# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Juni 1855_S180
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

180 Gleanings from the Periodicals of the Old Homeland.

All will certainly testify of him that with great fidelity and much diligence he has come to understand the teachings of his own church. We also acknowledge—even if we knew it from nothing else—that his book often reflects that conscientiousness of the old theology which seeks truth above all else. But just as there are passages in Münchmeyer’s book where the author’s conscientiousness is carried too far, there are also passages where it does not emerge strongly enough. Among these we count a passage in the note on p. 98, which says: “We must all first grow back into the Lutheran confession.” I grant that; with Münchmeyer, I maintain it of us all. The ancients grew organically out of fullness; we come from the wilderness and must first “grow into the confession” again. In this Münchmeyer is plainly right; but if that is the case, and if he does not exclude himself from the “all,” then I cannot understand how someone who is “growing into the confession” can at the same time wish to reform the confession. By this I do not mean that we should bona fide accept everything we find behind us, nor do I mean that Münchmeyer should not have expressed his doubts publicly; but I would have expected him to draw a line through the whole of Lutheran theology with a somewhat less confident hand. I understand raising doubts, even publicly; but wishing to be a Lutheran—and especially one who is only beginning to grow—while dismissing the entire Lutheran view as utterly false with the greatest certainty: that I do not understand. If those who deny the Lutheran tradition from the outset overthrow, among other things, one chief article or another, that is understandable; if those who wish to be more Lutheran than Luther wish to reform something here or there, or everything, that too is understandable; but if we, who maintain that we must first grow back into the Lutheran confession, combine growing with reforming and striking things out, that is altogether incomprehensible. Münchmeyer, however, proves that Luther and Chemnitz, the Symbols and Gerhard—indeed, that the entire Lutheran Church—did not know where it itself stood. Just consider: if this principle, apart from all questions of content, is to prevail—that everyone may depart beyond and contrary to all the Symbols—what will ultimately come of it? What would such a church be other than a Babel? Just as one person departs from them regarding the church, another may do so regarding the Lord’s Supper, a third regarding Baptism, and so forth. That reasons can be adduced for all such departures is demonstrated to us by the theology of the Roman, Reformed, and modern churches. People have spoken of the dangers supposedly posed to the church by those who say with the Symbols that the invisible church is the church in the proper sense; but the dangers of complete theological independency may lie much closer where, through hyper-Lutheran—that is, anti-Lutheran—propositions, the entire history of the church is denied and an attempt is made to begin again from the beginning with Roman propositions. The whole of modern theology, so fiercely attacked, is nothing compared with so conscious a