# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1848 07 05_S191
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

church doctrine, as the sole one who justifies and saves, but according to the delusion of his unenlightened reason, as a mere teacher of the Law, preacher of virtue, and work-righteous saint, then the believing Methodist preacher would first have to rebuke him privately, face to face; and if that helped nothing, he could then challenge him to a public debate and there expose his unscriptural and unchurchly teaching. This would at least be an open and honest procedure. But that hidden, unlawful sneaking in upon individual parishioners of a believing preacher and faithful shepherd — that "building upon another man's foundation" which the apostle shunned — would, one would hope, be a thing that any honest Jew or Turk would be ashamed of. Whoever nevertheless does it proves that he is not driven by the Holy Spirit, who is a Spirit of pure and holy love, of truth and humility, but by the fanatical spirit, who is a spirit of selfishness, impurity, and pride, and who thinks, in good Jesuit fashion, that the end justifies the means.

e. that even the non-preachers among the Methodists have a diseased craving to convert the unconverted and to edify the believers with their lengthy chatter about their brief, inward feelings of repentance and grace. They seem, by contrast, far less inclined to consider that the silent preaching of a truly godly walk — in unfeigned faith, in fervent and self-denying love, and in unhypocritical humility — is a far more powerful and far more effective edification.

4. The production of a diseased use and application of Holy Scripture. This, however, is evident from the following:

a. that they have a special preference for such passages and chapters as especially strike the feelings more strongly — as, for example, the conversion of Paul, Acts 9, and of the jailer at Philippi, Acts 16, and the like — whereas, by contrast, they do not apply the same diligence to the proof-texts of the doctrine of salvation, in order to arrive at a thorough understanding.

b. that they are rather reckless in tearing passages of Holy Scripture out of their context and applying them in favor of their own character and activity, however skewed and one-sided that may be. Thus, for example, that passage, Matthew 10:32–33, on confessing and denying Christ before men, and on the blessed consequences of confessing as well as the terrible consequences of denying, must diligently serve them, and is applied by them perversely.

The context, namely, teaches that the Lord speaks those words (compare vv. 28–31) concerning the times of the persecution of believers, as a warning against a false fear of man and as an encouragement to a right fear of God.

The Methodists, however, since they generally make a trade of godliness, turn even that passage into a kind of profession; for without anyone forcing them to deny Christ — which is, in fact, when confessing is truly called for — they consider it a denial if they do not descend upon people, even those who have their own called preacher, in their homes, or accost them on the street and urge them to attend their services, to join in loud communal prayer, and so forth. That is what they call confessing Christ.

If, then, their unwise and immature zeal for confessing and converting — instead of confessing Christ especially through a holy, godly walk — meets with some blunt rebuff, they call this, rather rashly and improperly: "bearing the reproach of Christ, being persecuted for his sake."

Likewise, they also abuse the passage Romans 8:16: "the same Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God." For they use it partly to make a boastful show, and partly they apply these words, as touched on above, perversely against others.

For instead of using these words to give a wholesome fright to the self-righteous, the work-righteous saints, and the mere lip-believers, they gladly turn them against sincere souls, desirous of salvation but somewhat timid, and thereby disturb the gradual course which the Lord is taking with them, needlessly making them troubled and uneasy, and give offense to these little ones in Christ, so that they too become uncertain about the gracious work of the Holy Spirit in their hearts — because, according to their experience thus far, they have not felt that testimony as decisively within themselves as the Methodists boast of feeling it.

And yet it may well stand thus before the Lord, the knower of hearts, that among the Methodists the seed of the divine Word has fallen only on stony ground, and their falling away may perhaps be close at hand (Luke 8:6, 13), while among those quiet, simple souls it has fallen on good, more deeply receptive soil, which first brings forth the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear (Luke 8:8, 15; Mark 4:28).

c. that they are ever learning, and yet never come to the knowledge of the truth; for there may well be very few among them who are thoroughly versed and at home in the order of grace and salvation of our church, such as, for example, only the Small Lutheran Catechism sets forth.

The biblical proof-texts that are usually at their disposal serve almost exclusively to give a biblical grounding to an experience-based Christianity; and indeed, against dead, merely notional and lip-believers, it is right and good to apply such words of Scripture.

But it is surely still more essential and more important, especially in this land of sectarianism and foolish little man-made inventions, to possess the sound, clear, and comprehensive knowledge of salvation of the holy Christian church, such as we already possess, by God's grace, in the Small Lutheran Catechism — which, in its indestructible youthfulness and excellence, and in its more than three hundred years of duration, has already seen so much catechetical stubble-work and bungling carried to the grave.

But where is the Methodist who has this knowledge of salvation, and who would know how to ground it with the right, cogent Bible passages, and to defend and maintain it victoriously against the attacks of Roman-papist superstition and of fanatical unbelief or false belief? Where is the Methodist who would not be inwardly troubled by every wind of doctrine, and who would know how to combat and refute false doctrine thoroughly?

Rather, they themselves stand askew, unclear, and confused in the most important articles, and do not know, for example, how to distinguish justification and sanctification cleanly and clearly from one another first, and then how to connect them correctly with one another.

This becomes evident, however, from the closing words of that immature and confused essay in the Apologete, "Water Baptism — No Regeneration," by the conceited novice Mr. Joh. Geyer; for there it says: "only faith that is active through love makes one blessed."

But this false assertion is a mixing and confusion of justification and sanctification; for to the latter belongs the faith that is later active in love (of one's neighbor), whereas only the faith that earlier lays hold of Christ and his merit declares righteous and makes blessed (see Romans 3:24–27, compare Acts 15:11, Ephesians 2:8–9) — without any work of the Law beforehand, and without any work of love afterward — as the example of the thief on the cross also teaches, that firstfruits of the blessed of the new covenant; for without any subsequent work of love, solely through the believing laying hold of Christ, this former robber was with the Lord in paradise long before the great apostles Paul and John, after their many works of love, entered into that same poor-sinner's faith toward their Lord and Savior.

Luther says on this, briefly and well: "Faith gives you Christ as your own, with all his being and work; love gives you to your neighbor as his own, with all your being and work."

From the absence of works of love, however, it is recognized that justifying faith is also absent, and that only a dead, hypocritical faith is present.

These, then, so far as I recognize it up to now, would be the four principal effects of the doctrine and manner of Methodism, in their various signs and marks; and I hope you now see clearly enough that, and why, Methodism as such cannot form sound and firm evangelical Christians, but rather must itself be regarded as a sickness — indeed, as something like a feverish condition of the Christian faith and life.

Nevertheless, there is a difference between individual Methodists, just as there are mild and severe fever patients. As already noted earlier, there are also among them more serious, deeper, quieter, lovely, and sincere souls, who stand, as it were, under a special gracious guidance of the Holy Spirit, so that the good in Methodism benefits them more, and the diseased element harms them less. Conversely, however, there are also, at the other extreme, wild, overheated fanatics, who present, in repugnant caricature, what was already, in its very disposition, erroneous and diseased in the doctrine and practice of the fathers of