# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1847 12 08_S68
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

service, in order through him to combat the Lutheran church. But in vain! — for d'Aubigné's book teems with lies, which, to be sure, a Methodist cannot know, since, as is well known, ignorance is the chief virtue of a Methodist. It would, however, be tedious to point out all of d'Aubigné's falsifications; we will uncover only a few of them, so that the kind reader may know what to make of the whole contrivance.

D'Aubigné commits a reprehensible dishonesty, which Mr. Nast, in a faulty translation, thoughtlessly follows, in that he frequently passes over in silence such facts as prove Zwingli's ignoble conduct toward Luther and his followers. Thus he says, giving himself the air of wishing to present thoroughly the history of the sacramental controversy, in Apologet No. 39: "Zwingli, in his friendly declaration of 1527, refuted Luther's opinion with gentleness and respect." But he leaves unmentioned that Zwingli had previously already showered the Lutherans with the most venomous terms of abuse. Thus in the year 1525 he called them "stupid people," and their scriptural doctrine that in the Holy Supper one eats the true body of Christ he called "godless, foolish, cruel, a monstrosity — one would have to live among cannibals" to hold it. In another writing of the same year he charges the Lutherans with "blindness, stupidity, contentious impudence," and so forth, calls his opponents flesh-eaters, says they "rage more madly than any savages." The following year Zwingli wrote a reply to the letters of Billicanus and Rhegius, in which he treats them just as contemptuously, as "senseless men, letter-tyrants, flesh-eaters, whose breath reeks everywhere of Satan." With what "gentleness and respect" Zwingli, in his friendly declaration, refutes Luther's opinion is shown especially in that he calls Luther's opinions "godlessness and a reintroduction of all the papal errors." He further accuses him of "madness, in that he rages inhumanly against good men with dreadful abuse." The Lutheran Johann Faber he there calls a rogue, and doubts whether Brenz is even human. We thank Mr. d'Aubigné, incidentally, and Dr. Nast, for having instructed us as to what they understand by "gentleness and respect" toward Lutherans.

In answer to these writings of Zwingli's, Luther's book appeared: That These Words of Christ, "This Is My Body," Still Stand Firm. To this d'Aubigné says: "Zwingli wrote two replies to the excellent Martin Luther in a cold tone and with a proud calm, which was harder to forgive than the abusive language of a Saxon doctor." Apologet No. 40. Here it happens to Mr. d'Aubigné, despite his most eager striving to present his hero Zwingli in the most favorable light, in order to attribute to him every possible virtue, that he does not know what belongs to a truly noble, Christian character. For granted that Zwingli had really, as Mr. d'Aubigné claims, answered in a cold tone and with a proud calm hard to forgive, this would truly have been proof enough that he did not know that heartfelt love for the brethren which is inseparably bound up with the possession of the truth. How noble and magnanimous, by contrast, is Luther's bearing toward Zwingli, whom he, as one in error, always pities full of compassion, even while he punishes his false doctrine with the most justified indignation. Moreover, the matter of Zwingli's "cold tone and proud calm" stands much the same as that of his "gentleness and respect." After he, in a letter to Osiander, had called the Lutheran Althamer an ass, termed the Lutheran doctrine of the Supper superstition, and called Luther's writing "empty deception," he threatens that he will, within two months, answer it in such a way that "not a bone of it shall remain," and boasts that within three years all of Italy, Spain, France, and Germany would have accepted his doctrine — a prophecy which, as is well known, was never fulfilled. In his reply he said "Luther raves and rages," indeed! he charges him with insolence, lies, curses, senseless abuse, and raving words, which "seemed to smell of hell." Might Dr. Nast be pleased to give us, out of the depths of his wisdom, some enlightenment as to where exactly the "cold tone" is to be found, since it seems as though it has been passed down to him by inheritance.
(To be continued.)

(Submitted.)
Contributions to the Diary of a Country Pastor.*

1. Let the seal of your inner divine call to the holy preaching office be the love of Christ, known and experienced in faith, which impels you henceforth to live not for yourself, but for Him who died and rose again for you and your brothers according to the flesh (2 Cor. 5:14-15). And though Satan hang mightily upon the weak heart and its little faith, let it tear until the hardened crust of doubt falls away from this heart. Indeed, even if you had, in a merely human way, come into the office only [by human means], beware of willfully abandoning it, if God wishes to make use of you in it. See Luther's Church Postil, ed. Walch, p. 150, §§29-30.

2. If you recognize yourself as poor and needy in outward gifts of nature, then consider that God, according to His omnipotence and according to His grace, can call even the least of tools in His vineyard, and can give you what you lack, or wishes to supply it through spiritual gifts. If your unfitness or your mistakes grieve you, as happened to all the saints, then take note:

* May these aphorisms, sent to us by a country pastor — which contain much in little, and are the fruit not only of deep reflection but also of several years of peculiar experience — find among our dear brothers in office the attention they deserve; so we hope they will prove to be precious seed-corns. — The Editor.

it is God's work and art to change and better what you have spoiled through error. See Luther on Genesis 30:31. Accept the forgiveness of all your sins, but abhor and curse, down into the abyss of hell, the thoughts of vain self-satisfaction.

3. Above all, in the conduct of your office, keep before your eyes the highly important article: "I believe in one holy Christian church," so that you may defy your enemies and stand firm in your outward divine calling. But do not therefore place the church in an outward church organization; begin, like a master builder, where as yet no foundation has been laid, with no outward organizations except the most necessary and best-known ones; do the work of an evangelical preacher (2 Tim. 4); contend for the doctrine; maintain, in divine wisdom, this distinction — that you have mercy on some, but also save others with fear and pluck them out of the fire — and hate the garment spotted by the flesh, even in warning or comforting (Jude v. 23). This will lead you to the true goal of a truly apostolic church or congregational discipline and order.

Note. It is easily said that Law and Gospel are to be divided, but how does this work out in application? [...] resting on the power of God and not on human wisdom (1 Cor. 2:5), you will yourself be kept safe from sectarian byways which, though often standing in necessary opposition to the ruling visible fellowship, are yet a branch [...] of the church, while at the same time taking into themselves every sort of seductive wind of doctrine, in deceit and cunning (Eph. 4:14), and [...]. Their tendencies can often attach themselves, unawares, even to quite pure souls, and can indeed intermingle in various ways. One man may preach a legalistic doctrine that is nevertheless not free of abuse of the Gospel; another may evangelize and yet incline toward righteousness by works. Be careful that you do not in some way dress up the Law with God's patience, [nor] diminish [...] the leaven of the Pharisees. The dishonest man wants either a gospel of the flesh, to serve his own pleasure as rags for works, or a merciful cushion in place of the Law — the two mingled together into a single cake; the believing sinner wishes to be held accountable both for his new man and for his old; and from this follows, according to the differing conditions prevailing in the one and the state of soul of the other, the particular right application, for the weaker and for the stronger, especially in private confession.

4. The American pastoral office resembles, in its difficulties and hindrances — though also [in] the nature of your dear Lutheran [church] — [...] of the truth out of the universal holy [Scripture], or the infinite fullness of comfort of Christ, through [...], both pure and unmutilated, from one another [...] in a wholly opposite way, for the most part — how does it stand with the application? Does your faith rest [...] the present Christ with His Spirit, wishing to be bound to that (Matt. 24, [...]