# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_M rz 1856_S81
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

A plea for the Augsburg Confession etc. 81

it is not intended thereby to bestow upon the unregenerate the forgiveness of sins, this seems to rest on a gross misunderstanding of the Augsburg Confession, as though it taught any such thing, which is by no means the case. To this is added that, through the reduction of the sacraments to mere signs, we ourselves are reduced to fellow-participants of the Old Testament, whose rites were the shadow of the graces of the New Testament; that two acts result from this which, although instituted by the Lord Christ, differ in nothing particular from the Passover meal of the Old Testament; that the baptism of children is degraded to a wholly meaningless act. But the main point is that the Augsburg Confession has on its side the words of Christ concerning the Holy Supper, and it looks strange enough that the authors of the „Grundriß,“ who without having a single word of Christ for it speak of the Christian Sabbath as of a divine institution, should on the other hand interpret the words of Christ concerning the Holy Supper so shallowly. The „is“ in the institution of the Holy Supper cannot, as they would have it, be exchanged for „signifies,“ any more than Christ, in saying, „I am the vine,“ meant that he signified a vine; but if the „Grundriß“ should even appeal to the fact that our senses perceive nothing of the body and blood of Christ in the Holy Supper, then they will also have to reject, for example, the Trinity, which likewise runs counter to our senses. Calvin, who was inclined enough to regard the sacraments as mere signs, could nevertheless not rightly find this sense in the words of Christ and the apostles. To be sure, the authors of the „Grundriß“ urge that the great mass of the Lutheran churches before 1817 rejected the doctrine of the true presence of Christ in the Holy Supper; but this was precisely the time when the mass of the Lutheran churches was infected by rationalism. Here in this country, even still in the days of the venerable father H. M. Mühlenberg, the Lutheran candidates for the preaching office were bound to the unaltered Augsburg Confession. That we have set forth teachings concerning the Holy Sacraments which are not shared by the other churches can, in truth, by no means induce us to alter those teachings, which in any case stand upon the pure and firm ground of the Gospel.

The points which the authors of the „Grundriß“ declare to be errors of the Augsburg Confession Pastor Mann has thus disposed of, and now closes his defense with some general remarks. If by this writing he has attained that it be recognized that the authors of the Augsburg Confession had, in their teachings, the Gospel on their side, and that the authors and friends of the „Grundriß“ ought not to regard their own position as so altogether firm and unassailable, then he is content. If members of the Lutheran Church in this country are in many cases inclined toward the teachings of other churches and confessions and disinclined toward the teachings of their own confession, this lies chiefly in the circumstance that in the times following the blessed labors of Dr. Mühlenberg the Lutheran Church here

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