# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_August 1855_S240
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

240 The Union.

should consent to the union of the two churches, since it is written: Whatever does not proceed from faith is sin. — We, on the other hand, promise that, as soon as what we currently consider impossible should actually become possible—namely, that we should be convinced that, in the doctrines on which we differ, Scripture is against us, or even merely not in our favor—we will at once become the warmest advocates of union.

But people have long since grown weary of the arduous path of dogmatic reconciliation between the two churches. The author, too, approaches the matter in an entirely different way.

As shown, he maintains that people can very well unite even if they are not convinced that their own doctrine is contrary to Scripture and the opposing doctrine scriptural, or that both doctrines are possible interpretations according to Scripture; even if they continue to believe that, in the doctrines on which they differ, Scripture is on their side. “The canon of conformity to Scripture in any case still requires a guiding principle by which, from the variety and abundance of the material presented in Scripture, to identify what is capable of serving as the foundation for a formulation of doctrine arising from the innermost vital impulses of Scripture; only this guiding principle must by no means be brought in from outside, but must emerge from Holy Scripture itself” (p. 104). This guiding principle is then none other than the already mentioned “divine touchstone for the question of ecclesiastical union or separation among religious bodies,” which is said to lie in the distinction between fundamental and non-fundamental doctrines: those necessary for attaining possession of eternal life, and those without which this result may also be achieved. With regard to the latter, non-fundamental doctrines, which are not absolutely necessary for salvation, a church is supposedly permitted, if need be, to maintain even propositions that we recognize as contrary to Scripture, provided that the same is not true with respect to the former; and this is not supposed to give us the right to regard union with that church as something not commanded by God, but forbidden by Him.

With this we can never agree. We must most emphatically deny the major premise in the conclusion by Dr. Müller quoted above, which constitutes the essence of his entire book, and instead firmly uphold the proposition we have set against it, which occupies the same place in the syllogism.

Thus, provided that a religious body still possesses even one doctrine through which people attain possession of eternal life, is it to be disobedience to God if another body refuses to unite with it, and therefore also disobedience to God if the Lutherans reject union with the Reformed? But what proves too much proves nothing. The author himself concedes that the Roman Church also occupies precisely the position just described. “The Roman Church”—these are his own