Pff2: Evangelical doctrine, “defend to the death”; Harrison a “deceitful peacemaker”?

      This continues from the previous Part Pff1 (from April) (Table of Contents in Part Pff1) in a 3-part presentation of the old Missouri Synod's reprint of August Pfeiffer's influential book Lutheranism Before Luther. — If there is one quote that stood out to me above all others, it was this one in Pfeiffer's Preface, page 3:

 “As long as the Pope remains Pope and we Evangelicals remain Evangelicals, a reasonable person can easily see that no religious settlement can be hoped for between us, that deceitful peacemakers are not to be trusted, and that it is best to defend the truth to the death, as God wills.”

Compare this with LCMS President Matthew Harrison's comment in his Preface to his translation of Walther's Church & Office:

“As I perused the Catechism of the Catholic Church for contemporary documentation of positions of the Roman Catholic Church which Walther addresses and which are the object of Lutheran polemic, I noted numerous points of remarkable convergence of Lutheran and Roman Catholic doctrine on the Office of the Ministry. While we must reject what is false, we can also joyously note what is right—no matter who says it.”

Would it not be fair to say that Pfeiffer would call Pres. Harrison a "deceitful peacemaker"? — Let us hear more from our dear Pfeiffer:

Notable Quotes:

5: "Where one Pope decrees contrary to the other, one of the two must necessarily err in his decree"

6: "popes have often in their decrees…run directly counter to the revealed Word of God"

17: "they invoke the authority of the Church" over Christ and the Apostles.

24: "so the wine that is not partaken of sacramentally, but is poured out carelessly, is not Christ's blood, but only mere wine"

30: "the one against whom the following writing is directed, namely a Jesuit, Fr. Arnold Engel…has copied his entire work from others, has not yet read our writings properly, has not examined the passages from Luther and others himself" [A common practice of papists in their polemics.]

33: The papists' "great following does not harm the lies and our small following does not harm the truth".

36: Jesuit Jacob Reihing "turned from a zealous champion of the Roman Church into a staunch confessor of the evangelical doctrine"

37: Papacy "like a rotten fish".

44: "since they [papists] have no intention to proceed in the main controversy, to make a diversion…and to lead us away from the Scriptures". 

44-45: "this Antichrist is none other than the Roman Pope [regarded not as a single person, but as an ever-living enemy in many successive persons]" [See this blog post.]

50: "so it is enough that I know and prove that the Pope, as he now is, is the Antichrist, … even if I cannot specify, know or point out the year and day when he first became so."

55: "is it not enough that we show the papists their gross errors from God's infallible Word…?"

59: "the pope's growth …is seen for the first time in Victor as a child or child in the womb, in Boniface III as an adolescent or boy, in Leo III as a youth…, in Gregory VII as a man, and in Leo X as an old man"

67: Fr. Engel "claims that if the papacy were…not from God, it would not have stood for so long"

70: "One must therefore distinguish the papacy, i.e. the falsifications of doctrine…from that which has remained good under the papacy."

77: "…but therefore the Papists are as little catholic as a quack is a doctor".

77-78: "Father Engel…wants to insist on the everlasting succession,…from one bishop to another… It is enough that the faith remains in the divine Scriptures and in some people's hearts at all times."

81: "This question: whether before Luther there were Lutherans or Christians of the same mind or faith as Luther? …has already led many a man to fall away and fall into hell".

84: "if we now speak of doctrine,… all orthodox believers before Luther were certainly in agreement with Luther in the fundamentals of Christian doctrine".

89: "it of no help to the papists that they object that all other heretics also appeal to Scripture" [See how Prof. Joel Biermann uses the same tactic as the papists.]

90: Papists "do not desire to learn the truth from the divine Word".

95: "it may well happen, and has happened very often, that the visible church…which publicly professes the true Christian faith…is covered with the clouds of affliction, stirred up…by false teachers" [Cp. to this blog post on old Missouri's teaching.] 

103: "But with such “new” [Lutheran] doctrine we already want to go to heaven, which is new in the eyes of the Pope, but old in the eyes of Christ."

105: "we have a legitimate calling.…rather congratulate ourselves that we do not have the papal mark on us."

119: "so they are even greater fools who therefore fall away to the papacy and rely on the fact that in the end they can depart on Christ's merit". [e.g. Father Richard John Neuhaus]

125-6: "the term “Roman Church” has two meanings…Either by the Roman Church is meant the multitude of those who cling to the Roman Pope … or the remnant of the ancient Roman Church, or the pious Christian hearts among the outward group of the Roman Church"

129: "I hope that Fr. Engel's little nut will have been bitten open in this way and, praise God, it has left me without any toothache." [:-) – Pfeiffer's lighthearted joke!]

131: "he knows well that according to the papal doctrine no man can be assured of God's grace"

134: Luther "is as little to be called a weather vane as Augustine".

138: "For their 'unity'…is only enforced and does not consist in the unity of the Spirit".

145: "Not Luther, but the Pope has hatched completely new and unheard-of doctrines"

163: "that I therefore not only maintain the unconquerable and alone saving evangelical doctrine before and after, but also defend it against you and your kind to the death".

There it is again, that phrase "defend to the death", both in the Preface and here in his hot battle against the Jesuit Father Engel. Pfeiffer signals the absolute importance of the "evangelical doctrine", i.e. the Gospel – it is a matter of life and death. — In the concluding Part Pff3, we explain some details pertinent to our translation, and then present our full translation.