Beloved hearers! You see this new house not yet achieved and not yet completely adorned, but it is now consecrated to the public worship of God. And I will try, American friends, to give you account on the solemn occasion of our belief, of our intentions, of our concerns. We came as a foreign people into your country, to make our life, to found a new homestead and to enjoy the religious liberty in your glorious Republic. We are happy to see that the constitution of the United States, as we think, stands erected upon the Holy Bible and that however by the total separation of religion and politics it is possible to the Government to protect every denomination, to oppress none, in order that every religious party may show his heavenly strength and power freely without any political reservation. But, American friends, we want not to praise on this day or demeanor, which is not worth mentioning, for we are all sinners and can’t reach our ideal, we want only to deliver our confession to praise the mercy of God, who has conducted us through several adversities into your land and let us edify here our homes under many embarrassment of want and hard times. In such sentiment I beseech you now to hear favorably my first speech I make in your language.

It is written in the Acts of the Apostles, Chapter 4, that Peter the Apostle exposes to the Jews: “This is the stone which was set at naught by you builders, which is become the head of the corner. Neither is there salvation in any other, for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.”

You know this corner stone, beloved hearers, you know this unparalleled name, it is Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom the Jews crucified, whom God raised from the dead. Paul the Apostle likewise says in his first Epistle to the Corinthians, Chapter 3: “Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.” Well, this our Saviour (sic) is our foundation also. Not in us nor in our works, but in him is our salvation. Therefore we may not praise any our good sense or sanctity, not any our laudable works, not our sacred meetings and church-buildings, no, we praise only him, the only praise-worthy Son of man, Jesus Christ of Nazareth.

But is this the worship of God? Yes. It is written in the book of Job, Chapter 30: “Behold, God is great and we know him not.” And Paul the Apostle writes to Timothy of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, who only hath immortality, dwelling in the Light, which no man hath seen nor can see, to whom be the honor and power everlasting. What way we then come to the knowledge and enjoyment of God? I’ll tell you. God of heaven and earth has given a road and way to come to him. He said from heaven, as Jesus Christ was baptized in Jordan and as he was transfigured in the mountain: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased, hear him.” (Matth.3,17. Luke 9,35.) Christ Jesus is made of God unto us, wisdom, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption. (1 Cor. 1,30.) Yea, Jesus Christ Himself asseverates (sic) in the gospel according to St John, Chapter 14: “I am the way, the truth and the life, no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” Therefore John writes in his first Epistle: “Whoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father.” We frail and wretched mankind can’t reach the Father in the highest of ourselves, we must humble ourselves, and go even unto Bethlehem to adore the lovely babe of the virgin Mary, to accompany him under the lead of the Evangelists Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John in his wonderful walks to his death of crucifixion and his peaceful triumphs of resurrection to hear his word with devotion and to keep his commandments, then we shall perceive, whether his word be of God or whether he speaks of himself (John 7,17.), then we shall see at a future time, who God is.

But this glorious Gospel of Christ is hid to them that are lost. For no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost, as Paul the Apostle writes to the Corinthians, (1Cor. 12,31.), whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knows him (John 14,17.) The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God for they are foolishness unto him, neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he that is spiritual judgeth all things.(1 Cor. 2,14.15.) The Holy Ghost glorifies our Lord Jesus Christ. (John 16,14.) St John says: “The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of God, full of grace and truth. (John 1,14). This very glory was hid to the rulers of the Jews for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. The Holy Ghost makes a willing people depending upon Jesus Christ with confidence. The Devils know Jesus Christ also, but they have no confidence in him. This confidence, this faith, this belief in Jesus Christ the Holy Ghost works in the heart of mankind by teaching to understand the word of God, by directing the will and the affects to God, by chastising and consolating the conscience into the peace of God, which passeth all understanding. For the Kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. (Rom. 14,17.) But the efficiency of the Holy Ghost proves wonderfully mysterious, as our Saviour says: “The wind bloweth where it listeth and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh and whither it goeth, so is every one that is born of the Spirit. (John 3:8.)

In such a manner we believe in God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. This belief is the head of our confession. That’s the apostolic old catholic confession, renewed and restored by Dr. Martin Luther, whose disciples and followers we profess to be.

Now I come to tell you, by what means this our belief is bred, nourished and increased. The means of our salvation is the Word of God, notoriously sealed and as in continued divine facts attested by the holy sacraments namely the baptism and the Lord’s supper.

The Word of God we find, deposited in the prophetic and apostolic writings, secured thereby against all apocryphal additions and falsifyings of men. Only the prophetic and apostolic writings are the rule for all ministers. To this rule all ministers, theologians and book-makers must be judged, whether they are ministers of Christ or ministers of any other Lord or independent egotists. This rule our in God resting Father Dr Martin Luther defended and maintained as well against Popish additions as against Calvinists and Libertinistic abnegations. That’s our course also. Thereby we want to be distinguished from all other denominations as Lutherans. And this new church will be styled and evangelic Lutheran church. The Word of God will be our watchword. For man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God, (Matth. 4,4.) expressed in words, which man’s wisdom not teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth. (1 Cor. 2,13.)

