# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Juni 1855_S177
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Gleanings from the Periodicals of the Old Homeland. 177

[illegible] visible and external, but only an office and the bare ministry of preaching the Gospel, let him be anathema. (That is: If anyone says that in the New Covenant there is no visible, external priesthood, but only an office and the bare ministry of proclaiming the Gospel, let him be accursed!) The controversy therefore strikes at the heart of the church. “Whoever departs on this article thereby departs from the central point of the Reformation itself; whoever seeks to correct matters here seeks to correct the whole Reformation.” The “Kirchenblatt für die ev.-luther. Gemeinde des Herzogthums Braunschweig,” edited by Pastor L. Wolff of Kirchbraak, also refers, in the final issue of last year’s volume, to the present controversy over church and ministry and expresses the conviction: “Unless all signs are deceptive, God intends to lead Christendom into a fuller knowledge, above all, of the Third Article, particularly of the doctrine of the church; the most important questions revolve around this point.”

By this means we wish to draw the particular attention of those who, up to this very hour, have believed that the controversy which has arisen here between the Synod of Buffalo and the Synod of Missouri, and which still remains pending, is merely local and personal and has its sole basis in a course of action followed by the Synod of Missouri with respect to members of the Synod of Buffalo. This is entirely mistaken. For quite some time, the ferment of a Romanist view of church and ministry has imperceptibly entered the Lutheran Church in every country, and now the time has come when the struggle has begun that necessarily arises in the true orthodox church whenever something alien and erroneous, especially something contrary to the confessions, finally seeks to assert itself within it. Given this condition of the Lutheran Church in general, it could not have happened otherwise than that the same clash which occurred there should also occur particularly in that part of the American Lutheran Church whose roots lie directly in the Lutheran Church of Germany. Yet the more important the points at issue are acknowledged to be, the less may anyone indulge the thought that peaceful dispositions on the part of the disputants alone are needed in order to restore peaceful fellowship and cooperation, at least here. No, this is not a matter of misunderstandings; the controversy is not a quarrel over words. Rather, it is a division over one of the most important parts of our confession—a division that has been developing within the Lutheran Church for a century, has long existed inwardly, and has now merely become manifest. It can therefore be resolved in no other way than by taking up the struggle that has broken out and fighting it through until the truth has gained the victory for all who are children of the truth. Our church is the church of the pure confession. If, when it became manifes-

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