# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1848 06 21_S186
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

world, flesh, and devil in faith and perseveres, only in the life to come, according to 1 John 3:2, when in the passage through death original sin has come to full extinction and baptismal grace to full life.

Had the Methodist elder, Mr. P. S., enjoyed even a little training of the understanding at a learned school, he would hardly have drawn this false conclusion — insofar as that absurd inference was merely a sin of the understanding and not of the will.

Furthermore, how is a preacher, without knowledge of the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew languages, to arrive at an independent and more exact knowledge and interpretation of Scripture, and to explain, say, this or that part of Holy Scripture in its context to the zealous and educated Bible-readers of his congregation, when they ask him to do so? And where else can he gain those essential and necessary language skills than at the schools and institutions where they are taught?

No less important and essential for the spiritual teacher, however, is also the exact knowledge of the various confessions and doctrines of the various churches, and especially, here in this country, of the most significant sects and spiritual freebooters; for without this knowledge, and that of church history, the servant of the church could hardly rightly ground and safeguard himself and his own, and rightly judge his own time in ecclesiastical matters. But to acquire this knowledge, and the guidance needed to gain it ever more thoroughly and completely, higher institutions of learning are needed. A preacher, then, who despises these, and gives himself over much more to a busy idleness than he seeks, through diligent private study, to make good as far as possible his lack of theological training, could hardly possess such a measure of the Holy Spirit as he imagines himself to have; for the Spirit is always a Spirit of humility.

Among the Methodists, however, there is yet added the further evil that, contrary to 1 Timothy 3:6, they also entrust the spiritual office to novices, provided only that other novices testify that these are truly believing people, and that this or that contributed to their conversion. And as just such a novice, Mr. Joh. Geier of Marietta has recently made himself known in print; for in his most recent article in the Apologete, "Water Baptism Is No Rebirth," the short sense of the long speech is this: the essence of baptism depends upon — and is actually made by — the repentance and the faith of the person baptized. This, however, is much as if, in the case of a merely outward washing, I wished to say: the essence of the water, that is, its cleansing power, depends upon — and is actually made by — the skin and the hands of the person. Mr. J. G. would be right if he meant: the blessed effect of baptism depends in part upon the repentance and the faith of the one baptized; for the essence of baptism rests and is grounded solely in the institution-word of the almighty