# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_April 1856_S103
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

The Obligation to the Church's Confessions, etc. 103

not to interpret Scripture accordingly? Should it not rather, all the more
gladly, use for interpretation these very concepts of doctrine which it
must itself acknowledge as scriptural, since they have been found, upon
examination by the Church against Holy Scripture, to be sound and
proven? To approach the interpretation of Scripture with a deliberate
scorn for the doctrine of the Church — a doctrine that has come into being
historically upon the foundation of Holy Scripture and has been laid
down in the confessions — is tantamount to declaring that there has
hitherto existed no fellowship that recognized the truth, and thus no
church at all; but that leads to sectarianism. The confessions are a part of
the edifice of faith which the Church erects upon the foundation of the
apostles and prophets, and indeed they belong to its very essence, since
they contain that part of the faith which gives it light and life — the
believed Word. False doctrines, as well as forms of church government
and ceremonies that are contrary to Holy Scripture, the Church must put
away from herself, however greatly sanctified by history they may
appear; permissible church orders and customs she may abolish without
thereby endangering her continued existence as such; but were she to
break off her confession — that is, the structure of doctrine to which she
has brought it — she would give herself up and become a sect, or rather
splinter into sects. So widely acknowledged is this claim within
Christendom that all Christian fellowships which deny the Church's
hitherto-existing structure of doctrine, and profess to erect for the first
time the true structure upon the foundation of Scripture, are called sects,
whereas the Christian fellowships that still preserve the structure of
doctrine set forth by the ancient Church in the three oldest confessions are
called churches; indeed, that for this very reason even the Roman
Catholic fellowship is designated by this honorable name, although she
has not carried forward that structure of doctrine in agreement with its
former character, but rather in such a way that the stubble of heresy
which had, in the course of history, attached itself thereto has been piled
upon it and declared, by the Council of Trent, to be building-stones.

With the Christian Church, Christian theology likewise presupposes
that the theologians themselves are believing Christians; unbelievers have
no insight into the nature of faith, no understanding of the knowledge of
faith or of the believed Word, which is so significant an object of
theology. Whoever wishes to be a theologian without faith is more
wretched than an ear of grain without a kernel, is like the thief who
covets to steal fine gold but carries off mere counting-tokens instead, is at
best comparable to the man "who digs for hidden, dark treasure," "and is
glad when he finds earthworms." An unbeliever will never be satisfied
with the concepts that Christian theology forms. He will either demand
that they agree with the opinions of the little root-man whom he calls
common human understanding, or sound reason, or, at best, he will
demand philosophical proofs. What he calls sound reason is a little heap
of dry rules of thought and life, arisen under the direction

of an idolatrous heart and decked out with such religious notions,