# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1847 06 29_S120
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

lament, yet we do not do so alone. Over there are many devout Christians who plead unceasingly with the Lord that he deliver his captive people, and God hears prayer. — But tell me, how was it even possible that the consistories arose?

S. You know how clearly and forcefully our confessional writings, and Luther — for instance in the treatise "That a Christian assembly or congregation has the right and power to judge all doctrine and to call, install, and depose teachers," and further in a letter "concerning how a Christian assembly should choose and install ministers, addressed to the council and congregation of the city of Prague" — preach the freedom of the church on the basis of the Word of God.

E. And yet that freedom was lost.

S. At the time of the Reformation, the congregations lacked too much of the necessary Christian understanding for them to have been able to govern themselves everywhere.

E. To that point, indeed, the papist priests had brought things.

S. It was then the godly princes and pious authorities of that time who, out of love, guided the affairs of the congregations, which trustingly left their rights to the consistories, especially since these consisted, besides clergy, also of such lay assessors who shared the faith of the church and sincerely sought its best interest.

E. So the consistorial constitution was then entirely suited to the needs of that time?

S. Certainly. It was, in the hand of the Lord, an instrument by which he blessed his people. But the congregations did not stay watchful, and so church authority passed more and more, with time, into the hands of the civil government, even though individual Lutherans protested most earnestly against this, saying that Christ had not rescued his own from papal slavery in order to make them servants of the politici (the civil government).*)

E. Well, that sounds splendid! Ah, would that they had all testified thus!

S. Then the church would have remained free. But since they did not, church law finally even set up the abominable doctrine that the princes were the "supreme bishops" of the church.

E. No, surely that cannot be. By the same right the pope and bishop call themselves the bridegroom of the church.

S. So now the "royal, grand-ducal, ducal consistories" govern the Lutheran church of Germany in the name of the princes.

E. So then the kings have taken the dominion and the honor from Christ and arrogated it to themselves.

S. You have surely heard of His Majesty the King of Bavaria; his life is well known; he is a papist, and as such is the supreme bishop of the Lutheran church in his land. His Lutheran pastors are indeed literally called "Royal Pastors!"

*) Gurricke, Kirchengeschichte II, 343.

E. You are joking.

S. Unfortunately it is the bitterest truth. But that is not the only example. It is worse still in Prussia. There the previous king personally governed the church, composed his own articles of faith, and even founded his own church, the Evangelical [Church], in that as supreme bishop he united the Lutheran and Reformed churches.

E. Isn't that the same thing that here calls itself "united," and "Reformed-Lutheran" and "Lutheran-Reformed"?

S. It is the very same mixture, which arises out of the error that it is a matter of indifference what we receive in the Holy Supper. This indifference is the supreme article of faith on which the Union rests — its true foundation.

E. That does not seem to me a very lasting foundation, though. Did the Prussian Lutherans, then, grasp this profound doctrine of their king?

S. He attempted, through his spiritual and worldly soldiers, to explain it to them, but in vain.

E. What do you mean by that?

S. Well, first his spiritual subjects — that is, his high royal consistorial counselors, professors, and pastors — had to prove to the Lutherans the article of faith concerning the Union, and when they still would not see it, he sent them his royal soldiers.

E. And did these preach properly about the Union?

S. Yes, with bayonets. The king's spiritual soldiers had asserted that brotherly love was actually the inner ground of the Union, and now the worldly soldiers had to demonstrate this outwardly as well, by forcibly introducing the king's liturgy and punishing those who resisted with imprisonment, fines, and forced billeting.

E. In a similar way, the Roman pope formerly used to prove his self-made articles of faith to our forefathers.

S. It is indeed clearly Caesaropapism, that is, worldly papism.

E. What did our brothers in the faith in Prussia do about this?

S. Many suffered as martyrs and protested as men.

E. And how did the Prussian pope-king respond to that?

S. As supreme bishop he had the Lutherans' churches taken from them. His whole pope-king church cried out against the malicious Lutherans, because they would not burn incense to his image and would not partake of his Supper. Unspeakable misery, tribulation, and anguish of conscience came upon them; by the thousands they emigrated and sought in North America and South Australia the liberty of conscience which their fatherland denied them.

E. Is it perhaps better there now?

S. The present Prussian king has branded the Lutheran church a sect; it has as much freedom as the Jews.

E. Has it come to this with the church of the Lord, which in the course of the centuries has received the name "Lutheran," but which according to its confession is one with the one holy Christian church? Has it come to this with her children, that they must now flee to the mountains? For the abomination again stands in the holy place. God had driven it out through Luther, but the kings with their servants have carried it back in. Yes, the end draws near, the last times are here; the last, the hardest battle is at hand. The kings were guardians and the princes were nursing-mothers of the church, but what are they now? Robbers and tyrants, who have torn from the Lord his honor, and from his church her royal crown, her right, and her freedom. Now she must serve — the noble queen — those who should have served her, for the scepter of the godless rules over her; her adornment and her joy are gone; forsaken, rejected, and driven out, she laments day and night in mourning garments, and there is no one to guide her, and her enemy struts about greatly. O Lord Jesus Christ, our sole heavenly King, our sole supreme Shepherd and Bishop of our souls, look upon your vineyard! The wild boars have rooted it up, and the wild beasts have laid it waste. Look upon your church in the East; she languishes in Babylonian captivity.

S. Take comfort, Erich; she is founded upon the holy mountains.

E. The Roman papacy rises, a hellish monster with lying powers, strengthened again out of the abyss, and stretches its bloodthirsty claws over Europe and America, while many, deceived, lust after its seductive beauty. The Greek-Catholic pope-emperor of Russia persecutes the church with slavish despotic harshness; German pope-kings have fettered her with the bonds of worldly power; false doctrine, unbelief, and loose philosophy gain the upper hand in the world: truly Gog and Magog already surround the beloved city. Ah, I see nothing but night.

S. And I see nothing but sunshine. Did not Christ have to enter into his glory through suffering?

E. It is true; that is why the church too had to conquer only through martyrdom, and that is why she must now also fight her way to her freedom and her right through martyrdom.

S. So it must be; we must enter the kingdom of God through much tribulation. There must be suffering, but there must also be victory, for our faith is the victory that has overcome the world.

E. That is the old rule.

S. And besides this, take the old, ever-young promise: The LORD said unto my Lord: Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies the footstool of your feet. The LORD will send the scepter of your kingdom out of Zion. Rule in the midst of your enemies. The LORD at your right hand will shatter kings in the day of his wrath.