History — Lutheran

“A real book wherein are printed diverse sayings and doings of Dr Luther in these latter days when he applied for Synodical membership in the United States.” — from the Preface.

This is a highly readable, modern English version of the classic volume of Protestant Biblical theology. The translation of the Augsburg Confession is that of Charles P. Krauth, the Small Catechism by Charles F.

“The history of the Church confirms and illustrates the teachings of the Bible, that yielding little by little leads to yielding more and more, until all is in danger; and the tempter is never satisfied until all is lost.

“Suffice it to say that faith is faith, and not obedience, or love or delight in God, or any other distinct grace or virtue. Nor does the Bible say being justified by obedience, or love, or delight, or good works, but ‘being justified by faith, we have peace with God.

“I received my first call into the largest mission field of the Northwest, in the State of South Dakota, far away from good old home. In September, 1892, I left home for my long journey.

“In the Church… influential men (opposed) genuine Lutheranism. They clung ardently to the name, and gloried in their ecclesiastical ancestry; but they held that under that name they could be Calvinists, Zwinglians, or Arminians.

“I fear those ministers among us who seem to be terribly afraid of Pietism. They do not explain the distinction between a false and a true Pietism. To have ever a greater and deeper measure of the latter is surely one of our greatest needs.

“The ‘Brief History of the Lutheran Church in America,’ …has been kindly admitted as a textbook in almost all theological seminaries of the Lutheran Church in this country… As in the previous edition, so in this one, it has been our aim to furnish a textbook that would serve as a guide for instruction in theological seminaries.

“We have certainly great reason to be wide awake and watchful, if we would preserve the inheritance of the Lutheran Church Reformation. Strong are the delusions and temptations of these latter days, and you children and youthful Christians will doubtless see still more perilous times for the Church of Jesus Christ before you have grown old.

In 1893 an attempt was made by liberal elements in the General Synod to remove Dr. Luther Gotwald from Wittenberg Seminary. He was said to be guilty of teaching the Augsburg Confession as, “a correct expression or exhibition of fundamental divine truth”.

“[Missouri’s] new doctrine would have us believe that there is saving grace only for the few embraced in God’s purpose of election.” “We shall, by the grace of God, be neither enticed nor driven into such folly, but shall abide by the old and well established doctrine of the Church, that God desires with equal sincerity the salvation of all men, and that He saves, and has elected unto salvation, all those who do not obstinately resist the saving work of the Spirit.

“What is this book? Its Hebrew name is הברית ההדשה (Heb’rith Hechedasha) or the New Covenant. It is a collection of twenty-seven writings, biographic, historic, prophetic, and a number of personal letters.

“Dr. Krauth was beyond all question the most learned and distinguished among all Lutheran theologians that use the English Language, and the great scholars of our church in other parts of the world have long ago ranked him among the chief scholars of the great church of theologians.

The Burning Of The Old Lutheran Church, On The Night Of September 27th, 1854, a message delivered In The Evangelical Lutheran Church, Winchester, Va., The Nineteenth Sunday After Trinity, 1854.

“A single congregation can sustain an entire mission. There is no grander spectacle in the history of the whole Church, than this noble work of that one congregation of plain peasant Lutherans at Hermansburg…