# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1845 01 25_S43
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

the notice that the "German Evangelical Church Society of the West," founded in the year 1840, had held its seventh convention in October of last year in the Gravois Settlement, near St. Louis, Mo., and that six ordained ministers and three candidates were present. Named as officers for the coming society year are the Reverend Pastors: Garlichs of Femme Osage, Mo., Nollau of Gravois Settlement, Mo., and Riess of Centreville, Illinois. At the same time the statutes, consisting of sixteen paragraphs, are communicated, as revised (subjected to a review) and adopted by the society in 1843. The distinctive feature of the church whose spread the society has as its purpose is given in the sixth paragraph of the statutes, the only unalterable one; it reads as follows: "The members of the society acknowledge the Holy Scripture of the Old and New Testaments as the Word of God and as the sole rule of faith, and in this connection confess the interpretation of Holy Scripture that is set down in the symbolical books of the Evangelical Lutheran and the Evangelical Reformed Church of Germany, insofar as these agree with one another."

This confession makes it plainly evident that the members of the society have set themselves the task of gaining acceptance here as well for the union or merger of Lutherans and Reformed into one so-called Evangelical Church, which has been enforced by the authorities since 1817 in several lands of Germany (especially in Prussia, Nassau, in the province of Hanau in Electoral Hesse, in the Rhenish Palatinate, Waldeck and Pyrmont, Baden, Hesse-Darmstadt, Anhalt-Bernburg). Now if this union were the kind of ecclesiastical merger that was grounded in a common faith and a common acceptance of the truth, and were brought about by those who had previously been in error at last confessing this, renouncing it, and accepting the truth, then indeed no one could be a Christian who did not wish those men the best success in their undertaking with his whole heart, and who was not ready to join them and, for so holy a purpose, to sacrifice goods and blood with a thousand joys wherever necessary. Indeed, woe then to the hand that would dare to take up the pen against such a godly work! For that would mean begrudging God his honor and dearly bought souls their salvation. For our part we can truthfully assure that we deeply mourn over the fragmentation within Christendom, that we take no pleasure in strife and quarreling, and that we daily entreat the Lord that he would check the divisions daily arising more and more among Christians and unite all who are separated in truth and peace.

From the paragraph cited, however, we see that the Evangelical Society here in the West has a wholly different purpose and character. It does not seek to establish such a union between Lutherans and Reformed

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as rests upon their having become united in faith, but rather one in which they regard themselves as members of one and the same church although they believe quite differently on the most important articles of Christian doctrine.

For such a union we can never in good conscience speak a favorable word; we must rather protest against it as loudly and decidedly as possible, and in particular warn our Lutheran brothers in the faith most earnestly against it. We are far from condemning the whole Reformed Church for the sake of the errors that we find established in it — we are rather firmly convinced that this church too has many dear children of God among its members; we therefore gladly wish to walk alongside the Reformed in love; but to stand with them in church fellowship, so long as they persist in the errors of their church, is against our conscience, because it is against God's Word. Clear is the command of the Lord that he gave to his Church through the Apostle in 1 Corinthians 1:10: "Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment." Here we have an indisputable command of God, that in a true Christian church there must prevail not differing views but one and the same opinion concerning the doctrines that God has clearly revealed — indeed, that the members of the true church should not only be united in the faith of their hearts, but should also, through the same words with which they confess their doctrine, manifest their unity in spirit and in faith. The same apostle further says: "Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned, and avoid them." Romans 16:17. Here we hear that the division against which God above all warns his church is division through another, false doctrine, but that it is right and commanded by God to withdraw from those, or to separate oneself outwardly from those, who have already separated themselves from us in heart through another doctrine. A Reformed believer who holds God's Word to be true and yet holds the doctrine of his own church to be the right one can therefore no more unite in church fellowship with the Lutheran than the orthodox Lutheran can with the Reformed. If the Lutheran unites with those whom he holds to be in error, he breaks his baptismal covenant, he thereby actually denies the faith that he solemnly swore at his confirmation, and falls away from his church as a perjurer.

Entirely in accordance with the Word of God, it is therefore stated in the symbolical books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church: "It is hard that one should separate oneself from so many lands and peoples and maintain a separate doctrine, but here (Matthew 7:15; Titus 3:10; 2 Corinthians 6:14) stands God's command that everyone should be on guard and not be of one mind with those who hold false doctrine." (Smalcald Articles, Appendix, p. 155a.) Furthermore, it is taught in the tenth article of our Formula of Concord that one cannot unite oneself with the adversaries of our faith through external ceremonies or matters of indifference without denying the truth, when they have "not yet come to agreement with us in doctrine." There it says, among other things: "If such ceremonies were meant, required, or adopted with the intention that thereby the two conflicting religions should be made to agree and become one body (one whole), or that a return to popery and a departure from the pure doctrine of the Gospel and the true religion should occur or gradually result from it, then in this case what Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 6 must hold and apply: 'Be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers; what fellowship has light with darkness? Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord.'" (Solid Declaration, Article 10, p. 316a.) From this passage of the public confessions of faith of our church, the Christian reader sees that our church has long since decisively rejected, by express divine command, such a union whereby two conflicting churches are to be melted together into one body or whole before they have come to agreement in the true doctrine.

There are two reasons especially why we hold it our sacred duty to bear witness in all earnestness against the very undertaking of spreading here as well the united, so-called Evangelical Church. Our first reason is that this church here must for the most part gather itself at the expense of the Lutheran church. It is our own dear fellow believers above all who must be brought to fall away from their faith and their church and be recruited, in order that the new Evangelical Church may exist; we must therefore regard it as our most dangerous opponent, equal to the German Methodist church, which likewise lives off the plundering of other churches and the defection of their members. The Evangelical Church neither walks peacefully alongside us, nor does it engage us in a decisive contest as other churches do, but rather lays its nets and snares in the very midst of our camp, often robbing our church of its best sons and daughters, making them indifferent to pure doctrine, stifling in them the spirit of confession, and rendering them inactive for the united struggle, now so necessary, for the jewel of unimpaired truth.

A second reason that moves us not to remain silent here, but to raise our weak voice publicly, is the conviction that the society, however small its beginnings, nevertheless threatens to become exceedingly ruinous to the survival of our church, particularly here in the West. We therefore believe we owe it to our Lutheran brothers in the faith here to admonish them not to disdain this phenomenon as so unimportant, but rather to awaken and consider that we shall one day have to answer for it on the Last Day, if