To this Word God even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercy and the god of all comfort has added not any dead and empty signs, but effective testimonials of his grace, the baptism and the Lord’s supper, which testimonies continue to be the same, whether the godly or the ungodly take them, even as the sun continues to be the same, whether it shines to the evil or to the good. But the ungodly take them to their dangation. The sacraments are accordingly effective always to every receiver, to the faithful to salvation, to the infidel to dangation. That’s the doctrine of the Holy Bible and of Dr. Martin Luther, which we follow unmoved. And the sacraments have their force by the word of God, without the word and order of God they would be empty signs of remembrance. But now they are god’s actions of grace, executed by mortal men appointed to such divine office as stewards of the mysteries of God.

The paramount office of the ministers of Christ certainly is to preach the Gospel according to the rule of the prophetic and apostolic writings. But they are obliged also to effectuate the actions, which Jesus Christ ordered to be executed as testimonies of the grace of God by which actions the Christendom maybe congregated, nourished and propagated as well as by the word of preaching. This high importance of the sacraments is not enough acknowledged and estimated by many. For without the sacraments there could be no Christendom, although the Gospel would be preached. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. (Math. 19,6.)

Now we commit to God’s free grace and efficiency, how he may work in the hearts of men by his word and by his sacraments. We want no magnificence of dominion, no succession of the bishops, no radiance of the clergy, no auricular confession, no secret orders, no pious fraternities, no monasteries, no private conventicles, no intercession of the deceased saints, no letters of indulgence, no pilgrimages, no camp meetings, no ecstasies, no noise, no artificial excitation nor any like invention of man, we want only the Word and Sacraments pure and unmixed according to the commandments of Christ, numerous assemblies of attentive and sacramentally united hearers on the Sundays and holy-days, a decent and pleasing meeting-house and a becoming behavior of the whole congregation, that we may enlarge the blessings of this country and that our posterity may continue in the Christian faith. That’s our intention, that’s our desire, that’s our endeavor. Our God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, may help us now to a good Christian conduct and to a quiet and peaceable life, that we may not be brought into disgrace before god and before you the participators of our present solemnity.

Lastly hear me speak about our concerns and solicitudes. Some time we almost regret to have come into this land. For we see here on the one side the Christianism (sic) disserved in many parties, all hetergeneal (sic) to our confession, on the other side we see a predominant paganism. What will become in such twofold danger of our children? We fear that they might take a fancy into licentiousness and dissoluteness. The temptations to either by-way are frequent and mightily alluring. It is difficult to keep the narrow middle way of a tranquil and unassuming piety in these times, because of the self-conceited world looks for pomp and show, for pleasure and amusement, and despises the simple unfeigned godliness. The sound biblical education in the most places is unknown or contemned, a great deal of the young people grows up without discipline and the connexion (sic) with so many churchless and waste families and settlements cannot lead to any better disposition. What will under such destroying influences become of our posterity? What will under so many signs of a growing impiety and corruption become of this Amerikan (sic) Union? I fear that heavy visitations of God may come upon a people that in carelessness and lightness ungratefully forgets his Saviour. But I hope also, that our merciful God will awaken us first by his word, that we may repent, as the people of Ninevah did, and keep the word of God and not be ashamed of our Lord Jesus Christ, that the wilderness may blossom as a rose, that the glory of Lebanon may be given unto it, the excellency of Carmel and Sharon. The God of mercy arouses us now to look for a place of refuge and for covert (sic) from the coming storms. This church may be the ensign to gather the scattered of Israel. All flesh is a grass and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth and the flower thereof falleth away, but the Word of God endureth forever. (1 Pet.1,24.26.) This everlasting word will be preached in this God’s house. This word will be our comfort in all our sorrows. Many walk as the enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is the destruction, whose God is their belly and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things. (Philipp. 3, 18.19.). Such kind of folks leads us into much trouble, temptations and danger. But the Lord is our rock and our fortress and our deliverer, our strength in whom we will trust. (Ps. 18,2.) We must even through much tribulation enter into the Kingdom of God. (Acts 14,22.) But he that shall endure to the end the same shall be saved. (Mtth.24,13.) The ransomed of the Lord shall come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness and sorrow and sighing shall flee away. (Is. 25,10.) Amen

Englische Rede des Pastors J. Kilian bei der Kircheneinweihung on 25 December 1859 vorgelesen.

English sermon of Pastor J. Kilian, read at the church dedication on 25 December 1859.

Transliterated by Weldon Mersiovsky

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