# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_M rz 1860_S80
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

80 The Present Tension among the Separated Lutherans of Prussia.

room for grace. Nor, indeed, does v. Hofmann himself often use this expression. He prefers instead to fall back upon God's "loving disposition," namely upon that very impulse of love in which God created man; and the connection presents itself with him thus: out of love God wills that man should become God's own, and therefore creates man; but out of love He also wills that this will of His not be thwarted, and therefore foresees, from the very outset, that way out for the case that man should sin, and, when the case occurs, directs everything into this foreseen path. So smoothly and evenly does the work of redemption begin with v. Hofmann: it is not the work of a God whose heart breaks in pity over His lost creature, but rather a modality of the plan of creation and of the world, foreseen before the world for a certain contingency, and realized upon the occurrence of that contingency.

If we look back on what v. Hofmann teaches concerning the origin of sin, we cannot call it new or peculiar; it is simply that at which the natural man arrives instinctively. We pastors often experience that people who have fallen in some way into grievous sin describe to us the history of their fall in exactly the way v. Hofmann describes the fall of Adam: how they, neither good nor evil, went along their way; how then this thing and that became a temptation to them under the most dazzling appearance and every kind of illusion; how, moreover, toward the victory of such temptation over them, the noblest thing there is — their love and care for wife and child — contributed no small part; how they then finally did it, without thinking any harm, and only afterward saw how they had now come to stand; how, however, all these "circumstances" were so arranged by God Himself, without any doing of their own, and how they therefore simply cannot conceive that God should go so severely into judgment with them. But we pastors also know what we always answer to such tellers of the tale: that they would have to learn to tell the history of their fall quite differently before they could see grace, for they lack the knowledge of sin. So, too, we can only say of v. Hofmann: he lacks the knowledge of sin."

(From Münkel's Neues Zeitblatt.)

The Present Tension among the Separated Lutherans of Prussia.

This tension has already been spinning itself out for some time, has grown from year to year, and seems bent on ending in a very regrettable rupture. For the year 1860 the General Synod stands ahead. The points in dispute are to be brought up here for discussion, and it is possible that the decision, too, may be reached here. In view of this, heads and pens are in motion, and the congregations are being prepared for what they must understand and have not, up to now, yet understood. But so that