[by C. F. W. Walther; Part 6]
However,
1. when we revealed to Preuss at the end of November, that the person in question had informed us conscientiously of a contract he had secretly concluded, by means of which he [Preuss] had already made himself obligated to give up his office at the seminary, and that this contract was null and void, since it concerned a matter dependent on the Synod;
2. when we, in response to the statement that no one could prevent him from publishing an entertainment paper independent of the Synod, which he had now lost in his dismay, gave him reason to consider that such a paper published in opposition to the Synod would not hold a soul in the Synod either;
3. when, therefore, his whole plan, which had hitherto been cleverly concealed and apparently well laid out, collapsed before his eyes like a house of cards and he had to fear being appointed to office it was only now that he came to the fore, namely immediately on the following day, with the unexpected opening: that he had “lost the conviction of the correctness of the whole Lutheran doctrine of justification” and that therefore he is “bound by his conscience (!)” to “resign his theological professorship at the local Lutheran Concordia College”.
We are, however, of the conviction that Preuss, if he ever stood in a living faith (which we leave aside), did not really have a conviction of the correctness of the Lutheran doctrine of justification for a long time; but it is equally certain that this could not have been the actual cause of his resignation and apostasy to the Papist sect. This is because at the same time, until his secret agreement was revealed, he was nevertheless <page 75> playing in the most skillful manner the decidedly faithful Lutheran and the most enthusiastic member of the Missouri Synod, while he was working on playing a card from his hand to his advantage against that same synod. The sudden dismantling of the plan (for which he still hoped to win against the publisher) to obtain a lighter, more pleasant and at the same time more profitable position, furthermore the danger associated with being a secret salesman of the Synod and as a secret opponent of the same, and therefore finally the conviction that the Pope's Church was his last, only, remaining refuge for him—this and nothing else forced the unfortunate man to resign himself and to become Roman.
Finally, as for the explanation contained in a letter of resignation, that he had also "been misled by the Lutheran doctrine of the perfect forgiveness of sins," that he had recognized God's "punishments" in the "vituperations" against him because of his "former impulses," as he put it, although he had believed in Christ: this statement may well contain some truth. But what can be concluded from this at the same time is that Preuss, in the terrible shame with which he came to us covered with, according to his own admission always saw only “punishments” with which God pursued him from country to country because of his “former impulses”: we do not want to decide this, but leave it to the One in whom “the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day”. [Psalm 139:12] But that the feeling of being persecuted by God's punishments could not have driven Preuss into the Pope's Church is only too certain, since, as is well known, it is precisely this “church” that gives no consolation against that feeling, but rather confirms the same as correct through its doctrine of the forgiveness of sins.
- - - - - - - - - - Continued in Part 7 - - - - - - - - - - -
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