, but will rather have to grant the church
government that it did what was its duty. The only question will be whether
Prof. Dr. Baumgarten taught in such a way that the church government had to
step in." That this was indeed so, Brömel shows in what follows in the most
striking manner, declaring, among other things: "Görres once said that in a
garden one plants a shrub so that all the vermin will be drawn to it; so it
seems that in B.'s theology all the perversities now rampant in the
theological garden have gathered." As faith-strengthening as it is that a
man like Brömel speaks thus, so dismaying is it that Dr. Guericke, as editor,
accompanied Brömel's essay, full of salt, with the following note, which
plainly denies the Lutheran faith: "The editorial staff, for its part, must
indeed deeply lament what has happened to Dr. Baumgarten and its
consequences. Does not the saying, 'Adjust yourselves to the times, for it
is an evil time,' hold true of any time, if of our own so weak-kneed one, in
regard to 'deviations from the pure confession' (for the pretext of
'political' motives is plainly meaningless), especially since these are
still by no means wholly diametrical deviations, and the fault lies not at
the altar but in the lecture hall, and most of all since those who cast the
first stone are themselves guilty of no lesser deviation, only toward the
other side. This, however, ought not to have kept the editorial staff from
publishing unabridged the above essay sent in by a contributor." Would to
God that Dr. Guericke had never written this! Or can the times become so
evil that the watchmen and rulers within the church must become unfaithful?
Must let false prophets and murderers of souls have free rein? Or does "a
little leaven" no longer leaven the whole lump? (Quite apart from the fact
that in Baumgarten's theology there is contained not a little, but much,
much leaven!) We must rather say: woe, woe to the church government,
especially under a representative constitution, which does not use the
great church power entrusted to it to protect the poor Christian people,
dearly bought with Christ's blood, from the poison of false teachers, but
which, like an Eli, does not so much as look sourly upon the spiritual
poison-mixing of those who are supposed to raise up the shepherds of the
people! A church government which, on the other hand, does its sworn duty
to the people in this respect, and is attacked on that account, commits, in
our evil time especially, a grave, grave sin. The church government may be
guilty in itself; in this it bears no guilt. Sincere Lutherans will bless it
for this and call upon God that he may enlighten it further and help it out
of its own error as well.

     Koburg. While all the German territorial churches, as a German
periodical writes, are reaching back to their old core hymns, the people of
the land of Koburg are now to have the more than watered-down hymns forced
upon them for the first time. By an order of the ducal territorial
government of April 28 of this year, — in [illegible] contrast to the
content of a petition presented and thoroughly justified by several
clergymen of the land — the "new" Koburg hymnal composed by the late Dr.
Brotschneider in the year 1853, which had until now found acceptance only
in the capital itself and a number of rural congregations, is actually to be
introduced by compulsion into all the schools, and indeed to the exclusion
of all other collections of spiritual or church hymns. May the Lutherans at
last awake and at last put into practice the word of the Apostle: "We must
obey God rather than men." Acts 5:29.

     The Moral and Ecclesiastical Conditions in Mecklenburg have found,
in the Ev. K.-Z., a more thorough discussion, which deserves full attention.