# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1845 02 08_S46
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

that among all who call themselves Christians, all strife and every divisive error will cease and a perfect outward peace will arise — that is a question which stands in no connection with those words of Christ, for they are not speaking at all of what is one day to happen among Christians, but rather that Japheth shall dwell in the tents of Shem (Genesis 9:27) — namely, that Christ would also call home the distant Gentiles (Acts 2:39) and make of them, together with the people of the Old Covenant, one flock.

Must not the Evangelicals themselves confess, when they depart from the simple sense of Christ's words and apply them to a union of all Christian religious parties yet to be expected, that they entangle themselves in insoluble difficulties? Whom, then, do they wish to take for "the other sheep" "which are not of this fold," as Christ speaks? — The Lutherans? — or the Reformed? — Which of the two, in their opinion, do not yet belong to the true church? Which have not yet heard Christ's voice? Which do not yet have Christ as their shepherd? According to the application which the Evangelicals make of that passage, they must indeed deny it to the one party or the other, or to both. Do they not, then, stand in contradiction with themselves, since otherwise they are altogether unwilling to do this? — Oh, how necessary it is to consider the words of Jesus Christ carefully in their context before adducing them as proof for a preconceived opinion! How dangerous it is to take them at once in the sense they seem to have on a first, cursory look! And how easily one can err when, without any study of Holy Scripture of one's own, one simply follows how one is accustomed to hearing a Bible passage interpreted! It is indeed true that a friend of union need only let his hearers hear the words, "There shall be one flock and one shepherd," and then, given people's present unfamiliarity with the context of Scripture, he can count on most hearers carelessly accepting the word in the false sense he attaches to it; but from those who thus misuse God's Word and thereby lead the simple astray, God will demand an account.

As for the hope, moreover, that in the last time a glorious, flourishing state of the church will yet arise once more — indeed that the whole world, Jews and Gentiles, will be converted and the church will consist of nothing but saints — we regard this hope as a fanatical one, lacking all clear scriptural foundation. For the Bible depicts Christ's kingdom on earth rather as a kingdom of the cross; it describes the last times as the most horrible of times; it teaches Christians to expect the breaking-in of the Last Day at every moment, and promises them rest only in heaven and in eternal life hereafter. Far, therefore, from consoling and lulling ourselves into security with sweet

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thoughts of a near flowering of the kingdom of God, and thereby letting ourselves be deceived by the shapes of angels of light belonging to this last, apostate age, we rather beseech the Lord daily that he would keep us, too, even now, in his pure truth — a time in which, were it possible, even the elect might be led astray into error. We reserve the right, however, to set forth more fully at another time, if the Lord wills, our reasons why we do not share the (chiliastic) hopes to which those who still profess to believe God's Word seem more and more to be giving themselves over.
(To be continued.)

"Moreover if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone: if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother. But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established. And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church: but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as a heathen man and a publican." Matthew 18:15–17.

"At the present time," writes Luther, "there are many who accuse the church servants, pastors, and preachers, as though the ban (the exclusion of manifest sinners from church fellowship) had fallen away through their negligence... But the saying and command of Christ (Matthew 18) shows clearly that the sinner is first to be admonished and warned privately and in particular, before those who hold the public preaching office pronounce the sentence (the judgment); and even then such a sentence is not to be pronounced publicly unless a public church servant has first given an earnest and Christian admonition beforehand. If the sinner despises this and continues in sin, unwilling to stop or to desist from sin, then he is to be publicly placed under the ban.

"What, then, hinders the ban in our times? Nothing, except that no one, in this matter, does what befits and is incumbent upon a Christian. You have a neighbor whose life and conduct are well known and familiar to you, but of which your pastor is either wholly unaware, or at any rate not so well aware; for how can he know in particular the life of each and every person, how it stands? Therefore, when you see that your neighbor grows rich through wrongful dealing or trade; when you see that he practices fornication or adultery, or raises and governs his household carelessly and negligently, you should earnestly admonish him and warn him as a Christian, that he should take heed for his salvation and avoid giving offense. And oh, what a truly good and holy work you will have done if you thereby win him! But, dear friend, who does it? For in the first place, truth is a hateful thing; whoever speaks the truth is hated for it. Therefore you would rather keep your neighbor's friendship and favor, especially when he is rich and powerful, than provoke him to anger and make him your enemy. Likewise, when the second, third, and fourth neighbor also does the same, then along with the first admonition the second and third also fall into the well, by which the neighbor might have been brought back onto the right path, if only you had done, by way of admonition, what is your duty and obligation.

"In the second place, it also happens because we are nearly all subject to like vices and stained by them; so we fear that, if we wished to take the mote out of our neighbor's eye, we might be reproached with the beam that sticks out of our own eyes. This is the true and chief reason that the ban has fallen into disuse almost everywhere: namely, that true Christians are everywhere few, and but a small, insignificant band of small number. For if all of us together, as would indeed be right and fitting — yes, as it ought to be — loved true godliness and God's Word from the heart, we would value the command of the Lord Christ more highly and dearly than all the goods of this temporal life. For this commandment, to admonish and warn the brother who sins, is just as necessary as: Thou shalt not kill; thou shalt not steal, etc. For if here you neglect this admonition, whether out of fear or for some other reason, what is placed in danger is not the neighbor's body and goods, but the salvation of his soul." (Luther's Works. Halle. IV, page 2404–6.)

On the same subject Augustine writes: "Why do you rebuke your neighbor? Because you are angry that he has sinned against you? Far be it! If you do it out of self-love, you accomplish nothing. If you do it out of love for him, then you do quite rightly. You must do it for his sake, that you may win him. If you neglect this, you are worse than he. Consider: he has done you a wrong and has thereby grievously wounded himself — and do you despise your brother's wound? You see him perishing, and do not care? You are worse in your silence than he in the insult by which he sinned against you. — Forget the offense, but not your brother's wound. Rebuke him, therefore, between you and him alone, keeping his improvement in view, but sparing him shame. For see, he might otherwise perhaps, out of shame, begin to defend his sin, and in wishing to improve him you would only make him worse. — If you alone know that he has sinned against you, and you wish to hold up his sin before everyone, then you are not a corrector, but a betrayer." (Augustini Opp. Bas. T. X, fol. 69.)

If there has ever been a time when these complaints and admonitions of Luther and Augustine were well founded and needful, it is certainly ours. For when has the rebuke of the sinning brother, prescribed by Christ for Christians, been less practiced than now? One sees a brother or a