# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1847 09 08_S1
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

The Lutheraner.

"God's Word and Luther's teaching shall never now nor ever pass away."

Published by the German Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and Other States.

Edited by C. F. W. Walther.

Volume 4.

St. Louis, Mo., September 8, 1847.

No. 1.

Conditions: The Lutheraner appears once every two weeks, for an annual subscription price of one dollar for out-of-town subscribers, who must pay this in advance and bear the postage. In St. Louis each individual issue is sold for 5 cents. Only letters containing contributions for the paper are to be sent to the editor; all others, which contain business matters, orders, cancellations, moneys, etc., are to be sent here under the address: Mr. F. W. Barthel, care of C. F. W. Walther, St. Louis, Mo.

Preface by the Editor to the Fourth Volume of the Lutheraner.

Thus, with the present beginning of its fourth volume, the Lutheraner now comes before our dear readers not only in a changed form, but also as the organ of an entire, larger ecclesiastical body. We believe, therefore, that above all we owe an answer to the question that now very naturally arises: Will the Lutheraner remain unchangingly faithful to the confession it has hitherto maintained, and will it also in future retain the character it has thus far claimed (with respect to the choice of its material and the goal of its activity)?

As to the faith that our paper has hitherto confessed, it has been none other than this: the Bible of the Old and New Testaments is God's unchanging, eternal Word, inspired word for word by the Holy Spirit from the first Book of Moses to the Revelation of St. John. These holy Scriptures of the apostles and prophets are therefore the sole rule and standard of all faith, the sole source of all saving knowledge, and the sole judge of all controversies concerning Christian doctrine. This written revelation of the most high God is therefore to be interpreted neither according to blind human reason nor according to the perverse human heart; it explains itself. Nothing is to be taken away from it or added to it, and no letter of it, neither to the right nor to the left, is to be departed from; rather, everything is to be accepted in childlike, humble, simple faith, just as the words read. But since from earliest times almost all enthusiasts and heretics in Christendom have hypocritically claimed with their mouths that Holy Scripture was also the foundation of their faith, and that they too had drawn their teachings from it, while they only used and still use Scripture to deceitfully stamp their rationalizings or fanaticisms with the seal of divine origin, the Lutheraner has therefore also confessed, without reservation, all the public confessions of the true Church of all ages, now called Lutheran, namely: the Apostles', Nicene, and Athanasian Creeds, the unaltered Augsburg Confession, its Apology, the Smalcald Articles, the Small and Large Catechisms of Dr. M. Luther, and the Formula of Concord. In declaring these glorious confessions — well grounded in and taken from God's Word, which orthodox Christians set up against the falsifications and distortions of the heretics — to also be the confessions of its own faith, the Lutheraner has thereby at the same time renounced all heretics and sects and their old and new false teachings.

Far from it, then, that the fact that the Lutheraner from now on appears as the organ of the Lutheran Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and other states, should bring about any change in the confession it has hitherto maintained — rather, it takes up this confession from now on all the more as a sacred duty, watching over the fact that no other teaching be presented in this its paper in the future, and spread and defended through it, than the pure and clear teaching of the Word of God as it is clearly set forth in the Church's confessional writings. For the aforesaid Synod does not belong to those who, like many in this country, have retained almost nothing of the Lutheran but the name, having adopted Reformed teachings and enthusiastic Methodist practice; the chief purpose of this Synod is rather precisely this: to work together toward calling the estranged Lutherans back to their Church and its pure teaching, and to unite them under the banner of their never-aging confessions. Among other things, the constitution of this Synod states: "The conditions under which membership in this Synod may take place, and fellowship with it may continue, are: 1. Confession of the Holy Scripture of the Old and New Testaments as the written Word of God and the sole rule and standard of faith and life; 2. Acceptance of all the (above-named) symbolical books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, as the pure and unfalsified explanation and exposition of the divine Word. 3. Renunciation of all mingling of churches and of faiths, such as: the serving of mixed* congregations as such by ministers of the Church; participation in the worship services and sacramental acts of congregations of false belief and of mixed congregations; participation in all tract and mission work of false believers, etc. 4. The exclusive use of pure church and school books (agendas, hymnals, catechisms, textbooks, etc.)" In light of this, our dear readers may certainly entertain the good hope that the Synod will watch with all earnestness that this paper does not, like certain other papers in this country, bear its Lutheran title merely for the sake of appearance and thereby deceive Lutherans; that it will introduce no false, and altogether no new, teachings; that it will speak the word for no sect; in short, that it will stand sincerely and honestly in the service of the Lutheran Church, true to its motto: "God's Word, and therefore also Luther's teaching too — because Luther's teaching contains not human word but the Word of God — shall never now nor ever pass away."

As to, secondly, the character that the Lutheraner has hitherto maintained: it has been a polemical one — that is, the content of the paper has almost always been concerned with defending pure doctrine against the falsifications and attacks of unbelievers, false believers, and enthusiasts. In this respect too, no change will take place with the present new volume.

* These are such congregations as are composed of Lutherans and Reformed, or so-called Evangelicals (United, Protestants), and are not infrequently served by so-called Lutheran preachers, who then, of course, must necessarily be of a double character, that is, Lutheran to the Lutherans and Reformed to the Reformed.