# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Februar 1860_S39
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Preface to the Volume of 1860. 39

remarkable example of the conscientious doctrinal discipline which our
Church practiced in her best days is, finally, also the treatment shown
toward Stephan Prätorius (from whose writings Statius later excerpted
and published the well-known and much-loved "Schatzkammer"
[Treasury]). This dear man, for want of deeper theological insight, let
slip into his writings — otherwise permeated with a genuinely
evangelical spirit — a good deal that was quite questionable, especially
of an Antinomian cast. A commission was accordingly appointed, which
had to confront Prätorius with his errors. The result was that the
honest man signed the following instrument: "I, M. Steph. Prätorius,
of the New Town of Salzwedel, acknowledge by this my own hand that,
whereas I have heretofore issued several small tracts which run counter
to and are contrary to the normam et formam sanorum verborum (the
norm and pattern of sound words), and especially to the ancient
Augsburg Confession presented in the year 1530 to Emperor Charles V,
and to our Christian Concord Confession, which I have subscribed with
heart and mouth: namely, first, that I have spread abroad and written
Antinomian phrases concerning the third use of the Law; second, that I
have written of the falls of the saints against conscience, as though they
should not thereby lose the Holy Spirit and the grace of God; third, that
regarding sins, I have not maintained or observed the distinction of
peccatum mortale and veniale (mortal and venial sin); fourth,
concerning the Christian catechetical questions of Dr. M. Luther
appended to his Small Catechism, which I have unjustly disparaged and
disapproved — inasmuch as I have been shown by the Lord Visitors, from
God's infallible Word, to be in error and have been better instructed: I
therefore, by virtue of this document and on pain of losing my office, do
hereby undertake to surrender to the Lord Visitors all copies of my
aforementioned suspect little books, now during the current visitation,
and furthermore henceforth to publish and print nothing more in
theology unless it has first been reviewed and approved by the
Reverend Consistory at Cölln on the Spree or by the theological faculty
at Frankfurt an der Oder. All of which I hereby accept and agree to, and
pledge to keep steadfastly and firmly. Done in the old town of Salzwedel,
the 4th of June, 1600." (See Unschuldige Nachrichten, vol. 1727, p.
916f.) Even

[continuing a footnote begun on the previous page:] —heim [Bietigheim], great mathematician,
removed by the Stuttgart Consistory in 1681 (see Jöcher's
Gelehrten-Lexikon, IV, 2207); Friedr. Breckling, removed from his office
at Zwolle in the Netherlands by the Lutheran Amsterdam Consistory in
1665 (ib. I, 1350); Adolph Held, pastor at Stade, removed in 1639 (how
he recanted on his deathbed we reported in the "Lutheraner," vol. 15,
no. 24); Joh. David Schäfer, a minister in Franconia, who in the year
1725 preferred to lay down his office voluntarily rather than make the
required recantation (Unschuldige Nachrichten, 1725, 1098); Pastor
Stier at Meclau in Hesse, who, after having in the year 1724 secretly
had a chiliastic tract, the Apologia pro Nepote (against his
superintendent's anti-chiliastic writing), printed and circulated, was
immediately imprisoned and only set at liberty after a public retraction
(loc. cit., p. 603f.); and finally Jacob Taube, pastor at Arnheim, who
was removed in 1669, but who later publicly revoked his chiliastic errors
(see Aug. Pfeiffer's Antichiliasmus, p. 70f.).