# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1848 01 25_S81
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Der Lutheraner.

"God's Word and Luther's teaching shall not pass away, now or ever."

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

Edited by C. F. W. Walther.

Volume 4.

St. Louis, Mo., January 25, 1848.

No. 11.

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

Note: Only letters containing contributions for the paper are to be sent to the editor; all others, 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.

Testimony of a United Evangelical Concerning the Nature and Doings of the Methodists.

(Conclusion.)

"That striking characteristic of the Roman Church, of holding itself to be the only church that can bring salvation, seems increasingly, the longer it goes on, to be passing over to the Episcopal Methodist Church as well. To be sure, the Methodists frequently state, in writing and in speech, that the Spirit of God rules and works in other church communions too, that they rejoice together in the spiritual blessings granted to those communions, and that they acknowledge all believers in other churches as well. But alongside this one hears declarations from them, and — what says more — one sees such conduct on their part as runs directly counter to those brotherly statements. Thus a German Methodist preacher said to me: "We persuade no one to become a Methodist, because it is only in our church that he finds the right nourishment for his soul." Another has frequently declared that the Methodist Church alone is the true Bride of the Lord, and that the other churches are merely the virgins who follow her (Psalm 45). At a large assembly of English-American Methodist preachers which I attended, I heard it stated: "Our party will yet win the world!" (this denomination will take the world) — and this remark did not refer at all, as someone might suppose, to the missionary activity of the American Methodists, which in fact is not very great either. In an English Methodist church newspaper (Western Christian Advocate) lying before me just now, the following passage occurs: "The Methodist Church has become a great and far-extended communion. The sun never sets upon her hallowed temples. Every breath of air is scented with the prayers of her sons and daughters. All the zones — the temperate, the hot, and the cold — with their great variety of landscapes and inhabitants, are her dwelling place. The God of heaven and earth has looked down upon her with the brightness of his smile and has upheld her with the power of his own right arm." What is here presented as already accomplished — I do not know whether out of ignorance or out of boasting — namely, the universal spread of Methodism, is regarded throughout by the Methodists as something to be striven for and, in the end, also to be attained. Already the Episcopal Methodist Church has the proud consciousness of being the most numerous and most powerful church communion in the United States. Not content with this, it seeks to become the sole church communion within this country, in order then — or even beforehand — to direct its triumphant course into other lands. It is therefore their endeavor, by every means at their disposal, to draw over to themselves the members of other church communions, particularly the venerable old Presbyterian and Puritan churches. In many places, even in New England, the old, firmly established seat of the Puritans (who now call themselves Congregationalists), they have succeeded in this only too well. To this end they employ, with good success, the device of representing those two churches to the people as Calvinistic, and of depicting the bad practical consequences that Calvinism is supposed to have, although among the Congregationalists and Presbyterians a far greater active Christian love prevails than among themselves. They openly designate themselves as Arminians, and even have among their edifying tracts a life of Arminius, so as to make this name dear to the people.

"The German Protestant churches of America are attacked by the Methodists far more mercilessly and violently still than the English-American churches are. Even the most zealous and faithful preachers among them are made suspect before their own congregations, and are represented as unconverted or as limping on both sides. The means which some of them employ in this almost recall the Jesuit principle, that for the honor of God and the spread of the church everything, even the worst, is permitted. All the same, they are very good at finding out when awakened souls are present in the congregation of an evangelical preacher. They then go there, like the bird that lays its eggs in another's nest, and say to these souls: You have indeed been awakened in another church, but in its Sunday services you do not find enough nourishment for your soul; we, on the other hand, have in addition class meetings, prayer meetings, etc., etc.; through these you will be enabled to grow quite differently in grace and sanctification, and at the same time to enjoy true brotherly fellowship; come over to us! — Besides this, however, Methodist preachers also seek out such regions as, for instance, above in Missouri, where no evangelical preacher has yet come. When word finally gets around there that a German preacher has arrived, the settlers, who perhaps have not heard a sermon for years, come to hear him, whatever the preacher's name may be and however he may conduct himself. After some time several of them usually fall to the Methodists, and among these are precisely some of the more receptive ones. If, after this, an evangelical preacher perhaps comes to the place, he has a difficult stand, because the salt has already been partly taken out of the congregations he wishes to form. In addition, those who have not become Methodists are often filled with such bitterness against Methodism that they are inclined to find something Methodistic even in such arrangements and expressions of their new preacher as are genuinely evangelical.

"The Methodists have long since departed, in a questionable manner, from the core and crown of the work of the Reformation and of the whole Protestant church — from the doctrine that man is justified through faith in Christ. Instead of faith, they set up, as the requirement for salvation, the assurance of the forgiveness of sins through the Holy Spirit — an assurance which is indeed granted to living faith, but which is by no means faith itself. According to the Methodist way of viewing it, this assurance consists in