# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1847 06 29_S121
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

E. The Scripture must be fulfilled, even in our days.

S. Let us take comfort in that, Erich; let us never forget the land of our fathers, for God's grace and its blessing have given us here true, genuine freedom of the church. May God also deliver our brothers from the tyrant's yoke.

E. Yes, let us pray, hope, and hold out in this until our last breath.

The sun sank in the clear western sky; the endless prairies filled with white mist, while the river at the foot of the hill flowed on, growing darker in the shadow of the tall primeval forests that crowned its banks. Deep stillness reigned; the two friends sat hand in hand in silence and watched the star of day as it, with its reddish rays, took leave of them once more in friendly greeting for the last time.

"Let us go, Siegfried," said Erich, rising, "night has fallen over our conversation; already the dew is falling and the cold wind is blowing."

(To be continued.)

(Submitted.)

"The Protestant Church as a Convert, that is, understood to be on the way to the Catholic Church."

Under this heading the "Wahrheitsfreund" [Friend of Truth], vol. X, no. 31, p. 242, writes as follows:

"This theme, which sounds paradoxical to many, even ridiculous to many, I wish only to touch upon by way of suggestion; for existing circumstances and institutions forbid going into detail. But I will express myself briefly, gently, clearly, and truthfully:

I. When does one convert? As soon as one has lost positive footing in matters of religion while retaining the longing for it. All the synods of the Protestant Church, all the attempts of individuals and of the masses to constitute a church, prove the first and second propositions. Therefore the Protestant Church is a convert.

II. But does she not, in fostering so-called German Catholicism, in establishing free congregations, in the rejection of every dogma, drift no less than ever from the center of the Catholic Church toward every point of the periphery? So it seems. But when does the wayward son return to the father? After he has tried everything to the utmost. Therefore —

III. If the Protestants wish to remain Protestants, then I ask: against what do they protest? Against the Catholic Church? Impossible, and not in earnest, for who protests against something he does not know? Neither the masses, nor even their scholars, know the Catholic Church. Who could credit them with the folly of protesting against an unknown X? They are not protesting against the Church — they wish, after all, to build one — nor against the Catholic Church either, for who would not wish his own church to be catholic? "We protest," they say, "only against human authority in matters of faith." Well struck, brothers — there we agree; we Catholics too believe in only one divine authority; but can it, must it not, be humanly mediated, in order to know what it is and where it is? You dear Protestant brothers are evidently protesting — against yourselves; or else show me another object against which your protest is directed. That cannot possibly go on indefinitely, neither according to the laws of logic nor according to the needs of the heart. Therefore — —

IV. Without premises there is no conclusion; without a conclusion, no thinking; without thinking, no subsistence. If you Protestants wish, then, for a philosophical existence, I must tell you that no two among you may agree upon a third thing, for this third thing would be authority, that is, the annihilation of protesting; hence you cannot found a church of shared conviction, since this presupposes an agreement upon some higher thing acknowledged by a number of persons. Either submission to a higher object — the former is catholic; the latter is self-deification, the first step toward self-annihilation. No reasonable person wants the latter. Therefore — —

But are there not millions of Protestants, good people, who never even become conscious of this, and who simply fear the Catholic Church as they would the bogeyman of their childhood? But behold, these have a positive faith and are, for the rest, in innocent error — that is, they are, without knowing it, Catholics.

V. What result does Prussia arrive at? At the restriction of certain endeavors otherwise regarded quite differently. Bright and shining, indeed wholly catholic, is the great word of its monarch:

"The evangelical Church must be helped to the right it has lost; this can happen only upon the ancient foundation which Christ has laid."

To this word nothing is to be interpreted or twisted; only a joyful Amen is to be added to it." (N. Sion.)

So far, then, has it come with the Protestant Church, that the Roman Church, boastfully vaunting her triumph in advance, cries out that she is a convert, understood to be on her way to the Catholic Church. These are the unhappy consequences of the deceit of placing the essence of the holy Christian Church and congregation of Jesus Christ into an external association and visible fellowship;* for if one holds to this notion, then indeed the Roman Church is right and her statement is true. If the Protestant Church, setting herself up as visible in place of the invisible, confronts the Roman Church, then it is all over with her; then indeed the mouth of the Antichrist is opened wide to devour her, and she herself is a spiritual kinswoman of the Roman Church and mixed with the leaven of popery. Then the Roman Church is superior to her in everything; she is, by strict logical conclusion, the sole, saving, true, visible Church, from whose womb that other church has torn itself away in order to dissolve into sects; and well for those who find their way back from these to their rightful mother! I say: if the essence of the holy Christian Church is placed into a visible fellowship, then indeed the adversary, with his canons and decretals, is the Church of the living God, and when the former ceases, the latter too is done away with, finished and at an end; then the Holy Spirit was promised to the visible crowd, the episcopal office is its infallible interpreter, the Holy Spirit is bound to time, place, and locality, and the Roman Church, according to medieval history, may alone rightly claim this privilege for herself. Thank God that it is not so! Thanks and praise be to God forever, that outward assertion before the world counts as less than nothing in His kingdom, that He has hidden the truth of the Gospel from the wise and the clever (with respect to that truth) and has revealed it to babes! Thanks be to God forever, that His kingdom does not come with outward signs, that one will not say, "See, it is here or there" — that, just as the head cannot be seen, so too the body of this head is of necessity invisible and remains so, the fullness of the immeasurable love of Him who fills all in all,

*) As is well known, the Roman Church understands by the properly so-called Church nothing other than the mass of teachers and hearers who, baptized in the name of the Triune God, unanimously confess the entire doctrine of Christ and His apostles and enjoy the right administration of the sacraments. According to this concept, the one holy, universal, apostolic Church, which is invisibly scattered over the whole face of the earth, is degraded to an external, visible church association (externa societas ecclesiastica, a society). Now even if Protestant teachers may at times likewise accept a universal visible church, or — which amounts to the same thing — attribute Christ's promise to a visible particular church, has not a step backward toward popery in fact thereby taken place? And has this not already been prepared by the opponents of the pious Dr. Spener and his disciples, although the Roman party, out of great cunning, ascribes to them more anti-Catholicism than to the Pietists? Does not the answer to the highly important question, "Who determines the doctrine?" rest, for Romanism as for Rationalism — be it the common or the speculative, Hegelian kind — upon one and the same principle at bottom? And is not the great whore, the mother of all abominations on earth (Rev. of St. John, ch. 17), on account of her dazzling appearance, as though she were the Bride of the Lord, the wife of the King's Son, the most dangerous enemy of the elect? The man of sin, to gloss over his apostasy and his potent delusion, commonly appeals to 2 Tim. 2:20, compare Matt. 13:47ff. Moreover, besides the fact that great expositors, such as Chrysostom and Theophylact, understand by the great multitude the world (according to Matt. 13:38), it also follows, on the other, more correct interpretation, precisely from these passages, that to the outward fellowship of the Church belong all who make use of Christian baptism, and that, apart from the truly orthodox, hypocrites, heretics, separatists, factions, and sects are to be counted among them — none of whom, in truth, are the Church itself, as Cyprian, Ambrose, Augustine, etc., teach in agreement with our symbolical books (cf. Apolog. Confess. August., ed. Rechenberg, p. 143, §279, etc.) and with truly great theologians. See John Gerhard on 2 Timothy, Loc. XXIII, ch. 6, and compare with this the famous Bishop of Meaux, Bossuet, in collation with John Claude, De Ecclesia. As the latter writes on this point, in a not dissimilar way both older and newer Protestants likewise approach it, sometimes more hyperorthodox, sometimes more heterodox.