# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Juni 1856_S166
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

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

Precisely this — that faith grounds itself upon the firm Word of God, and upon this alone — gives it steadfastness and certainty, gives it the victory over the world; precisely this, that our Church confesses such a faith, assures us that in her the one holy Christian Church is surely present; yes, and we call blessed all who are of one accord with her, precisely because in doing so they confess a faith which, through Word and Sacrament, surely has for its treasure and portion the Lord Christ himself in the fullness of his loveliness. It is a precious thing that the heart be made steadfast, and this comes about through our laying hold, by faith in this Word, of the Christ who is offered in the Word. Therefore we can do no other than heartily entreat our dear troubled brothers not to let all manner of theological opinions, which are not warranted by Scripture, count for more than the articles of faith of our confession, whose scripturalness proves itself again and again. One may today be fully convinced of the correctness of such opinions, and yet perhaps, within a year, wonder that one ever held such a thing to be true. Objections such as the familiar one, that it is pride to call the doctrines of one's own faith and confession truth and to label the doctrines deviating from them untrue, or that by returning to confession and Church one disturbs a union of the separate churches just then taking shape, and the peace of church life in most recent times — objections in general which spring from a superficial view of theological and ecclesiastical conditions and not from faith in the Word of God — may well, for the moment, make us timid and disinclined toward any church-firm position, but should lose their merely apparent weight before the insight that progress toward accord with the confession of our Church is likewise progress toward that obedience of faith which we need before any union, before any outward peace. Should even many a one be first moved, by the renewed thought of the obligation, to seek accord with the Church, let him nevertheless not be troubled by the reproach that the assent to the church's confession thus prompted must be an untruth or at least a delusion. That it can be such a thing we do not deny, but let no one assert that it must be so, for God makes use of the most varied means and ways to stir us to obedience to his Word, and truly that very thought is serious and important enough to be God's instrument. Let us only pay careful heed to God's leadings and pointings in the movements of our time, and to the urgent preaching of history! The revival of the beginning of the past century turned away from the church's confession and — ran its course into rationalism: let us, then, not hinder the revival of our time from attaining what it evidently strives for — a firm ecclesiastical shape upon the foundation of the firm Word of God, which is written in the Bible and has been fully and clearly confessed by our Church in agreement with the Bible. The course of the foregoing exposition may be briefly summarized in the following propositions: