# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1844 10 13_S14
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

indeed perhaps quite reasonable to many, but the question is precisely this: whether a person can be a good person, no matter what he believes. This we deny. By that same admission, however, we further do not mean to concede that there are many true churches. We believe, rather, that there is only One way to heaven, only One truth, only One correct interpretation of Holy Scripture, and therefore only One true, orthodox Church, and thus also only One institution for salvation; for it is only the Word and only the Sacraments possessed by this Church — this keeper of God's keys — through which a person is brought to salvation. By that admission we finally do not mean to say this either: that a person can be saved through the doctrines in which certain parties deviate from the faith of the true Church of Christ or from God's Word. No — we know that every error, once it takes hold powerfully in a person, is a deadly poison to the soul. Our actual meaning is this: many souls are indeed saved even in erroneously-believing communions — not through what makes these communions into particular sects, and not because they are members of them, but because many, while outwardly counting themselves among them, are in their hearts (perhaps without knowing it) devoted to a wholly different teaching — namely, the teaching of the true Church, which, as the mother (Gal. 4:26–27), bears children to Christ alone.

Does it follow from this, then, that the falsely-believing churches are just as much institutions of God for salvation as the orthodox one? By no means. If many are saved in them as well, this happens because they have retained from the true Church the Bible, the Holy Sacraments, and the confession of many precious truths of the Gospel; but the erroneously-believing communions do not bear their particular names because of what they have retained from the doctrine of the true Church, but because of what they have taken away from it and added to it.

It is certain that, since Christendom does not now consist of a single Church confessing the same faith everywhere, and since the many different churches that exist contradict one another in their confessions: either there is no true Church at all on earth that has the unadulterated doctrine of Christ (which, according to Christ's promises, is impossible), or, of all the churches in the world, only One can rightly bear the name of the true Church. We hold this to be the Evangelical Lutheran Church, because it confesses the doctrines of the Word of God purely and clearly, neither takes anything away from it nor adds anything to it, and teaches the use of the Holy Sacraments, without addition or mutilation, according to Christ's institution. Whereas, on the other hand, all other Christian parties depart from Christ's clear Word, since errors have given them their particular existence, separated from the orthodox Church, and since their errors are thus the bond of their union, their name likewise does not designate

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the truths that they still have, but rather the errors peculiar to them, by which they distinguish themselves from the true Church and renounce it. A Methodist, for example, does not bear this particular name of his because he believes in the divinity of Christ, for the orthodox Lutheran Church confesses this belief as well; rather, the Methodist is so called because, among other things, he does not believe that what Christ has done for us is credited to us through faith, but only what he suffered for us; and because the Methodist contends for this and other great errors — which lead away from Christ toward human works — as though for precious divine truths. Further, one who is now called "Evangelical" does not bear this particular name because he confesses the Gospel with his mouth, for the orthodox Lutheran does this too; rather, the Evangelical is so called because he holds the false principle that, for the sake of love, human peace, and temporal unity, one may place no weight on certain truths, but must instead sacrifice them for that reason.

To this I now ask: since the erroneously-believing have separated themselves from the orthodox by their own name, can an orthodox believer, without denying [the faith], bear their name and profess himself one of them? Never. The orthodox believer, rather, has the duty to distinguish himself from the erroneously-believing by his name; as, for example, St. Cyprian writes: "Simus ab eis tam separati, quam sunt illi ab ecclesia profugi," that is, "we must be as separated from them as they have become fugitives from the Church." (Ep. I, 3, ad Cornel.) For let no one believe that he who has recognized the errors of his church, yet will not renounce them, and who, out of temporal considerations, wishes to remain in the fellowship of the false church, can be a true Christian, hold the right faith, and be saved. This holds true only of those who do not recognize the mystery of iniquity and the depths of Satan (2 Thess.