# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1848 06 21_S185
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

...the written and read prayers, and moreover those held standing, as aforesaid, to be regarded as contemptible and of little worth. But it may easily be that one who prays standing is humble and simple, while one who kneels is vain and haughty; but God looks upon the heart and not upon the posture.

Philipp. What then do you think of their class meetings and the special prayer-hours held in them?

Martin. The former may have their good side where the congregations are large and scattered and the class leaders, so far as this is at all possible under Methodist doctrine and practice, are comparatively well-grounded and experienced Christians capable of exercising the office of brotherly rebuke and comfort. But we know from our experience here in the neighborhood that quite immature novices are also taken for this, merely because they are fond of chattering at length about their spiritual pulse and thermometer, and at once raise a great outcry over some small experience. In addition they have the custom, in the prayer-hours, of turning prayer more or less into a schoolroom exercise, with one person after another praying, without there being any common purpose to the prayer. Likewise it seems to me not without danger and misgiving that the class leader searches out the state of the heart of each individual before ten or eleven others. For how easily it can happen that this one or that one suffers harm in simplicity and truthfulness — that is, that out of false shame at having experienced nothing special in the past fortnight, he inflates a little tree-frog into a bull-frog; for he is indeed supposed, and quite willing, to edify the others as much as possible with his inward experiences. — How much simpler and more natural it is, especially in smaller congregations, for the faithful shepherd himself to visit his little sheep directly, to rebuke and comfort them, and for these in turn to seek out their shepherd. And this will hardly fail to happen, especially where the preacher is not a taskmaster but a father in Christ, who also wields the rod Woe — that is, the Law — in an evangelical sense and spirit. But this is precisely a further defect in the Methodist manner and order, that their preachers are permitted to remain with the same congregation for at most two years, so that none of them can in any way become a father in Christ to his church-children. The gradual, blessed working of a faithful and godly servant of the Lord, who lives and moves wholly for and in his office, and under whose nurturing and interceding love his little baptized infants grow by degrees into catechumens, and these into independent members, and these at last into husbands and wives — this lovely and wholesome working, which like healthful air contributes so greatly, gradually yet with quiet power, to spiritual welfare — is rendered wholly impossible by that legalistic arrangement. Instead, that restless Methodist inclination is thereby fostered, of receiving fresh enjoyment and spice with a new preacher every one or two years.

Philipp. And what do you think of the fact that almost all the Methodist preachers are unlearned men?

Martin. If the Methodists regarded this as a state of need, I should have nothing against it; for even in our own church here there are such men, and quite worthy ones too; but I hope that these latter especially will always recognize their lack of learned preparation — even where, God willing, they also have faith and the Holy Spirit — as being just such a state of need. Among the Methodists, however, the opposite view seems to prevail; for instead of remaining finely humble on account of that very lack, and treating it precisely as such, their unlearned preachers are apt to despise almost all scholarship and theological training; indeed they are sometimes so blinded by self-love and spiritual pride that they are proud of not possessing that training; and in doing so they do not fail to persuade themselves and others that learned knowledge is thoroughly hindersome and dangerous to faith and godliness; for they are not sensible and just enough to distinguish that this is only so when the knowing person lacks the right faith and the love of Christ, and puffs himself up with his outward knowledge and exalts himself above the congregation, instead of serving it modestly and humbly with it. For learning is only a handmaid, not a mistress, in the house of God. It is indeed true that no university and no seminary in the world can, of and by itself, impart the right faith in the triune God and the gifts of witnessing, teaching, and shepherding; but partly to prepare the way for that faith, partly to cultivate this gift properly and fit it for its later exercise, such educational institutions are of the highest importance and essential. How, for example, is a preacher to bear witness to and teach rightly the sum of the truth of salvation, to divide rightly and then rightly join together the Word of God, Law and Gospel, if he has no clear knowledge of the order of grace? This, however, he can as a rule only reliably gain in those very schools. And it is precisely from this deficiency — indeed from the partial contempt for these salutary and beneficial institutions of learning — that it comes about among the Methodist preachers that they do not set forth the doctrine of salvation clearly and intelligibly, press far too one-sidedly upon feeling, and confound justification and sanctification with one another. So, for example, I myself heard here in February of this year the resident preacher treat the faith spoken of in John 3:16 as a faith active in works (of which, indeed, mention is made, for example, in James 2:17 and 1 Corinthians 13:2), whereas here, in this very passage, it is only the faith that lays hold of Christ, declares righteous, and brings salvation, in its original direction toward the grace of God in the Gospel, without any contribution of works whatsoever. Likewise the Methodist preachers also preach sanctification as though it could already, on this side of eternity, attain to completion — that is, to holiness and perfection — directly contrary to the fifth petition (see Romans 5:23 and Hebrews 12:1). Similarly I also heard, in February, the Methodist elder, Mr. P. S., who travels the circuit here, literally assert in the church that "it is a trick of the devil when it is taught and believed that God also leaves various sin remaining in the believer, in order to keep him in humility; but to be humble" — so Mr. S. imagined he was refuting this view — "means to be like Christ; consequently, sinning makes one like Christ." Had I not heard this Methodist conclusion with my own ears, I would scarcely have believed, from the mouths of others, that a traveling elder could be, to put it as mildly as possible, so unclear and confused — while he and others probably suppose that he has received from the Holy Spirit a greater measure of "the wisdom and the understanding" (Isaiah 11:2) than his hearers. For either this enlightened preacher of sanctification did not understand it any better, or else it did not please this ready-made saint to grant that so-called "trick of the devil" (which, however, in 2 Corinthians 12:7–9 is rather shown to be a fatherly discipline of God) its just due; for where indeed would the truly righteous in Christ be, if the God of mercy did not bear with them, until their dying hour, the sins of weakness of their flesh, which cling to them against their will (see 1 John 1:8–10, 2:1) — whereby he does indeed try their faith, restrain their spiritual pride, and keep them here in humility? This humility, however, is by no means to be compared, in this train of thought, with the humility of Christ, as Mr. S. does; for Christ had neither original nor actual sin, nor any infirmity deriving from the former; and therefore that proposition is false in this connection, that every humility as such makes one like Christ; so when Mr. S. then says, "consequently, sinning makes one like Christ," this seeming conclusion is null and void, because the premise itself is false. The truth, however, is this: a deliberate, willful sinning does indeed make one like the devil, and not like Christ; but the still-remaining original sin, and the sin of weakness of the righteous person in Christ against his own will — against which, however, he fights faithfully and earnestly with the weapons and means of grace of the Holy Spirit — does not essentially harm his complete righteousness of faith and his beginning righteousness of life in Christ, and his likeness to Christ; yet the ever-remaining, even if no longer dominant, original sin should indeed restrain the delusion and spiritual pride of man, as though the fragmentary work of his sanctification, however much it be growing, could ever here below become completion — that is, holiness and full likeness to Christ; for this is granted to the believer who overcomes