# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1847 11 16_S49
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

[Edited by C. F. W. Walther.]

Der Lutheraner.

"God's Word and Luther's teaching shall never pass away."

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

Volume 4.                    St. Louis, Mo., November 30, 1847.                    No. 7.

Conditions: Der Lutheraner appears once every two weeks, at the annual subscription price of one dollar for out-of-town subscribers, who must pay in advance and bear the postage. — In St. Louis, each single issue is sold for 5 cents.

Only those letters containing communications for the paper are to be sent here to the editor, Mr. C. F. W. Walther, St. Louis, Mo.; all others, however, containing business matters, orders, cancellations, money, etc., are to be sent under the address: Mr. F. W. Barthel, care of C. F. W. Walther, St. Louis, Mo.

(Submitted by Th. Brohm.)

The Book of Concord.

3.
Removal of Some Common Prejudices and Accusations against the Book of Concord.

Since the Book of Concord is so bright and decided a testimony to heavenly truth, and tolerates no error whatsoever alongside itself unpunished, it cannot be surprising that those who love error more than truth cast suspicion on this noble book and seek to spread all manner of distrust concerning it. As long as the Lutheran Church was in good standing, it was, with few exceptions, mainly the papists and the Reformed who contested the Book of Concord; but now it is chiefly its own fallen-away children who fight against the confession of their spiritual mother. Some make no secret of the fact that they hate the biblical content of the book; others hypocritically draw from the Bible itself the weapons with which they fight it. We wish only to acquaint our readers with a few of the chief objections, in order to guard them against the harmful effects of these.

One objection now heard from the mouths of thousands, learned and half-learned alike, is that the Book of Concord is no longer in keeping with the times, that it has outlived itself, that it lags behind our enlightened century. Luther himself, they say, were he to return enlightened by the light of today's Enlightenment, would be of an entirely different conviction, and would smile at much that he once zealously defended as inviolable truth, as merely a limitation of his own time. The advances and discoveries in the field of science, they say, are so great that they have irrefutably demonstrated the untenability of the old theological system; not only individual dogmas but the Bible itself has, before the eye of the critic, lost its unconditional credibility, and in any case science and the unceasing striving of the human spirit after truth cannot be confined within the fetters of symbolical books. What, then, is the poor layman to say to this, who, being himself no scholar, does not know how to judge the alleged gigantic advances of scholarship? Is he to yield the field to the enemy and give up the faith of his fathers as lost, or, as it were, live on the mercy of the scholars, on whatever remnants of the old faith they still leave him? God forbid! Praise and thanks be to God that our faith does not depend on erudition and scholarship, as though we might believe nothing except what scholarship has first stamped with its seal! Praise God that the faith of the unlearned rests on the very same good foundation as that of the learned!

The worth of the Book of Concord is decided not by the times but by Holy Scripture. If it is in accord with Scripture, then it is also in keeping with the times; for Holy Scripture is the Word of the living God, which remains forever, is written for all times, and does not outlive itself. Let no one be intimidated by the splendid words "science, scientific development, research, progress," and so forth; they are hollow words, with nothing behind them. If a science leads away from the written Word of God, if it claims to have independently found new and different truths than are in God's Word, then it is a monstrous birth of the human spirit, a spawn of hell, an enemy of God, and, as St. Paul calls it, "science falsely so called." This, indeed, meets with strong resistance in the Book of Concord, whose highest principle is to submit humbly and unconditionally to the written Word of God. But there is also, praise God, a true theological scholarship which, as a humble servant of the faith, invents no new truths but draws, gathers, orders, and defends the truths revealed by God himself out of his Word; of this scholarship we confidently say that the Book of Concord is not the slightest fetter to it, since the Book of Concord is nothing else, and contains nothing else, than the pure result of truly scholarly research.

The Book of Concord could hinder scholarship only if it either forbade research into Holy Scripture, or if it established (fixed) certain errors, or condemned certain truths. None of these is the case. But if it is a faithful and true exposition of Holy Scripture concerning the most important and most necessary articles of faith, then there can be no possible conflict between it and true theological scholarship. It is indeed the most unfortunate of claims, that the concept of truth depends on the spirit of the age in each instance, or that it is presumptuous to boast, by God's grace, of the possession of the truth. After all, in the purely human sciences certain settled truths are not denied; why, then, should divine science be condemned to this wretched, hopeless labor of Tantalus, forever chasing after truth and yet never able to grasp it? Or is Holy Scripture such a dark, enigmatic, ambiguous book that one could never arrive at certainty concerning its correct understanding, especially in the highest and most important articles?

Let no one, then, be deceived by the clamor of the unbelievers; the Book of Concord does not hinder or impede true theological scholarship — it is, after all, a daughter of it; it sets up a dam only against that falsely famed art, the wisdom of reason, which deserves the name of science no more than a charlatan deserves the name of an artist. The friends of the Book of Concord need by no means be enemies of progress in the knowledge of truth; they do not consider themselves perfect, nor are they so arrogant or so narrow-minded as to despise all the real achievements of scholarship; they know too that Holy Scripture is a well of wisdom that can never be exhausted. Yet they wish to progress only upon the foundation laid by God himself and within the bounds set by God himself. All the alleged advances of modern times that boast of having found another foundation and another way to