# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1844 12 22_S35
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

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it, give it to poor people; I will accept that as though it had happened to me myself. — I speak further: Dear little child Jesus, I will gladly do it; but I must also give something for your own person, or I must die of grief. — The child answers: Dear Jerome, since you are indeed so free with your giving, I will tell you what you are to give me: Give me your sin, your evil conscience, and your damnation. — I say: What will you do with that? — The child Jesus says: I will take it upon my shoulders; that shall be my lordship and my glorious deed, as Isaiah spoke of old, that I would bear and carry away your sin (Isaiah 9:6; 53:4–12). — Then I begin, says Jerome, to weep bitterly, and say: Child, dear child, how you have touched my heart! I thought you wanted something good from me, and instead you want to take all that is evil in me. Take what is mine; give me what is yours; so am I rid of my sins and assured of eternal life." — —

Oh, blessed is the one who at the last Christmas feast held such a conversation with the gracious Christ child! — Did you do so, dear reader? — If not, oh, then go this very day, this very hour, to the manger; even though the feast has passed, still the child Jesus lies there for you in the manger, still smiles upon you kindly and graciously, and beckons you, even at this moment, to hold so sweet a conversation with him. Most lovingly does Luther speak on Isaiah 9:6: "The child is born to us, and remains a child to us also; likewise a son is given to us, and remains a son to us also; he becomes no different than he was from the beginning of his birth. — He does not show himself toward us as one before whom we must tremble on account of some peevish sternness or dreadful majesty; rather he shows himself toward us, as toward small children, as a little child, and plays with us in his childhood forever. — Every year this song is repeated: 'Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given,' and we shall sing this from eternity to eternity, and in the life to come we shall marvel and rejoice fully in this inestimable joy, that the Son of God is our child and is the son who has been given to us." Therefore, reader dearly redeemed through Christ, seize the time, that you may not one day be robbed of the Christ child for all eternity, but may instead enjoy him in unspeakable blessedness!

The False and the True Trust in God.
(Taken from the exposition of the Gospel of John by Johann Brentius, the famous Württemberg theologian and friend of Luther.)

Now you see what the true will of God is, namely, not to destroy, not to condemn, but to give eternal life through the Son (John 6:39). Accordingly, when he seems to destroy, when he seems to condemn, do not despair, but look to Christ, in whom you will surely find that, when God destroys, it is aimed at salvation, not at ruin. And this is the sole comfort of those under trial, that in the Law they recognize the Gospel — that is, in misfortune, good fortune; in the curse, the blessing; in sin, righteousness; in death, life — through Christ our Lord. For no one can hold his ground in cross and adversity unless he relies upon Christ; and no one can place trust in God except through Christ.

There are people who say they trust in God, and their intention is indeed good, but without understanding. For when one asks them why they trust in God, they answer: "Because he has never forsaken me." But, my friend, if you trust in God only for this reason, what then will you do when he does forsake you — just as he forsook even his own Son on the cross? For he cries out: "My God, why have you forsaken me?" What will you do then? Where will your trust remain?

"Yes," you say, "I trust in him because I hear that God is merciful." But what will you do when God declares himself an adversary, an ungracious and unmerciful judge, as he is wont to be in judgment?

Therefore, so that we may not be put to shame in our trust, we must trust in God not because we have never yet been forsaken by him (for in that case, once we are forsaken, we would have no trust left at all); nor because we imagine, in a carnal way, that God is merciful (for in that way we would cease to trust as soon as God presents himself to us as a terrifying judge); but we must learn to trust in God through Jesus Christ, through the Gospel, by which one surely comes to know that God, in the very midst of forsakenness, does not forsake; that in the midst of judgment he is a merciful Father; that in death he offers life, and in hell, heaven. If anyone knows this through faith in Christ, he will be saved and will be raised up on the Last Day.

Why does Luther's Catechism read: "I believe in a holy Christian Church"?

Mr. Oertel maintains in his "Wahrheitsfreund" of December 12, 1844, that the late Luther falsified the Apostles' Creed, in that our Catechism reads: "I believe in a holy Christian Church," whereas the Latin text reads: "Catholicam ecclesiam," that is, the universal Church. Luther — so writes Mr. O. — made this alteration because he was well aware that he did not stand within the true Church.

Let the following serve for Mr. O.'s better instruction. Luther wrote "Christian" in preference to "universal or catholic," first, because the latter word means the same thing and is more comprehensible to the common man, who might otherwise easily hit upon the idea that the Lutherans believed the Roman papist sect — which adorns itself with the fine title "catholic" — to be the Church of Christ. Second, it was in fact not Luther at all who introduced the word "Christian" into the German Apostles' Creed and who first translated the word "catholica" with it; this had already happened long before him.

Perhaps it will not be uninteresting to our readers to read the Apostles' Creed in the form in which we find it almost a hundred years before Luther. It reads as follows:

These are the twelve articles of the Christian faith.

The first. I believe in God the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.

The second. And in Jesus Christ, his only-begotten Son, our Lord,

The third, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of Mary the Virgin,

The fourth, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried,

The fifth, he descended into hell,

The sixth, on the third day he rose from the dead,

The seventh, he ascended into heaven, sits at the right hand of God the Father almighty, from whence he shall come to judge the living and the dead,

The eighth, I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Christian Church,

The ninth, the communion of saints,

The tenth article, the forgiveness of sins,

The eleventh, the resurrection of the body,

The twelfth, and the life everlasting.

The foregoing is taken from an old manuscript from the year 1448.*)

What Mr. Oertel further says regarding Luther's alleged alterations in the Apostles' Creed — namely, that he translated "Communio" as "Gemeinde" (congregation) with "irresponsible boldness" — is too wretched to be worth an answer.

Church News.

Among the preachers belonging to the Ev. Lutheran Synod of Ohio, it had until now been the custom, at the distribution of Holy Communion, to use the words: "Christ says: Take, eat," etc. A petition has now been submitted to the said Synod for the abolition of this formula of distribution, signed by Dr. W. Sihler, A. Ernst, J. G. Burger, and F. M. Forschner.

*) We have borrowed it from "Kapp's Beiträge," etc., of the year 1755. There the document is cited as follows: MS. No. 14 in 8vo, written A.D. 1448, called at its end the Lucidarius.