The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1879, Page 29

Transcription machine transcription, uncorrected

⤓ Download .txt · copy text

Che Lutheran Pioneer.

A

MISSIONARY MONTHLY.

PuBLIsHED BY THE EVANGELICAL LuTHERAN SyNopICAL CoNFERENCE oF Nort AMERICA.

Edited by Prof. R. A. BISCHOFF.

Entered at the Post Oflice at St. Louis, Mo., as second-class matter.

Vol. I.

Reformation.

When Rome had shrouded earth in night,
God said again, Let there be light!

And Luther with the Gospel came

To spread the truth in Jesus’ name.

When Rome the saints of God oppressed
And burdened souls could find no rest,
Through Luther God deliy’rance sent
By His pure Word and Sacrament.

Though hosts against us stand arrayed,
Christ bids us still, Be not afraid;
Though all its powers the truth assail,
The gates of hell shall not prevail.

To-day with joyful hearts we sing
The guardian care of Christ our King,
Who through His chosen instrument
To us hath this salvation sent.

O Lord, whose mercies still endure,
Preserve to us Thy Gospel pure;
Let it alone within us reign,
That Thine the glory may remain.
(From Lutheran Hymnal.)

——s +o or oe -

The Reformation.

On the last day of this month, on the 31st of
October, the Lutheran Church celebrates the
festival of the Reformation; for on that day,
in the year 1517, Dr. Martin Luther nailed his
95 Theses to the church-door at Wittenberg.
It is a day of joy to every true Lutheran heart.
Every true Christian that has found the right
answer to the most important question, How
can I be saved? ought to rejoice and thank
God for His great work of the Reformation
through His dear servant Dr. Martin Luther.
Why! you may say, did the Reformation by
Dr. Luther give us this correct answer? Is the
answer not given in the Bible? Yes, the true
and only way to salvation is shown to us in the
Bible, but oh! for ages before Luther's time
that blessed Book was hidden from the people.
Very few even of the learned knew the Book.
Those who were called to be the teachers of the
Church had mostly never seen it, much less had
they ever read it. The people generally were
ignorant of its very existence. Gross errors,
which could give the troubled heart of the poor
sinner no peace, were preached as Gospel-truth.

s

St. Louis, Mo., October, 1879.

The repenting sinner was not told to trust in
Jesus for his salvation, but he was told to trust
in his own works, in his prayers to the virgin
Mary and to the saints, in the mass said by the
priests of the church. ‘The Bible, the light of
God, being taken away, darkness had spread
over the Church, and in this darkness the
people groped about and found no peace for
their souls. Their souls were not led on the
true way of salvation, but into ways in which
they must be lost. Our readers know from our
“Life of Luther’ through what agony Luther's
soul passed before he found the right answer to
the question, What must I do to be saved? He
went into the cloister, he prayed and fasted
until he looked more like a corpse than a living
man, he heard and said mass, he walked through
the streets of Erfurt with a sack on his shoulder,
he went to Rome and climbed up the so-called
Pilate’s stairs on his bare knees. Why? why?
my dear reader. He wanted to work out his
salvation; his heart was rent and torn with the
anxious inquiry: What must I do to be saved?
and he went the way which the Romish church
told him to go, but he found no peace until at
last that verse of the Bible was revealed unto
him: ‘The just shall live by faith.” In read-
ing his Bible he now learned that a sinner is
not made just and saved by his own works and
holiness, but by grace through faith in the
merits of Christ, the only Saviour of sinners.
He now found rest, and peace, and comfort,
and happiness. Could he now remain silent,
when he saw how the poor people were cheated
out of their salvation by the false doctrines of
the pope’s church? Oh, no! He proclaimed
aloud the Gospel which he had learned from
the Bible. He preached Christ as the only
Saviour in whom sinners could find salvation.
Jn all his sermons and writings it was his aim
to make plain the doctrine of Justification
by grace through faith in the merits of Christ
Jesus. Having found this precious Gospel in
the Bible, that Book became dear unto him.
He again brought it into notice. He brought
it to the knowledge of the Church as the only
rule and standard of faith and life. He made
the people acquainted with it by furnishing a
German translation which all could understand.
In the Bible he had found the true answer to

No. 8.

the question: What must I do to be saved?™

and he therefore held fast to every word of that
Bible over against all his enemies, against the
pope and against human reason.

So you see, my dear reader, the Reformation
was not begun onaccountof any trifling question,
but on account of that all-important question -
How can I be saved? The whole Reformation
hinged upon the doctrine of Justification by
Faith. In the light of this doctrine Luther
came to see all the false doctrines of the Romish
church about the purgatory, and mass, and
praying to the saints, and the pope, &c.

Thank God! we still have the Gospel; we
still have the true answer to the question: How
can a sinner be saved? Under that Gospel-
banner the Lutheran Church is still marching
to victory. Let us rejoice on the festival-day
of the Reformation; for by the Reformation
God through His dear servant, Dr. Martin
Luther, gave His pure Gospel again to His
Church. Let us also see to it that we, like the
great and good Luther, and like all other true
believers before and since, trust alone for our
salvation in the mercy of God in Jesus Christ,
our Lord. And then let us, like our dear
Luther, earnestly labor for the spread of that
Gospel throughout our land.

_—_—__——- o~amo
(For the ‘‘ZLutheran Pioneer’? .)
Search the Scriptures!

I.

“Woe unto you, scribes and pharisees,
Bypoouren for ye shut up the kingdom
of heaven against men: for ye neither go

in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that
are entering to go in.’” . 23, 13.

St. Chrysostom, one of the mae of the
church, who died in the year 407, tells us that
“the cause of all evil is the ignorance of the
people in regard to the holy Scriptures.” He
says, 2 man claiming to be a Christian and yet
ignorant of the holy Scriptures, is like unto'a
soldier marching into battle without any weap-
ons whatever, totally unarmed. How can he
escape the danger? how will he defend himself
when he meets the enemy? how can he expect
to overcome his enemy and gain the victory?
Eyen so, my friends, it is with us Christians.
We are at all times surrounded by enemies.
We are continually on the war-path from our

e