# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1845 01 11_S40
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

because the Roman church commands the killing of heretics as an act of divine service, just as the Koran does, whereas the Lutheran church condemns this as a service of the devil. For suppose that a Lutheran authority had indeed once put a heretic to death for his heresies — which has never been proven*) — even then the Lutheran authority would have acted in a wholly un-Lutheran manner; it would have done what its own church condemns. Just as little as the Lutheran church steals or breaks into houses, etc. — although there are so-called Lutherans who do such things — just as little would the Lutheran church have made itself party to that murder of a heretic, even if whole so-called Lutheran universities had agreed to it; for among us the voice of preachers and scholars is not, in and of itself, the voice of the church. But how does the church speak? In the Augsburg Confession it says: "Wherefore, according to divine right, the office of bishop is to preach the Gospel, forgive sin, judge doctrine, and reject the doctrine that is contrary to the Gospel, and to exclude from the Christian congregation the ungodly whose ungodly conduct is manifest — not by human power, but by the Word of God alone." (Art. 28.) Further, it says in the Smalcald Articles: "Christ has given his disciples spiritual power alone, that is, he has commanded them to preach the Gospel, to proclaim the forgiveness of sins, to administer the sacraments, and to ban the ungodly — without bodily force, through the Word alone." (Appendix.) In agreement with our church, Luther says: "We are not to root out or destroy heretics and false teachers. Here one must deal with God's Word; for in this matter it happens that he who errs today may come right again tomorrow. Who knows when the Word of God will touch his heart? But where he is burned or otherwise put to death, this prevents him from ever coming right, and he is thereby snatched away from the Word of God, so that he must be lost who might otherwise have been saved. Then what the Lord says comes to pass, that the wheat too is torn up along with the tares when one weeds out the weeds. That is indeed a horrible thing before God and can never be answered for. From this, take note what raging people we were for so long a time (under the papacy), we who wanted to force the Turks to the faith with the sword, the heretics with fire, the Jews by killing, and to root out the weeds by our own power — exactly as if we were the people who could rule over hearts and spirits and could make them godly and righteous, which only God's Word must do. But we cut people off from the Word by murder, so that it cannot work upon them, and thereby bring upon ourselves, so far as it lies in our power, two murders at once, namely that we murder the body temporally and the soul eternally at the same time, and afterward we say) that we have thereby done God a service, and think to have earned something special in heaven. Therefore this saying: 'Let both grow together' (Matthew 13), ought rightly to terrify the heretic-hunters and man-murderers, were their foreheads not made of iron, even though they had genuine heretics before them." (Church Postil, Fifth Sunday after Epiphany.)

*) A writer in St. Louis claims, indeed, to be able to prove this, but he naively admits himself that the man by whom he wishes to prove it — who was also accused of sorcery — was not executed at all, but was merely found once, as a corpse with a fatal wound, in his prison cell!!

Now, dear Lutheran reader, test by what has been said what the scoffers of our day write against Christianity, and you will thereby have enough to read a good many dozen volumes of their unclean sheets without going astray, should you ever be tempted to do so. You will find that these sheets are like an onion, which one may peel as far as one likes and never come to any kernel; the quintessence of a thousand pages is mostly this: there have been hypocritical Christians who were wicked fellows, therefore true Christianity is a wicked thing!!

Church News.

In No. 8 of Der Lutheraner we reported that Pastor Wyneken, in Germany, had issued an appeal to our fellow believers to come to the aid of the ecclesiastically orphaned German Lutherans in the United States of North America. We are glad to be able to report, from letters recently received, that our brothers in the faith in the homeland have since been coming together ever more unanimously and vigorously, in order to help gather, found, build up, and care for the scattered and needy Lutherans here, according to the same plan and the same guiding principles, and on the same foundation of our confessions. In Bavaria, Pastor Löhe of Neuendettelsau, near Nuremberg, has taken this cause especially to heart. The brethren in Bavaria have already been joined by the Hanoverians (under the leadership of Pastor Petri), Mecklenburgers, Westphalians, Swabians, and even Livonians; the society at Dresden formed for the same purpose still stands alone at present, but it is to be expected that it too will soon join the other societies named. Sent from Dresden, Dr. Sihler has come here; he is now pastor in Pomeroy, Meigs Co., Ohio; he was followed recently, from the same place, by candidate Schmidt. From the institute of the aforementioned Pastor Löhe, seven emissaries have already been sent over, three of whom are preachers — Ernst, near Marysville, Union Co., Ohio; Burger, in Hancock Co., Ohio; Hattstädt, in Monroe, Michigan — two are teachers, Baumgart in Columbus and Schuster in Pomeroy; Saupert, appointed as a traveling preacher, is presently still in Columbus, Ohio; and Zwerner as a colporteur. — We bid them all heartily welcome and pray to God, in the name of Jesus Christ, that he would grant them all grace to proclaim the pure doctrine of our church here with joyful opening of their mouths, and to let them find, for their message, an open door everywhere.

Correction.

It was recently reported in a local paper that Luther had once wanted to have a child thrown into the water because he believed it to be possessed by the devil. Strange as this may seem to many, the reporter does, in a certain sense, actually relate the truth, except that he is mistaken in supposing that Luther wished this to happen to only one child. Luther's Catechism shows, rather, that his meaning is that the old Adam should be drowned in every human being — first through Holy Baptism, and then through daily repentance and contrition. In this sense we by no means deny the truth of the report in question.

Song of a Soul Longing for Salvation.

Thou only, Jesus, dost remain mine,
nothing shall part me from thee;
my heart shall feed on thee alone
and on thy grace.
Thou art my comfort and my joy,
my salvation and my righteousness
in death as in life!

O Jesus, best of all treasures,
thee will I love at all times!
Make room for thyself within my heart;
let me not grieve
thy good Spirit with sins,
who shows me the way to the Father
and teaches me to pray in faith.

O Jesus, highest good,
ah, dry my tears
with the burning glow of thy love,
still the longing of my heart!
Since thou, O precious Lamb of God,
upon the accursed stem of the cross
didst give up thy life for me.

Ah, could I never let this
slip from my mind:
that thou didst free from judgment
those who, full of misery, sat
in Satan's and death's kingdom,
cast off by God, all alike,
and now saved through thee.

As often as I ponder this within myself,
I feel sweet peace;
this thou givest as a free gift
to the poor and the weary
who bear thy so gentle and sweet yoke
with joy after thee
in this poor life still.

It grieves and pains me sorely
that I have nothing more to offer
than my great host of sins,
for which thou wast given to me as a gift
by thy Father;
my heart remembers this with joy —
I will praise him at all times!

Ah, if only all the world knew
how greatly thou art wont to love!
It would never again trouble itself
over goods and gold;
it would praise thy kindness
greatly here already in this life
and taste thy peace.

Ah, Jesus, let me at the last
pray also for the brethren!
In this thy heart delights,
when they, as thy members,
love one another and in unity
further thy work far and wide
and praise thy grace.

J. M. Quast.
Printed by Weber and Olshausen.