# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_December 1855_S378
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

378 Theses on the Church, etc.

Calvinists. Truly, without in the least intending to defend the whole
manner and mode of that controversy, we must nevertheless remark that
this assertion contradicts truth and fairness in equal measure. It was a
most sacred matter to our fathers, and one of the highest importance,
that the words of the Sacrament be kept pure, so that each one of the
believing recipients might hear, here, a clear and distinct good confession
of his heart. And if they found it necessary to express the word more
sharply, more exactly, without in the least altering the essence of the
matter, who would wish to forbid them? Was it, then, a different
meaning when one said, '''This is the true body,''' than when one said
simply, '''This is the body?''' On the contrary, those who could not
bear to hear that word "true" had to arouse every well-founded suspicion
that, in fact, their faith in the true presence of the body and blood of
Jesus in the Supper stood on very shaky ground, however often they
otherwise made a show of it. And should the Church not be permitted to
utter such a shibboleth? And finally, how did it come about that in a
Lutheran land where Crypto-Calvinism counted scarcely any adherents,
where the Formula of Concord was never adopted — in Denmark — that
addition, "true," nevertheless came into favor, without the rest of the
application, '''Take, and eat,''' ever being adopted there? And we add
further, how did it come about that even before the public outbreak of
the controversy with the Reformed, already in the year 1524, in the
Nördlingen "Evangelical Mass," the following formula of distribution
was prescribed: "Behold, dearly beloved, this is truly the holy body of
our Lord Jesus Christ, who suffered the bitter death for you; take and
eat it, that it may feed, nourish, and preserve you unto everlasting life.
Amen?" etc. (See Bibliotheca symbolica ev.-luth., auctore Feuerlin,
Göttingen, 1752, p. 287.)

Theses on the Church
and the Leipzig Lutheran Conference.

In August of this year the conference of members of the Lutheran
Church, which meets from time to time, was again assembled in Leipzig.
Among other notable personalities, Rudelbach, Harleß, and Harnak
(of Erlangen) were present this time as well. The main subject of the
discussions was the doctrine of the Church. For the purpose of providing
a thread for the discussions, Professor Dr. Kahnis had drawn up theses
on the Church. They are as follows:

"1. The Church is the communion of Christians in the Holy Spirit
under Christ the Head, to which, according to outward appearance, all
the baptized belong, but according to its essence only the believers.