# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1849 05 29_S158
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

...and left it to the gentlemen authors to publish, in that very same paper in which they had first attacked Pastor Selle, their rejoinder to his defense as well. Thus the rejoinder — since in the meantime the "Christlicher Hausfreund" had perished — appeared in the May issue of a so-called "Evangelische Kirchenzeitung," published by the Reformed Pastor S. Miller of Lawrenceburg, Indiana. The most remarkable thing about it is that the writer, presumably the Union pastor in Chicago, remarks in his introduction to it that the "Lutheraner," by refusing to print that rejoinder, had only wished to help itself out of a tight spot. To this we need only point out that the "Kirchenzeitung" itself has furnished the most striking proof as to whether it is really we, or rather our opponents, who have gotten into a tight spot with the aforementioned rejoinder. For not only did the authors of it themselves quietly omit, in the present publication, several common abusive remarks that had occurred in it, but even the shrewd editor of the "Kirchenzeitung" himself shrank from communicating, in the revised text, some abusive remarks that had been left standing. We think that, since it is thus plain that the authors themselves are now ashamed of their own production, and that even their patrons did not wish their paper to be sullied by it, we are fully justified in not having complied with the demand to print it in our paper; indeed, the authors ought to feel themselves obligated to us for some gratitude, since our manner of proceeding in the matter has spared them a greater shame — quite apart from the fact that it is shameless to attack a Lutheran in the organ of a Union party, and then, when he defends himself in an organ of the Lutheran Church, to demand that the supposed refutation of this defense be printed in the Lutheran paper.

We remark further that our written answer to the correspondents is printed so incorrectly in the "Kirchenzeitung" that we have the honor of figuring in that paper as a man capable of writing sheer nonsense; we are willing, however, to charge this misfortune and domestic cross of many an editor to the account of the typesetter. Fortunately we took a copy both of our letter and of the rejoinder and filed it away, as we are accustomed to do with such important documents.

We would not have spent so many words on this matter did we not hope thereby to give many a person a hint that might be of use in similar cases, and spare much unnecessary and vexatious correspondence in the future.

On the Blessedness of Christian Children Who Die Without Baptism: A Testimony Against the Methodist Slander of Lutheran Doctrine and the Church.

Since the Methodist gentlemen see that, when they attack the actual doctrines of our Church, they thereby run up against a rock which, far from being shaken by them, rather shatters them, they have now taken another path on which they hope, with better luck, to be able to deal our Church a blow. That is, they ascribe to our Church certain unbiblical doctrines which the Lutheran Church has always rejected, take the field against such false doctrines, and then raise a great outcry that they have mightily defeated our Church. The Methodist paper, the "Christian Apologist," is full of such things; it is therefore impossible to refute everything that it mendaciously heaps upon the Lutheran Church.

In the most recent number of the "Apologist" that has reached us, that of May 10, a certain Mr. Köneke — with whom our readers have already become acquainted in similar instances — again resorts to the same Jesuitical device of making himself a knight in defense of our Church before his boundlessly ignorant Methodists. He writes, namely: "The so-called Old Lutherans maintain that little children who die unbaptized are lost." He then attempts to refute this doctrine ascribed to us, but does so so foolishly that one can only feel pity for the poor man; he says, among other things: "Christ, indeed, died both for original sin and for actual sins." Everyone can see that, by this conclusion, all men would have to be saved without faith and without baptism. But what does a Methodist care whether his conclusion holds; it is enough for him that he has drawn some conclusion; if he proves too much, he thinks that is all the better.

We cannot forbear, on this occasion, to communicate to our dear readers the testimony of an old, orthodox Lutheran, the blessed Johann Gerhard, concerning the blessedness of Christian children who die without baptism. After Gerhard, namely, in his Loci Theologici, in the article on Holy Baptism, has refuted the Papists, who teach that Christian children who have died without baptism do not indeed go to hell, but also not to heaven, but rather come to a third place, where it is neither well nor ill with them; and after he has refuted the Calvinist-Reformed, who teach that all children of believers, whether they be baptized or not, are already holy and within God's covenant from the womb by the hereditary right of the promise: the highly enlightened theologian then continues as follows:

"We (Lutherans) here take the middle way, in that we teach that Baptism is indeed the sacrament of entrance into the kingdom of God and the means of regeneration, which is necessary for all — even for the children of believers — for their regeneration and salvation; but that nevertheless, in the case of deprivation and impossibility, the children of Christians become blessed through an extraordinary and special dispensation (remission). For the necessity of Baptism is not an absolute (unconditional) one, but one ordained by God. We men are, on our part, obligated to receive Baptism; nevertheless God's extraordinary working in children is not to be denied — children who are brought to Christ by godly parents and by the Church in general through their prayer, and who then die before Baptism could be given to them — since God has not so bound His grace and saving efficacy to Baptism that He should not, in the case of deprivation, be willing and able to work outside the ordinary order. We therefore make a distinction between a necessity on God's part and one on our part; between the case of deprivation and the ordinary way; also between children who are born within the Church and those born outside the Church. Concerning the children who are born outside the Church, we say with the Apostle, 1 Cor. 5:12–13: "What have I to do to judge them also that are without?" Wherefore, since we have no promise for these, we leave them to the judgment of God; yet we admit no middle place between hell and heaven, concerning which a deep silence prevails in Holy Scripture. But concerning the children who are born within the Church, we have a better hope. To be sure, godly parents ought to bring their children to Baptism, as the ordinary means of regeneration, as soon as it can be done, and offer them to Christ through Baptism; but those who show themselves negligent in this, so that through carelessness or damnable contempt of the sacrament they deprive their children of Baptism, will one day be called by God to the strictest account, since they "despise the counsel of God," Luke 7:30. Nevertheless we neither can nor may rashly condemn those children who die either in the womb or through a sudden mishap before receiving Baptism; indeed we hold rather that the prayer of godly parents — or, if the parents have been negligent in this, the prayer of the Church — is graciously heard by God for these children, and that they are received by God into grace and unto life; concerning which one may further consult the comforting letters and writings of Luther." (Loc. cit., § 237.)

(Submitted.)

Cornerstone-Laying.

Let it hereby serve as notice to the dear friends of the "First German Evangelical Lutheran St. Paul's Congregation in Chicago, Ill.," who have shown us their Christian love so tangibly, that on Wednesday after Quasimodogeniti, the 18th of April last, the cornerstone of the