# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_December 1855_S369
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

The Lutheran Formula of Distribution
in the Administration of the Holy Supper.
— o —

In the "Lutherischer Herold" of October 15 there appears a rejoinder,
signed "Karl Fr. E. Stohlmann, N.Y.," to a review contained in the August
issue of "Lehre und Wehre" of the new "Agenda for the Ev. Luth. Church
in the United States." This rejoinder needs no answer, because it is itself
the most striking proof of the sorry standpoint which the authors of that
Agenda occupy and which is mirrored in it. Only concerning one passage
in that rejoinder do we believe we must not remain silent — not because
the writer has therein at least approached the matter with plausible-
seeming arguments and might thereby confuse even orthodox Lutherans,
but because it touches upon a subject well worthy of serious discussion.
The passage is as follows:

"We have this comfort in our liturgy, that although some things
perhaps could have been more sharply ''emphasized,'' we at least do not
have the discordant note which not only Löhe's Agenda exhibits, but
which is everywhere held up by the Old Lutherans as the correct one.
We mean the word ''the true'' and ''the true'' in the formula of distribution.
This discordant note outweighs a hundred other defects of others and
casts suspicion upon the most zealous ardor of its defenders. Indeed, we
agree from the heart with the truth expressed therein, and charge all who
reject it with blindness and, if they wish to be Lutherans, with dishonesty;
we have nothing against it, but rather urge that this precious jewel of
Scripture-grounded doctrine, on which the sweetest hopes of the Christian
regarding a future glorified corporeality rest, be preached and most forcefully
emphasized in the Communion formula — but to insert this same thing into
the Word of God, into the Scripture citation, — to master, indeed to outdo
and improve upon, the declaration of the Holy Spirit (!) in the holy moment
of the distribution, to wish to mix into the moment of the union of the
sinner begging for mercy the doctrinal difference, the bone of contention,
the shibboleth, to wish to drag the strife over the greatest mystery of the
faith into the cup of the blood and to the holy wounds struck for so poor a
world, — no, that is just as pitiable as when the Baptists botch the Bible,
or as when Rationalists use a Witschel-style verse at the distribution. And
if one says: Luther held it so, others maintain he did not do so. And even
if he had held it so at that time, those times would excuse it easily enough.
Were he now to come out of his grave, he would surely say: let a word
suffice you — and were he not to speak so, Paul would contradict him."

So much for the passage. To waste a word over it for Mr. Stohlmann's
sake could of course never occur to us. This gentleman regards as worth
taking to heart only what he himself writes; a duty commanded by God

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