# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Februar 1859_S59
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Does the Doctrine of a General Invisible Church Require Union? 59

e. The effects of Christ's death on friends and
enemies                                                          D. 13. Serm.
f. The burial of Christ (W. 12, 1980; E. 18, 15).

To the foregoing I would like to add the following hints. At the
beginning of the Passion season one should draw up an overview of the
individual sermons and of the Sundays and weekdays appointed for them,
but should leave two Sundays free: namely the one nearest the feast of
the Annunciation of Mary, in that one preaches on that day in the
afternoon on the Sunday Gospel; and then Palm Sunday, so that, if a sermon
should have had to be omitted beforehand, there is still time left over;
but if one was able to preach on the preceding Friday on Christ's being
led forth to Golgotha, then on Palm Sunday one should expound the 53rd
chapter of Isaiah, which every Christian by rights ought to know well,
and of which a threefold exposition is found in Dr. Luther's writings —
namely one in the 5th Passion sermon of the R. P. House Postil, and two
in the exegetical writings.

In the services on Maundy Thursday and on Good Friday morning, the
whole Passion history as preached thus far should be read aloud in 4
sections, and the hearers should be urged, both there and at the sermons,
to an attentive re-reading in the hymnal.

Does the Doctrine of a General Invisible Church Require Union?

Since the Gustavus Adolphus Society — whose avowed task it is to
support Protestants living in non-Protestant territories in their
ecclesiastical needs — is unionistic, the Saxon Lutherans, for whom it is
naturally a matter of scruple to work together with such a society, and
who nevertheless recognized its object as in itself worthy of Christian
activity, have set up a so-called "God's Chest [Gotteskasten]," which
serves the same purpose without involving those who take part in it in
syncretism. On the origin and standing of this "God's Chest" Dr. Luthardt
in his time gave an account in the Saxon Church and School Gazette.
Thereupon the Darmstadt General Church Gazette made a violent and utterly
spiteful attack, which obliged Dr. Luthardt to issue a statement, which we
find in the aforementioned paper of October 14 of last year, and which we
share in what follows — partly as an answer to the question posed above,
partly as evidence that the Lutherans over there fall under the very same
judgment with their testimonies as here:

"I well know that there are a good many — adherents of the pietistic
tendency — who cannot understand us. With these I do not dispute. But
with others one cannot escape the impression that they do not wish to.
Against these, all our explanations will be but a waste of words. If we
speak sharply, then it is we who