# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1848 05 02_S143
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

childlike, humble, and believing acceptance of the Word gives comfort also for the hour of trial and death, and makes one bold and undaunted even in the presence of the God who demands an accounting. Therefore Luther writes: "Grant it even to be so, that our text and understanding were also uncertain and obscure (as it is not), just as much as their (the Zwinglians') text and understanding: you still have, nevertheless, the glorious and defiant advantage that you can, with a good conscience, stand upon our text, and thus say: If I must have an uncertain, obscure text and understanding, then I would rather have the one that is spoken from his own mouth, than have the one that is spoken from a human mouth. And if I am to be deceived, I would rather be deceived by God (were that possible) than by men; for if God deceives me, he will surely answer for it and make restitution to me. But men cannot make restitution to me if they have deceived me and led me into hell. Such defiance the fanatics cannot have, for they cannot say: I would rather stand upon the text which Zwingli and Oecolampadius speak in discord with one another, than upon the one which Christ himself speaks in harmony. Accordingly you can joyfully say to Christ, both at your dying and at the Last Judgment, thus:

My dear Lord Jesus Christ, a dispute has arisen over your words in the Supper; some wish that they be understood otherwise than they read. But since they teach me nothing certain, but only confuse and unsettle me, and can in no way prove their own text, I have remained with your text, as the words read. If there is anything obscure in it, you have willed to have it so obscure; for you have given no other explanation of it, nor commanded any to be given. Nor is it found in any writing or language that "is" should mean "signifies," or "my body" mean "a sign of my body." If, then, there were some obscurity in it, you will surely excuse me for not grasping it, just as you excused your apostles when they did not understand you in many things, as when you foretold your suffering and resurrection, and yet they kept the words as they read, and did not make them mean otherwise. As also your dear mother did not understand, when you said to her, Luke 2:49: "I must be about my Father's business," and yet she simply kept the words in her heart, and did not make other words out of them. So I too have remained with these your words: "This is my body," etc. And I have not wished to make, nor to let be made, anything else out of them, but have committed and entrusted it to you, whether there be something obscure in them, and have kept them as they read, especially since I do not find that they contend against any article of the faith.

See, thus will no fanatic be able to speak to Christ, this I well know; for they are uncertain and at variance concerning their own text." Thus far Luther, in his great confession concerning the holy Supper, of the year 1528.

"Cry aloud, spare not, lift up your voice like a trumpet, and declare to my people their transgression, and to the house of Jacob their sin." Isa. 58:1.

Samuel Urlsperger (died 1772), a friend of A. H. Francke, had been court preacher in Stuttgart since 1714. At that time things went on very dissolutely at the Württemberg court, which grieved the court preacher deeply, but fear of men and favor with men bound his tongue. Francke, who in 1717 made a journey into South Germany, learned of this; he went to hear his sermon, and after the sermon, full of sorrow, went to Urlsperger and said: "I hear, brother, that your sermons are evangelical, but the sins of your court you touch with no word. I come, therefore, to tell you in the name of God that you are a dumb dog (Isa. 56:10), and that if you do not turn, and as a public teacher speak the truth freely, you will be lost, despite all your knowledge." Grieved, Francke took his leave and departed. The following Sunday the court preacher spoke with great earnestness and freedom. The duke let it be told him that he had already been minded to remove him from the pulpit; that if he did not, the following Sunday, retract his sermon, he would lodge a complaint with the Imperial Chamber Court, where, since he had committed a crime of lèse-majesté, he might easily lose his head. Urlsperger sent back the answer that he could by no means retract; he must therefore leave it to His Serene Highness to do as he saw fit. He was thereupon arrested, and every preparation made for his condemnation. After he had been questioned once more, his day of execution was set for the following week.

Thereupon he had his wife and four children brought to him, and asked them what they thought of his case. The wife answered: "Dear husband! Your death will plunge me and our children into the deepest bodily distress; but I beg you, for God's sake, do not deny the truth, lest the curse remain upon me and my children." Comforted by this answer, he sent word to the duke that his head was at his service any day.

The duke then laid the death sentence before his minister for signature; but the minister surrendered his office and his sword, and said: "Your Serene Highness! here are my office and my honor—I will sign no debt of blood!" The duke was astonished, and, in order not to lose his chief counselor, merely deposed the court preacher, but not only without any provision, but even with the prohibition of seeking employment elsewhere; and immediately thereafter another court preacher was chosen.

Some years later this same minister was with the prince at a parade of the guard, when the former court preacher happened to pass by; the minister drew the prince's attention to him, and said: "Your Serene Highness had fortune and blessing so long as this man was still in office; but since we have had a flatterer here, all has gone amiss. If you wish to make good this wrong, at least see to it that he is provided for." This was done. Urlsperger became dean at Herrenberg, and soon after, the first Lutheran preacher at Augsburg.

"If our gospel is hidden, it is hidden to those who are lost." 2 Cor. 4:3.

Dr. Taylor of Norwich said to Newton: "Friend, I have compared every word in the Bible seventeen times over, according to the original text, and it surprises me that I have not found in it the doctrine of atonement which you teach." "I do not wonder at that," answered Newton. "I once tried to light my lamp while the extinguisher-cap was still upon it. So it is that the prejudices acquired through upbringing and education form such an extinguisher-cap. It is not enough to bring the light; one must also take off the cap."

God's purpose, when he lets our children die.

A couple, not exactly Christian, had lost their only child. They loudly expressed their displeasure at this decision of God, and asked their pious pastor why God, if indeed there is one, and he is love, could take from them their only child. The man of God promised to give an answer in the funeral sermon to be held for the child, and gives it at the close of the same in these words: "You want still to know from me why God has taken your child to himself. Very well! He wishes to have one from your family in heaven too. You who are old do not wish to go to heaven, and would not have let the child in either, had it remained yours. Hear further a parable: There was a good shepherd, who had prepared choice fodder in his sheepfold for his sheep. He opened the door of the fold wide, but the sheep would not go in; he chased about after them in the yard for a long time, yet they kept shying back again and again from the open door. Then he took a lamb from the flock and carried it ahead, and behold! then the old ones ran after it. — The good shepherd is Christ; the opened sheepfold is heaven; the lamb is your child; if you still have a parent's heart, run after it! The Lord carries the lambs on ahead, so that the old ones may run after them. Amen."

"We do not boast beyond our measure in another man's labors." 2 Cor. 10:15.

The sectarian spirits can do nothing more than fall upon another's labor and find fault with it, and afterward boast that they have done it, and not the former rightful teachers and apostles whom they have forsaken. They are the bumblebees who eat the bees' honey, which they themselves did not make.
Luther.

The German Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and Other States

holds its next sessions in St. Louis, Mo., from the second Wednesday after Pentecost, June 21 to July 1. Arriving brethren are asked to inquire after the residence of the Pastor Loci at Mr. L. Pechmann's German Glass and Porcelain Ware Store, No. 22 Main Street, near the Old Market.

Receipt and thanks.

Through P. Brauer, from the Lutheran congregation in Addison, Ill., having received $58.00 for the building of a Lutheran church in Saginaw, Mich., this is certified with hearty thanks,

F. Sievers.

Letter of an upright mother in Hungary to her son, who had at first wished to study theology, but let himself be frightened away from it again, when a harsh persecution broke out against the Lutherans, and especially against the Lutheran preachers. Translated from the Bohemian. (See Collections for the Building of the Kingdom of God, from the year 1734.)

We share this letter, in part as an encouragement for such parents to whom God has given children whom they could and should dedicate to the service of the Lord in