# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_August 1855_S228
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

228 The Erlangen “Journal for Protestantism and the Church”

understand the statement that “Scripture is to be interpreted according to its symbols,” our answer is: in the way this statement has always been understood in the orthodox Lutheran Church. When V. E. Löscher, in the first annual volume (1701) of his “Impartial Reports of Old and New Theological Matters,” had written, among other things, that it was absurd “to allow everyone to investigate the Word of God freely without the rule of the symbolic books of faith” (p. 428, 2nd ed.), Löscher was harshly criticized for this statement by Joachim Lange*) in his “Candid Report on the Incorrectness of the So-Called Impartial Reports.” Löscher defended himself against this in the preface to the seventh annual volume of the aforementioned journal. There, on p. 34, he writes as follows: “On p. 90 our opponent accuses us of having written in 1701, p. 428, that the symbolic books were the rule according to which one must investigate God’s Word, and even, on p. 91, that they were the supreme norm of the Word of God, which is certainly a disgraceful accusation. We called the symbolic books a rule in themselves and insofar as the confession of teachers is concerned, and merely objected to their being cast aside in order to seek new articles of faith through a so-called free investigation of Scripture. That is our meaning; if the expression was somewhat incautious, we are glad to be corrected, but we have not deserved such an unchristian reproach. . In conclusion, we admonish our opponent to examine himself and carefully consider . . whether he finds within himself a heartfelt love for the analogy of faith as our Church has recognized it from God’s Word and presented it in our symbolic books.” Furthermore, when the so-called Weimar Bible Commentary was once to be prepared, under Johann Gerhard’s supervision, by a collegium of Lutheran theologians at the initiative of Duke Ernst the Pious, specific rules of interpretation were drawn up that every contributor to this work was required to observe. The first of these rules of interpretation was this: “Each person must take great care that the interpretation of all passages agrees with the analogy of faith and with the confessions of our Church.”**) To explain this rule and prevent misunderstanding, Buddeus, who quotes it, adds: “This is not to be understood as though the confessions were the norm for the interpretation of Scripture, but rather that the analogy of faith contained in those confessions, drawn from the clear and unambiguous passages of Scripture

*) Admittedly, Löscher’s warning finger was irritating to him because of the new results he had obtained by means of his “free” exegesis, for example concerning the millennial kingdom.

**) Each person must take great care that the interpretation of all passages agrees with the analogy of faith and with the confessions of our Church. Cf. J. Franc. Buddei, Introduction to Universal Theology, p. 1559.