# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1847 06 29_S123
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

the word of faith, for him who can grasp it with firmness and find therein the rest of his soul. In it are united his most blessed hopes and holiest desires, and the deep longing of a heart for firm footing amid these religious confusions is stilled; the estranged child has heard the voice of its unrecognized Creator and has found its way out of the disastrous, so various labyrinths of unbelief (or superstition); even the dreadful grave becomes for him but the passage into a better and more perfect existence. Blessed is the man who has the light of life and who lets no doubts shake or take from him again his abiding certainty! He has come to the Jerusalem which is above, which is the free woman, who is the mother of us all — not to the maidservant, who is after the flesh and of this present time and bears children into bondage — to the assembly of the firstborn, who are written in heaven, to the blood of the eternal covenant, to the myriads of angels and of the spirits of just men made perfect.

What, then, is it to us, the malicious triumph and gloating of the Roman Church over the so-called Protestant Church! All the above-cited points of her diabolical gift of divination touch, now and nevermore, the Church to which Christ said that the gates of hell shall not prevail against her, and: "Behold, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world." This Church ascribes her existence to the Crusher of the Serpent, because the sure foundation of God stands firm, and bears this seal: "The Lord knoweth them that are His," and: "Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity." She indeed passes, according to Eph. 4:13, as one spiritual body, a leaven of humanity, through various ages of life and stages of development, through the contradictions of the impure elements of the world unavoidably bound up with her here below; but she needs no human demonstration to show where her divine authority is to be found, once she has received the holy Scriptures, with and from the Apostles of the Lord as His immediate messengers, and, in the Old Testament, with and from the prophets; she was Lutheran long before Luther; the seed from which she is born gives itself to her at once and of itself, without any other mediation than that of mere instruments and organs (as the Word, ever living in the hearts of believers and acknowledged in the symbolical books) — as she alone, on pain of the loss of eternal salvation, is ordained by God (Rev. 22:18ff., compare with Luke 10:16) to recognize as divine and sufficient in matters of faith and conscience. Two of us do indeed agree together upon a third thing, but not upon historical belief, which gives only probability, nor even upon priestly authority, but rather, in conscious unity with the Church par excellence, upon the Word — handed down by her, indeed, and propagated through her, but written, and clear to faith (and to faith alone) — the Word and promise of our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, who has not left us orphans, but has given us of His Spirit, that we might know and understand what has been taught us by God, and judge spiritual things spiritually. (1 Cor. 2:12ff.) We have a positive faith, without being Catholics (in the Roman sense) — that is, we ourselves have recognized that this is Christ, the Savior of the world, our righteousness, and His words the powers of the world to come — and we do not let ourselves be caught again in a hierarchical yoke of men; wherefore we cannot say Amen to the well-meant proposition of the royal chief shepherd, which has nevertheless arisen out of the illusion and fancy of a visible apostolic Church.*)

So much, then, by way of warning to the "Wahrheitsfreund" and others, not to rejoice too soon, before the evening of all days has come. Perhaps God will yet again send to the Church of these times a leader before whose mighty, godly zeal every adversary would once more grow faint in standing against him. For this there is needed a freedom and security of spirit in God such as, alas, you do not find so often in the Church. There are few men equal to the giant strength of the enemies; and even if they were so by virtue of naturally excellent gifts, they nevertheless fear the disfavor of the world and its great ones more than the wrath of their King, and so remain childish Christians. There is a driving and pressing on the stage of today's peoples; the caricatures of the most holy things, the ideals of spiritual monstrosities, are presented as transfigurations of humanity in a common league; above all, the grand inwardness of the German spirit — which bore the Reformation in its womb and nourished it at its faith-rich breast, and which, out of the monuments of art, full of the most sublime and profound charm, speaks warningly across to its degenerate sons — is being cast into the shameful fetters of mere breadwinning; the highest of all sciences, holy Theology, is made to go begging among materialistic shopkeeper souls and utilitarians; England's practical, melancholy busyness, like the French people's show and frivolity, is to serve her as a model; Church in the State and State in the Church begin to proclaim one kingdom of this world — may the Lord from heaven, the rightful King and Bishop of our souls, Himself look into this and so confess Himself to His Church, which is eternal and will remain until the Last Day, that He may ward off the unspeakable misery and more-than-heathen errors by which so many are plunged into the abyss of hell. Amen; yes, may He bring help, for everywhere it grows full of the godless, wherever such people gain the upper hand among men!

*) Only figuratively or improperly (per synecdochen) can a visible congregation be called the Church of God, insofar as true believers are found among it (which is recognized from whether the seed that begets them — the living Word of God — is present in it), and after these, as the true members, who stand opposed to the dead and rotting ones, the whole congregation is named. The Church, according to this notion of contingent appearance (ratione externae formae, not per essentiam, that is, according to its essence, but per accidens), does indeed admit of distinctions, into true and false (particular churches) — that is, the City of God in an improper sense, with its thousand gaps, through which it can wholly perish, and the synagogue of Satan, Satan's school (called "church" only because of the believers still hidden within it) — into flourishing and corrupted, etc., without the one Church ever ceasing to be, since she cannot fall from faith. But to her, the Bride of the Lord, the Queen, who does not exalt herself with false powers, but seems rather to be the cast-off, barren woman, because she belongs to the Crucified One, the wellspring of the water that makes blessed, the hearth of the inextinguishable, pure, and purifying fire — to her is given an open door, and no one can shut it; she reigns in the midst of her enemies. The monarchs of the earth can procure her no right; rather, they shall come and worship at her feet, and acknowledge that the Son of God has loved her, the virgin. (Cf. 2 Cor. 3:21ff.; Isa. 60, 54.)

On the Certainty of the State of Grace, and on the Papist Doctrine of Doubt.

(See: Luther on the Epistle to the Galatians, ch. 4, v. 6. Works, Halle ed., VIII, 2399f.)

It is very useful and good that devout, godly hearts should be certain that they have the Holy Spirit.

The Sophists and monks have accordingly held that no one can know for certain whether he is in grace or disgrace, even if he lives and conducts himself in the very best manner. And such an opinion has been held throughout the whole of the papacy as certain as if it were one of the foremost grounds and articles of the faith. What horrible and great harm they have done with this pernicious, godless doctrine cannot be told. For by it they have altogether suppressed the doctrine of faith, destroyed faith, confused consciences, robbed Christendom of Christ, obscured and denied all the benefits and gifts of the Holy Spirit, abolished the true and genuine worship of God, and in its place brought about all manner of idolatry, sheer contempt of God, and blasphemy in the hearts of men. For whoever doubts God's gracious will and does not hold for certain that he has a gracious God can never believe that his sins are forgiven, that God will receive him and make him blessed.

St. Augustine speaks well and in a Christian manner when he says: "He who has faith is certain that he is in grace." This they deny and disavow. God forbid, they say, that I should be so presumptuous as to say: I know for a truth that I am in grace and holy, that I have the Holy Spirit — even if I were to lead a holy life and do everything I ought to do. From this baseless error, on which the whole papacy is founded, you young people, since you are as yet unstained by it, should flee, and hold it in as much dread as the most poisonous and harmful pestilence there can be. We old fellows, who have been raised from youth in such error, are so