# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1848 04 18_S132
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

instructed the ignorant but sincere with all patience and teaching, but punished the malicious and obstinate false teachers with holy earnestness and zeal, and powerfully exposed dangerous errors, the deceptions and delusions of the devil, so, by God's grace, do we also intend to do.

Accordingly we hold it to be the purest and noblest love — namely, the love of divine truth (and where this love is lacking, there the truth of love is also lacking) — to go to war with all our strength against the false, unscriptural union, this "powerful delusion" of our time; and this not only where it appears as an angel of light, namely where, in the mouth of eloquent spokesmen, it is charmingly adorned with stately specious grounds, but also where it confronts us in particular instances, as for example in unionist agendas, hymnals, synods, and so forth. For there has never been, is not now, and never will be any other true union between Lutherans and Reformed than that which rests on the foundation of the pure truth unto salvation in all articles of faith, in all points of the wholesome doctrine, as Holy Scripture establishes it, and as all the confessional writings of the Lutheran Church, the Concordia of 1580, confess and teach it purely and clearly, and at the same time assert and defend it against papists and enthusiasts.

For in this our testifying and confessing, teaching and defending, we know that we Lutherans do not belong to a separate church, but to that Church which is itself the pillar and ground of the truth, the teaching and confessing Church — although we do not deny, but rather gladly and willingly grant, to our own comfort and joy, that in all Christian parties of faith there are hidden Lutherans, that is, such as simply and humbly submit themselves to Holy Scripture, as it reads, in all points of saving truth, and who, through the special guidance of grace of the Holy Spirit, are preserved from the intrusion of soul-destroying errors into their fellowship.

So long, then, as the Reformed do not freely and publicly renounce their particular false doctrines — as, for example, concerning the Holy Sacraments and the Office of the Keys, and, a great part of them, the Calvinistic doctrine of election of grace — and freely and publicly enter into our Scriptural doctrine, so long is a true union between us possible neither as a whole nor in particulars. That the unionists in Germany and America designate the above doctrines as secondary doctrines is nothing but wantonness and mischief, human roguery and deception, since the Holy Sacraments, together with the holy Absolution, are solemn and abiding institutions of the Lord Christ, and effectual means of grace of the Holy Spirit, and appropriate Christ and His merit to us.

As has been said, there is no higher and purer love than that for the divine truth in Holy Scripture, and all confessionally faithful Lutherans

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who have a true and unfeigned reverence for God's revealed Word will, now as in the time of the fathers, and until the Last Day, by God's grace show themselves in the same way. That is, before they will separate themselves, even in a single point of the wholesome doctrine, from God's clear and undoubted Word, in order, out of a false carnal love, out of fear of man or desire to please men, to unite themselves ecclesiastically with those of erring faith or loose people who draw God's Word, even in a single point of the doctrine of salvation, into obscurity, uncertainty, or indifference — before they do such a thing, they would rather bear, now as before, all disgrace, hatred, wrath, and contempt of their opponents, the reproaches of "narrow-mindedness, bondage to the letter, short-sightedness, unlovingness," and so forth, gladly and willingly; indeed, even where, as has happened repeatedly in Germany, unionist authorities have persecuted them, they would rather suffer fines and imprisonment — indeed, where God so ordained it, even death — than consent to such a false union against God, His Word, and their conscience. Therefore it is right and proper when the confessionally faithful Lutherans of our time, since the devilish sham-play and the man-made contrivance of this false union so conspicuously shows itself, confess themselves all the more decisively to the Formula of Concord, so hated and repugnant to the unionists — even should this too, by Mr. H. and others who look through rose-colored unionist spectacles, be reviled as "bigoted, narrow-minded attachment." For it is precisely this ecclesiastical confessional writing which — however peaceably, within the Church, it seeks to mediate the oppositions that have arisen chiefly through crooked and misleading expressions, and then through the one-sided emphasis of individual parts in various doctrines — most sharply and most definitely wards off, outwardly, every false intrusion, and exposes it on every side.

2.) Mr. H. then continues further: "The leading men (namely of the Saxon Lutherans in Missouri) are without doubt honorable, zealous, and sincere people, who act from conviction and naturally cherish and cultivate German as the vital element of any Lutheran church whatsoever; but in their Saxon-Bavarian temple on the banks of the Mississippi one feels sad at heart, since for them there are, in the whole world, almost nothing but devil's chapels."

Whether Mr. H. himself was in St. Louis, and there heard one or two Lutheran pastors preach, is not known to me; but this I confidently venture to assert, that neither of the two has anywhere said, as has been claimed, that outside of their German Lutheran Trinity Church there are almost nothing but pure "devil's chapels."

For as concerns in particular the editor of the "Lutheraner," this paper is itself a continuing witness that its writer not only heartily acknowledges as brothers all confessionally faithful Lutherans of every language and people, but also does not regard the one holy Christian Church as confined within the bounds of that church which, in its present visible confessional appearance, is called the Lutheran.

It would indeed be a narrow and pitiful thing if none but those called Lutheran possessed the simple submission to God's Word, the right faith in Christ and the Holy Spirit; on the contrary, we know only too well how many thousands of nominal Lutherans do not bear the faith of their church alive in their hearts, and either secretly harbor dangerous false doctrines or even belong to the tares among the wheat. Conversely, however, the "Lutheraner" has itself already repeatedly testified that even in the Roman Church and among the enthusiasts there are quite a few genuine Lutherans, that is, Christians, who submit themselves to Holy Scripture without falsehood, have the right faith in Christ and the Holy Spirit, and truly belong to the one holy Christian Church.

In sum: we do not say that the church called Lutheran is and comprises the congregation of believers; rather, the congregation of believers, or the true Church, is Lutheran-minded. This is not to say, however, that the name "Lutheran" is now a matter of indifference to us; rather, since "Lutheran" at present means as much as orthodox, and since the Lutheran Church alone teaches and confesses the pure and full truth unto salvation from God's Word, and thereby presently distinguishes itself by this its name from all other particular churches, we will not lightly cast this name aside, but hold fast to it. But if, for instance, the Reformed were to abandon their particular false doctrines, and not continue further in the footsteps of the pride and the carnal presumption of reason of their forefathers, Zwingli and Calvin, but rather publicly renounce the false points and enter into our thoroughly pure doctrine, then we too would gladly let go of the name Lutheran, and could then together, with good right and reason, call ourselves evangelical, as opposed to the Roman papists. That would then be the true and proper union which all faithful Lutherans desire from the heart, and for which they pray, partly in the Second Petition, and partly specifically and diligently.

But it is also otherwise well known to the readers of the "Lutheraner" that it has just as little to do with harsh and hostile exclusiveness, with a judgmental, unloving manner, and with a carnal churchliness at the expense of love, as it has with a carnal union at the expense of truth. Has it not publicly borne witness, from the heart, to its joy that the District Synod of East Ohio has resolved to bind its candidates, at their ordination, to the Symbolical Books? Does it not take sincere and heartfelt interest in the increasing churchly direction of the Lutheran Standard, and does it not ardently wish that our dear