# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1845 10 13_S14
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

these its rule of faith; rather it sets at the head of its confession the principle that Holy Scripture alone is the rule and standard according to which all doctrine and all teachers are to be judged and evaluated. It recognizes in the books of ancient and modern teachers only testimonies of the faith, and thus makes a distinction, as wide as heaven is from earth, between Holy Scripture and all human writings, not excepting those of the apostolic age and the age immediately following. And this is the only correct standpoint on which the Lutheran Church stands: it acknowledges neither human reason, as the Rationalists do, nor a human tradition, as the Roman Catholics do, as a source of faith, nor does it tolerate either one alongside Scripture. From this supreme principle it follows of necessity also that it acknowledges no other norm of interpretation and no other analogy of faith than that which is given in Holy Scripture itself; for if there were, outside of or above Holy Scripture, a norm by which it is to be explained and interpreted, then this norm — the light that teaches the right understanding of Holy Scripture — would have to stand above the light of Holy Scripture itself. But since we hold Holy Scripture to be the sole rule and standard, we likewise know of no other interpreter of Scripture than the Holy Spirit himself, who speaks to us through Holy Scripture in its clear, plain statements, and we trust so fully in the clarity and power of Holy Scripture that it can help a humble reader come to the knowledge of the saving truth even without any borrowed light. We do not despise the testimonies of the orthodox Church, as they speak to us especially in the ecumenical symbols, and we make thankful use of them as a splendid aid and guide to the understanding of Scripture, and find in them a faith-strengthening seal for the truth of our faith; but we do not make them our norm of interpretation — rather we let Holy Scripture itself remain that. To emphasize this point, clearly expressed in the Formula of Concord, does not now seem superfluous, since among some Lutheran theologians of more recent times an inclination toward a traditional interpretation of Scripture seems to be emerging.

4. Whoever reads the Formula of Concord with a sound heart will easily convince himself of the groundlessness of the charge that a scholastic hairsplitting or a dead orthodoxy prevails in it. Truly, only one who himself knows nothing of the life that is from God can speak so. It is indeed a terror to all heretics; it decides the disputed questions with a cutting sharpness; it tolerates not even the smallest error, nor any ambiguity; it insists that in the church not only one and the same doctrine but also one and the same manner of speech be maintained; it does not even wish such ways of speaking to be current in the church as might give occasion for offense and confusion; but —

14

— just as the authors themselves were men who kept the mystery of the faith in a pure conscience, so the book itself is the imprint of a living experience of the heart; indeed, it would not correspond so well to the pattern of the wholesome words if the authors themselves had not stood under the influence of the Spirit who guides into all truth. How experientially, for example, do they speak of the corruption of original sin, of the workings of grace of the Holy Spirit, of repentance, justification, and so forth, that only a blind partisan hatred or a spiritually crippled mind could fail to find the true spiritual life in it. But among today's "evangelically minded" there has come to prevail the unfortunate fixed idea that strict orthodoxy is incompatible with spiritual life, and people are quick to regard a strict Lutheran and a dead formalist as one and the same thing.

5. It also seems to us an important point that the Formula of Concord gives the only correct view of what in more recent times has come to be called the material principle of Scripture. This expression is, to be sure, foreign to our old, sound theology; but since it has become fashionable to let theology walk about in a philosopher's cloak, "the chief article of Christian doctrine," as the Apology quite simply puts it — the doctrine of the justification of a sinner through faith alone — must now, in the manner of the philosophers, be called the material principle of Scripture. But we do not quarrel over the name; only let the matter remain what it is. Yet what do people make of this principle? An absurdity, a trunk without root and without branches; they set the justification of the sinner through faith alone so in isolation from the other articles of the faith — namely from the holy sacraments, baptism and the Lord's Supper — in connection with which the article of justification first becomes what it is, the articulus stantis et cadentis ecclesiae [the article by which the Church stands or falls]. When Luther speaks of the importance of this article, he does not say: only leave me this article, the others you may falsify as you please; rather he speaks thus: Where this one article remains pure in the field, there Christendom also remains pure and finely united and free of all factions. But where it does not remain pure, there it is not possible to ward off any error and factious spirit. (Formula of Concord, p. 704, Pipping edition.) Luther, and after him the Formula of Concord, therefore does not favor the article of justification at the expense of the others, but rather shows the closest connection of the rest with the article of justification, and how the one cannot stand without the other. We cannot, therefore, share the view of Dr. Schaff* that the two churches, Lutheran and Reformed, are one in their deepest religious ground and essence; no, they are not even one in the chief article of justification. For even if we grant that this article is, as such, contained in the symbols and doctrines of the Reformed Church, we must nevertheless deny that it is contained in them wholly and in its integrity. For, apart from the fact that their dreadful doctrine of unconditional election already deals a death-blow to justification through faith, they impoverish the poor sinner through their unscriptural, emptying doctrine of the holy sacraments — which, together with the Gospel, are the sole means of conveying the heavenly treasure — of the comfort of justification, and are, so far as it lies with them, at fault that a sinner forfeits justification. Only because Dr. Schaff ignores this important point is it explicable how he can find this so-called material principle of Protestantism equally strongly and fully developed in both the Reformed and the Lutheran churches.

*) In his "The Principle of Protestantism." However splendid the gifts and excellent the knowledge of the old theology which the author displays in this work, it is nevertheless to be regretted that by it he serves no better cause than that of union [with the Reformed].

6. The greatest offense that the Formula of Concord has always given to tender ears is its rejection and condemnation of heretics. If one could forgive it everything else, one cannot forgive this — that it condemns all heresies and heretics so mercilessly. Where, people cry, is the love that bears all things and helps the one in error with a gentle spirit? Does not the Lord himself say: judge not, condemn not? Does not the Formula of Concord, precisely by its condemning, betray that the Spirit of the Lord does not breathe in it? The mildest judges think they must excuse it by the coarseness of that age, since people then did not take hard, blunt expressions so badly from one another. But looked at more closely, even this reproach falls away, and the Formula of Concord stands entirely pure in this respect as well. If it were true that it condemned every erring person without asking whether he errs out of weakness or out of obstinacy, or if, as the Pope does, it condemned whole churches and thereby also the children of God hidden within them, then it would indeed be committing a sin that cries to heaven, and it would be time to strike out these condemnations; who would want to make himself a partaker of such a sin? But what its sense and meaning is, it states plainly in the preface to the Book of Concord: our will and intention is not that hereby persons who err out of simplicity and do not blaspheme the truth of the divine Word — much less whole churches — are meant, but rather that by it only the false, seductive doctrines and their obstinate teachers and blasphemers are properly rejected. But that it publicly rejects and condemns such teachings, it does in obedience to Christ and his apostles; one need only read attentively Matthew 23; Galatians 1:7–8, 5:10, 12; 1 Corinthians 16:22; Philippians 3:18–19; 2 Peter 2:1ff. Just as little as the charge of a mania for condemnation can be brought against the Most Holy One himself and his apostles without terrible blasphemy against God,