# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_August 1855_S239
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

The Union. 239

The argument for the … right of the Union thus actually comes down to the following syllogism:

1. Wherever a religious body possesses the pure evangelical doctrine in the sense that it truly confesses, “Jesus Christ has come in the flesh”—a doctrine through which, not in spite of which, people attain eternal life (p. 107); in other words, wherever a body holds fast to the fundamental doctrines (p. 111), there union is commanded by God.

2. The Reformed Church, however, is such a body.

3. Therefore union with the Reformed Church is commanded by God.

We must challenge this conclusion in the most emphatic terms. In clear contrast to the line of argument indicated by the author, our own runs instead as follows:

1. So long as a “religious body” has not arrived at the certain conviction that it has incorporated into its confession doctrines that Scripture contradicts, or that at least have no sure basis in Scripture—even if these doctrines are not counted among the so-called fundamental doctrines, indeed, even if there is only one such doctrine—so long must it be regarded as forbidden by God for this religious body to unite ecclesiastically with another that rejects those doctrines in its confession or has adopted divergent teachings concerning them.

2. The Reformed Church, however, is such a church, diverging in various articles from what the Lutheran Church recognizes as scriptural.

3. Therefore, for the Lutheran Church, a union with the Reformed Church must be regarded as forbidden by God.

In this way, I believe, the divergent convictions stand directly and openly opposed to one another.

It is now evident that the author has not been able to convince us through his work. There would have been only one possible way to do so: it would have had to be shown to us that, in the disputed doctrines, the Lutheran Church had Scripture against it, or had arbitrarily gone beyond the content of revelation in Scripture, and had substituted subjective, further interpretations of the words of Scripture—private opinions about regions that revelation has not seen fit to illuminate with its light—for divinely given truth. But the author has not taken this path at all in this work, doubtless because it could indeed be foreseen that it would not lead to the goal. For despite all attempts from the Reformed side to prove the contrary to us, we Lutherans remain certain to this day that in all the disputed doctrines we have Scripture on our side and that, by the Lord’s grace, we are the church of the pure Word and Sacraments. We might therefore surely expect enough fairness that, in view of this conviction of ours—even if it is regarded as erroneous—our legitimate right to oppose the