# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Juli 1855_S198
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

198 The Erlangen “Journal for Protestantism and the Church”

“should be and remain in the articles,” and also so that, for those “who do not wish to be bound to any definite form of pure doctrine, everything may not remain free and open.” If, accordingly, the orthodox church bears witness in its confessional symbols to how Holy Scripture has always been understood and interpreted by it in certain articles, and if the church requires those who belong to it—and especially those who wish to become and remain teachers in it—to declare publicly that these symbols are also their own and, as applicable, to affirm this under oath, so that it (the orthodox church) may have a guarantee as to whom it can count among its own people and entrust with the public teaching office among its members, and whom it can retain in that office: then what meaning can and should it have (apart from the case conceded in hypothesi, when the symbols are unclear at some point) when Lutherans, when Lutheran pastors sworn to the symbols, claim the right to understand and interpret the symbols “under the guidance of Scripture”? Whoever demands this plainly assigns to Scripture the place of the symbol, and to the symbol the place of Scripture. Scripture does not exist for the interpretation of the symbol; rather, the symbol exists for the interpretation of Scripture. The church that sought to recognize such a demand would contradict itself and move in a circle. After seeking, by requiring an oath-bound commitment to its symbols, to assure itself that its teachers interpreted Scripture not according to their own discretion but, following the model of its symbols, in its true sense, by making that concession it would itself surrender once again the guarantee it had sought; indeed, in addition to restoring the freedom to interpret Scripture at will, it would also permit the freedom to tamper with its symbols by means of whatever interpretation of Scripture one pleased. Precisely because, on account of the sects that have arisen, all of which appeal to Scripture, it is not enough for a teacher to confess Scripture as the sole rule and norm, the church requires him, as proof of the sincerity of his confession of Scripture, also to confess the pure understanding of Scripture as it is set down in the symbols. What, then, would it amount to if the church were at the same time to permit the person sworn to them, whenever a part of the confession did not appear to him purely biblical, to reinterpret that part in his own way according to Scripture? What would the entire commitment to the symbols then be but an empty charade?

It goes without saying, of course, that no one can bind himself to accept and preach the meaning contained in the words of the symbol if he considers it unbiblical. If he did so, then even by preaching the truth he would, as far as his own person was concerned, hardly avoid sinning; for “whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.” But this case has absolutely nothing to do with our question. Our question does not concern Christians and Christian teachers who still