# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1847 06 29_S124
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

still so deeply drowned in it, that it becomes as hard and difficult for us to get it out of our hearts and forget it, as it is hard for us to grasp and learn the true faith.

Even if everything else in the papacy were right and good, which nevertheless it is not, still the fact that they teach people to doubt God's grace and will in this way would be so monstrous a harmful error that it cannot be expressed. And although it is undeniable that the enemies of Christ teach nothing but uncertain things (for, as has been said, they teach consciences to doubt God's grace), they are nevertheless so full of devilish fury that, with utter confidence, they condemn and murder us as the very worst heretics, solely because we lead people to believe God, who cannot lie, and act as though they themselves were quite certain that their own doctrine were right and divine.

Therefore we should thank our dear God forever that we have been freed from this desperate error, and can now truly know and hold that the Holy Spirit, as St. Paul says, cries out in our hearts and produces an inexpressible sighing. And this is our foundation. The Gospel bids us look not to our good works and perfection, but to God Himself, who gives the promise; likewise, to Christ, who has accomplished and brought to light that which was promised. The Pope, on the other hand, bids us look not to God, who promises, nor to Christ, who is our Mediator and High Priest, but to our own works and merits; from which nothing else can follow than that one becomes uncertain whether God is gracious to us, and finally despairs, for the matter is grounded upon our own work, merit, and righteousness, etc. But when it is grounded upon God's promise and upon Christ, the true, immovable Rock, one is certain of the matter, secure and joyful in the Holy Spirit, for it stands upon God, who is faithful and can neither lie nor deceive. For thus He says: Behold, I give My own Son unto death, that through His blood He may redeem you from sin and death; of this I cannot be uncertain, unless I would altogether deny God.

This is the ground from which we can truly know and prove that our theology or doctrine is upright and certain — namely, that it does not let us stand and build upon our own doing, but leads us away from what is our own, and grounds us upon another foundation which is outside ourselves; so that we rely not upon our own powers, conscience, feeling, person, and work, but upon that which is outside us — that is, upon God's promise and truth, upon Christ, who sits at the right hand of God and is our righteousness, which the devil can neither overthrow nor take from us. Of this the Pope, with his crowd, knows and understands nothing at all; therefore he so horribly and unchristianly denies and blasphemes, together with his crowd,

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and pretends that no one — however godly or wise he may be — can know whether he is in grace or disgrace with God. It is not so; rather, whoever is righteous and wise knows for a truth and for certain that God loves him, or if he does not know this, then he is in fact neither righteous nor wise.

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Editor's Note. No one should suppose that the Roman Catholic Church held this abominable doctrine — that a Christian must doubt his state of grace throughout his life — only in Luther's time; she holds this doctrine still today, and cannot well give it up, if for no other reason than that her yearly trade in Masses would naturally suffer no little from doing so; for who would still pay for a Mass for the living, or even for the dead, if he knew that he could hold fast, in faith, without any wavering, to God's promises of grace in Christ? That this doctrine still holds today in the papacy we see from its most important symbolical document, namely from the decrees of the Council of Trent. In these it states, among other things, as follows: "It is, however, likewise not to be maintained that those who are truly justified must, without any doubt whatsoever, hold themselves to be justified, and that no one is absolved from sins and justified except him who certainly believes that he is absolved and justified; and that by this faith alone absolution and justification are accomplished — as if he who does not believe this doubted the promises of God and the power of the death and resurrection of Christ; for just as no godly person ought to doubt God's mercy, Christ's merit, and the power of the sacraments, so may each one, on account of his own weakness and unworthiness, when he looks upon himself and his own weakness and unworthiness, be alarmed and afraid concerning his own state of grace, since no one can know, with a certainty of faith that could not have something false at its foundation, that he has obtained the grace of God." (Sess. VI, ch. 9.) Who does not see from this that the fathers of Trent were blind leaders of the blind, and could never possibly have experienced anything of true faith itself, of which they evidently speak as a blind man speaks of color? — In what follows, it says further, in that public confession of faith of the papists: "If anyone says that justifying faith is nothing other than trust in the divine mercy, which for Christ's sake forgives sin, or that this trust alone is that by which we are justified: let him be accursed. If anyone says that it is necessary for every man, in order to obtain forgiveness, that he believe with certainty and without any doubt, of his own weakness and unworthiness, that his sins are forgiven him: let him be accursed. If anyone says that a regenerate and justified man is bound to believe that he is among the number of the elect: let him be accursed." (Ibid., Canons 12, 13, 15.) The fathers of the Council, then, are not speaking of the fact that a Christian may become uncertain of his state of grace in hours of temptation — which the Bible itself also teaches — but rather they curse, in general, the doctrine that faith is a certain assurance. Heb. 11:1. — Here, then, quite plainly, the holy, blessed Gospel — which, when laid hold of in faith, brings with it the irrefutably certain testimony of the Holy Spirit that we are children of God — is accursed!

A Fitting Conclusion.

At the Diet of Augsburg in 1530, Duke Johann Friedrich of Saxony, son of the Elector Johann, fell into a conversation about religion with certain papists, among whom Dr. Eck distinguished himself the most. The young Duke asked how it came about that they — namely, the papists — withheld the cup from the laity in the Holy Supper, when the Lord Christ says: "Drink ye all of it"? What, then, did the word "all" mean? To this Eck replied: "All" means the consecrated priests; they alone are to drink of it. "Well then," said the Duke, "from this it must follow that you consecrated monks and priests must be wicked knaves and rogues, for Christ says: 'Ye are clean, but not all' — which, then, according to your explanation of the little word 'all,' amounts to saying: You laymen are clean, but not — the priests and clergy." Such a conclusion the gentlemen papists had not expected.

From Rusinus, in his Life of Johann Friedrich, Elector, Ms., Book II, p. 148.

On the Saying: "It Is Against My Conscience!"

Concerning those who often plead conscience when a matter goes against their flesh, Luther writes in the year 1526 to the Elector Johann of Saxony:

"But should they plead their conscience, that shall not help them; for they were first required to prove their conscience and undertaking by Scripture, or else to let themselves be instructed. Since they have refused to do this, and have publicly stipulated that they would not enter into a disputation from Scripture, they thereby give sufficient testimony against themselves that they invent such a conscience and only pretend to it for show. For a truly good conscience does and desires nothing more gladly than to hear the instruction of Scripture, and to dispute its own affairs by Scripture." (Luther's Works, Halle ed., XXI, 147.)

Little Lutheran Martyrs.

After the imperial Lieutenant-General Tilly, on the part of the Roman Catholics, had taken the Lutheran city of Magdeburg by storm in the year 1631 during the Thirty Years' War, he and his soldiers ravaged it there in the most cruel manner. Among other things, he had all the schoolchildren who were walking in orderly procession across the marketplace singing the hymn beginning "Preserve us, Lord, by Thy word" cut down and hacked to pieces by his soldiers, just as Herod once did to the little children of Bethlehem. This early death did the children no harm; they attained the glorious martyr's crown, in which they will shine forever; but this deed — so unbecoming, shameful, and cruel for a military commander — caused Tilly bitter remorse; and from that time on he had no more good fortune in war.

M. Pfefferkorn's Thuringian History. B.

[Received, for] Simon, through vol. IV, no. 13: the gentlemen J. E. Schneider and D. Simon.

Received for the Lutheran mission to the heathen in Frankenmuth, Mich., from Messrs. G. Vetter, $1.00; Ph. Lepper, likewise; Lorenz, 26 cents.

Printed by Arthur Olshausen.