# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1848 07 05_S189
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Edited by C. F. W. Walther.

Der Lutheraner.

"God's Word and Luther's teaching shall pass away neither now nor ever."

Published by the German Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and Other States.

Volume 4.

St. Louis, Mo., July 25, 1848.

No. 24.

Terms: The Lutheraner appears once every two weeks, for the annual subscription price of one dollar for out-of-town subscribers, who must pay it in advance and bear the postage. — In St. Louis, each individual issue is sold for 5 cents.
Only letters containing contributions for the paper are to be sent to the editor; all others, containing business matters, orders, cancellations, money, etc., are to be sent to the address: Mr. F. W. Barthel, care of C. F. W. Walther, St. Louis, Mo.

Conversations between Two Lutherans about Methodism.

Third Conversation.
The Effects of the Doctrine and Manner of the Methodists.

Martin. I hope now, friend Philipp, that you will now understand why Methodist doctrine and practice, as such, cannot form and foster sound and evangelically grounded Christians. This earlier claim of mine seemed to you at first too narrow and too harsh.

Philipp. Indeed, the matter now appears to me in a clearer light. But please be so good as to summarize for me once more, briefly and clearly, what you demonstrated in our earlier conversations to be diseased and fanatical in the doctrine and manner of the Methodists.

Martin. They were the following points:

1. The overvaluing of their "Church Order" and the undervaluing of their "Doctrine" — the former filling 200 pages, the latter only 12 pages, of that book: "The Doctrine and Church Order of the Episcopal Methodist Church," Cincinnati, 1841 (according to the latest English edition).

2. The omission of important and essential articles from this doctrine of theirs (which is almost exclusively only an excerpt of the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Episcopal Church of England) — such as, for example, those on the preaching office, the means of grace, and repentance.

3. The unclear wording of some articles of this doctrine of theirs — as, for instance, in Article 7, "On Original Sin" — and the content-evacuating wording of others — as, for instance, in Article 17, "On Baptism."

4. The excess of emotional agitation and the lack of a thorough doctrine of salvation and of "rightly dividing the word of truth" (that is, of Law and Gospel) in their manner of preaching.

5. The legalistic adoption of artificial, unevangelical, and unchurchly means of pressure and compulsion, and the superstitious trust in their contributing — or even their principal — effect toward conversion. These self-devised means of conversion (also called "new measures") — which are meant to bring about, artificially and forcibly, such so-called revivals and conversions as the Spirit of God worked, without any of these additions, through the preaching of J. Wesley and Whitefield — are chiefly the following:

a. Camp meetings.

b. Protracted meetings, employing several preachers who preach one after another.

c. The anxious seat (mourner's bench), together with everything belonging to it.

6. The manifest disparagement of the holy sacraments, and especially of holy baptism, in comparison with No. 5 — since, in proper fanatical fashion, and contrary to Matthew 28:19, Mark 16:16, and Titus 3:5, they do not regard it as the ground and source of regeneration.

7. The setting up of their quarterly meetings, in place of the churchly observance of the Christian festival seasons, mostly for the purpose of these so-called revivals.

8. The constant turnover of preachers in the Methodist congregations within one, or at most two, years.

9. The overvaluing of individual feelings of repentance and grace and their particular outward expression, and the delusion that these possible beginnings of conversion are already the true and settled state of repentance and faith.

10. The great mass of untrained preachers, and the failure to recognize this condition as an emergency and an evil.

11. The contempt for careful catechetical instruction and for a thorough knowledge of salvation, and, finally, connected with this,

12. The neglect of their children with regard to faithful and thorough instruction in biblical history and the catechism.

Philipp. Do they then have no Sunday schools?

Martin. They are indeed supposed, according to Section 16, p. 32 of their "Church Order," to establish and hold such schools. But in the first place, these much-praised Sunday schools are, on the whole, only a meager patchwork and a pitiful substitute for thorough and competent weekday schools; and moreover it is not the preacher who conducts them, but all sorts of well-meaning and believing people who tinker and putter about with the children as they please. There is nothing of one piece and from a single hand in it; there is no grounding in biblical history and the catechism, no learning and singing of good hymns. Mere Sunday schools are, on the whole, only a wretched stopgap and not much better than none at all. If, even given the complete lack of public schools, the fathers and mothers were for the most part only people who faithfully kept Deuteronomy 6:7 and Genesis 18:19 before their eyes in heartfelt fear of God, and who, after the example of their church-believing forefathers, diligently impressed the wholesome doctrine on their children both within and outside of common family worship — then one could quite properly do without this superficial whitewashing and glossing-over with a bit of Sunday school.

Philipp. What, then, in your opinion, are the effects of these twelve deficiencies and defects in the doctrine and manner of the Methodists? For although it is already becoming clear to me in part what must result especially from the ills of points 4 through 12, which I now likewise consider an unchurchly and fanatical manner, I should still like to hear it more clearly and definitely from your own mouth.

Martin. Whatever understanding God grants me in this matter, I will pass on to you.

The sad effects of that doctrine and manner, however, are the following:

1. The production of a subtle spiritual pride.

However severe this charge may sound, it is unfortunately only too true; for it is plain and evident, to be heard by word of mouth as well as read in writing:

a. that the actual members of Methodist congregations consider themselves, in a very special way, to be the apple of God's eye, the spiritual Israel, and the congregation of the saints.

b. that they regard their form and manner for the awakening