# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Mai 1863_S138
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

138 What the Apostles Say, and What Christ the Lord Says, to Our Catechism Controversy.

...with this right to vote, the authority is being claimed to shake the foundation of the church, and [to shake] the necessary presupposition and indispensable condition of republican forms of constitution — namely, a strict discipline that excludes whatever conflicts with the fundamental factor of every constitution, the Constitution, in our case the confession; then it leaps to the eye how much we stand in need of something other than a synod.

And even if we had synods, they would not be entitled to meet the wishes of those who would like to see the doctrine of Luther's Small Catechism set aside by the new catechism. As officials of a synod, sworn to the confession of the church, would be obligated to reject every such petition, so now, in our day, those into whose hands God has placed the authority of the ecclesia repraesentativa are bound to watch that no harm is done to the faith. And it is plain that this form of constitution, in and of itself, does not hinder the church's prospering.

VI. On the Biblical Doctrine of the Devil.*)

It is well known, the stanza from "our Lord God's Dragoon March," as the old Prince of Dessau once called Luther's "A Mighty Fortress" in his day — a stanza which, like so many another word of this warrior of Christ, proves that the doctrine which flowed from the mouth of Jesus, in whom no deceit has yet been found, has suffered no harm from his truly pure knowledge of God — the doctrine that was recently so basely attacked in the columns of this paper. And just as he, when he became aware of something of the power of the evil enemy, had to cry out: "The old, evil foe now means it in earnest," etc., so our fathers lamented: "The old dragon and evil foe burns with envy, hatred, and wrath; his whole intent is fixed on how your throng may be torn from him. And as he has heretofore brought the world into distress, he leads it on still further into death; church, word, law, all honor — to destroy them he is ever ready. Therefore he has neither rest nor repose; he roars like a lion, strives early and late, lays snares and nets, uses false cunning, that he may corrupt whatever is Christian."

If, then, the doctrine of the devil is bound up with the whole Christian Lutheran faith, it is no less well-grounded in Holy Scripture. Already on the first pages of the Bible "the serpent" appears, and truly not in a "cozy" shape. And if later — as, alas, has happened often enough even after the coming of our Savior, down to the present day — the strong armed man kept "his goods in peace," then he had, to be sure, to reveal his existence in the most "un-cozy" way of all when "a stronger than he" came (cf. Luke 11:20–22). According to Christian doctrine, those who through faith in this "Stronger One" escape him will, until the Last Day, pay the penalty of the harm that his

*) The newspaper in question likewise did not print it.