# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_August 1855_S227
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

The Erlangen “Journal for Protestantism and the Church.” 227

raise themselves above it. Our Synod is far from applying to the Lutheran Church what the Council of Trent asserts of the Roman Church when, among other things, it states in its fourth session not only: “Furthermore, in order to restrain headstrong spirits, it decrees” (the Council) “that no one, relying on his own judgment, shall dare, in matters of faith and morals pertaining to the edification of Christian doctrine, to interpret Holy Scripture by distorting it according to his own sense, contrary to that sense which holy mother Church has held and does hold,”—but when it also continues there as follows: “to which (Church) it belongs to judge concerning the true sense and interpretation of the Holy Scriptures.” In subscribing to the Lutheran confession, we, the preachers of our Synod, have done so according to the explicit declaration of the Formula of Concord itself: “not because it was composed by our theologians, but because it has been taken from God’s Word and is firmly and well grounded therein”; and in doing so, we have solemnly repudiated that principle expressed at Trent. We grant no visible communion, whatever it may call itself, the right, perhaps under the title of the Church or of a general council, to restrict personal study of Scripture in any way; to prescribe to any person its interpretation of Scripture as the authentic one, which must therefore be accepted on account of the authority of its authors; or to bind any conscience to its interpretation without having to furnish, and without having furnished, proof from Scripture itself that its interpretation is correct. We are far from surrendering even the least part of what our Lutheran Church upheld in its struggle both against the Roman Church and later against a Helmstedt doctrine of tradition. *) We subscribe wholeheartedly to what Luther wrote to Pope Leo X as early as 1520: “I will not tolerate any rule or measure for interpreting Scripture, since the Word of God, which teaches all freedom, neither should nor must be held captive.” (Opp. Hal. Tom. XV, p. 945.)

Now, as to the question of how we understand the proposition: “Lutherans as such

*) Thus Calov writes in his Consensus repetitus, directed against Georg Calixt and those who shared his views: “We confess and teach that the prophetic and apostolic writings, as the clear and pure fountains of Israel, are alone sufficient, so that what a person needs to know for his salvation may be heard, understood, and retained by all without uncertain meaning. We reject those who teach that, because of the many dangerous errors (in the interpretation of the prophetic and apostolic writings), it is highly necessary that the interpretation of the aforesaid writings and its standard be governed according to the rule and standard of the universal understanding of the Church” (below it is further added: “the interpretation of the catholic Church, which cannot err”) “.” (See: Consil. Witeberg. I. 934.) It scarcely needs to be noted here that, when we declare the struggle against the Helmstedt theologians on this point, and the Consensus opposed to them, to be justified and correct, we by no means intend thereby to endorse either the entire struggle or the entire Consensus.