# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1845 04 05_S63
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

refute false doctrine from God's Word. That is what St. Paul says: a bishop must be apt to teach, able also to teach others, mighty to exhort by sound doctrine and to rebuke those who contradict it. This aptitude for teaching, however, is a gift that must be diligently learned and much practiced; such teachers do not fall from heaven, nor do they grow up of themselves out of the earth like mushrooms, but must be raised and trained. So that there may be no lack of competent teachers, the Lutheran congregations are therefore obligated to establish institutions for the education of future preachers and teachers, and to support them generously. But how does it come about that so few think to ask: what is to become of our children? Where shall we get teachers when our present ones pass away by death? It would truly be necessary to wake the sluggish, drowsy Lutherans up for once, and earnestly lay their Christian duty upon their hearts.*) 3. the preacher should lead a godly, blameless life, so that he not only gives no offense or cause for slander, but is rather an example to his flock (1 Pet. 5:3). Faithful preachers, says the godly Martin Chemnitz, must be so constituted that the hearers who look to them learn how they themselves ought to be, according to God's will, in their speech and their whole conduct; and just as in the art of printing the type stamps a certain shape of the letters, so too should preachers stamp the shape of godliness upon their lives; and Augustine says: as much as an ungodly preacher builds up through his teaching, just so much does he tear down through his evil life — if indeed one who lives wickedly can build up at all. For whoever is not himself gripped by the doctrine he sets forth in God's stead will certainly teach coldly as well. Therefore let every congregation keep its eyes wide open, in accordance with the apostolic command in 1 John 4:1: Believe not every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God. For if a congregation loads upon itself a heretic and false spirit, or an incompetent subject, or an ungodly, offensive person, as its teacher, it alone is to blame for this, and will have to give account to God.

(Conclusion follows.)

*) [Footnote] Would not the dear brethren in the ministry in Missouri soon give a detailed report on the condition of our seminary in Altenburg, Perry Co., Mo.? That would be just the means to rouse the sleepers.

63

(Submitted by G. H. Löber.)

The Heretic Arius and His End.
(Continuation.)

3. Condemnation of the Arian Heresy at the Great Church Council at Nicaea, in the Year 325 after Christ.

However sorrowful the occasion may have been for which this great church council was convened, it nevertheless without doubt affords us many a joyful and uplifting sight. — We heard in the previous section how earnestly the pious Emperor Constantine took it to heart to help the Church of his realm, so deeply disturbed by the Arian heresy, back to peace.

As estimable as this endeavor already was in itself, it deserves even more recognition when we see that he wished to attain that ecclesiastical peace neither through violent measures nor through prescribed formulas of an ambiguous confession of faith, and thus was just as unwilling to rule over consciences by worldly power as he was to content himself any longer with the untenable whitewash of a merely external union.*)

When we further see how he did not weary of having the bishops brought together, at his own expense, from every part of his entire realm, from the farthest East and West, of entertaining them for several months (others say even longer), and of having them brought home again at public expense once the council had ended, we must certainly say that the cause of Christ and the welfare of the Church must have lain not a little upon this monarch's heart.

But we shall hear even more shortly of how very Christianly he conducted himself at the council itself as well. First, however, let us cast a glance at the venerable assembly itself.

Three hundred and eighteen bishops, and probably more than twice as many presbyters and deacons, had assembled, coming together in the imperial palace church at Nicaea (in Asia Minor) on long rows of raised seats set one behind another on both sides. Most of the bishops present probably came to know one another face to face here for the first time, though they had long known one another by name. For among them were names that were spoken far and wide among Christians only with the highest reverence — venerable old men and fathers who, as servants of God, had grown gray in great patience, in afflictions, in distress and anguish, in beatings, in prisons, in labor, in watching and fasting; among them were men who still bore on their maimed limbs and bodies, as the marks of the Lord Jesus, the traces of bloody persecution; — seasoned warriors who knew how to defend the honor of their Savior in the word of truth and the power of God, with the weapons of righteousness on the right hand and on the left. And how much more might be said of other, lesser-known members of this assembly, whose names history has not recorded, but who are said, in part, to have possessed even apostolic gifts.

*) [Footnote] Note. Other emperors, to be sure, later did not conduct themselves so Christianly, and made use of an assumed despotic influence over the councils for all sorts of political purposes. Yet in truth the Prussian government has recently acted no more Christianly, in that it arbitrarily prescribed ambiguous ecclesiastical formulas, and thereby in the end even sought, by violent means, to force a union between the Lutherans and the Reformed.

The whole great assembly, however, gathered as it was from the most diverse peoples of Asia, Africa, and Europe, gives us a visible and joyful proof of how far Christianity, by God's grace, had already spread throughout the world since the time of the apostles, and had been propagated everywhere even amid the harshest persecutions. Indeed, from the small mustard seed of Christ's kingdom, which the few apostles, not quite three hundred years before, had sown amid great struggle and resistance into the vast masses of the nations, there had now become, through God's almighty grace, a great tree, which in every land round about could gather under its branches so many souls and congregations that their shepherds and teachers alone were already so great a number. For the sake of the despised Lord Christ — who but a short time before had been mocked by all the rulers of Rome, and whose confession and name had been violently forbidden and suppressed by public laws of the state — a victorious emperor, crowned with worldly glory, now had to convene an assembly in which the honor and true deity of this Lord Christ was to be defended before all the world. — So does God turn the thoughts of the nations! So can He also guide the hearts of the great, as He does the courses of the waters!

To be sure, many heathen scoffers and philosophers, and many curious, idle spectators, had also come to the Nicene church council, wishing to tickle their ears with the debates of the Christians — indeed, even to challenge them to dispute — and hoping to try their luck at making their faith appear ridiculous and contemptible. But we have already told, in the first number of this paper, the fine example of how one of those haughty worldly sages was overcome by the simple but powerful testimony of an old, honest-hearted Christian, and was brought to the confession that he could not resist believing likewise.

Surely still more such victories would have been won for the honor of Christ, had not, unfortunately, many of the bishops present — certainly to the great grief of the rest — sought their own honor and, through all sorts of jealousy and mutual bitterness, quenched the Spirit within them.

When, therefore, the peace-loving emperor had entered the circle of the assembly with reverence, and had seated himself at the bishops' bidding, he first of all expressed his heartfelt joy and his thanks to God that it had been granted him to see so great a number of called servants of God gathered around him; but he then also exhorted them to lay aside all personal quarrels among themselves, and, together with him, in love and harmony, to work only toward attacking the true chief enemy who had slandered the wholesome doctrine of Christ and so dangerously threatened the peace of the whole Church. He had therefore had a whole quantity of complaint letters he had received — in which they had accused one another and lodged grievances with him — thrown into the fire, and had to leave these