# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Januar 1857_S5
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

On the Efficacy of the Sacraments.                    5

2nd Synodical Report of the Western District show — is unfortunately an incontestable fact. Just as clearly it lies on the surface that this view, which is entirely irreconcilable with the pure doctrine of the justification of the poor sinner before God, out of grace for Christ's sake, through faith, amounts to the pernicious, harmful, and dangerous doctrine of the Roman church of the opus operatum and the so-called indelible character. So here too, as in the doctrine of church and ministry — indeed precisely in connection with the fundamentally erroneous, papistic view of the essence of the church as one essentially visible — there is a crossing over onto Roman territory, and thus a new confirmation of the correctness of the observation that forces itself upon a searching look at the church-historical course of the last few decades: namely, that in the one-sided struggle against the spiritualizing of modern, especially Union theology, without having first truly immersed oneself in the pure ground of Lutheran doctrine and having recognized, vividly and to its very depths, its innermost opposition to papistic Pelagianism and an externalized churchdom, one has fallen into the other extreme, that of materializing, and that, while thinking to put one enemy to flight, one has run straight to a far more dangerous one. That the papal church, the antichristian papal realm, is truly the more dangerous enemy ought to be all the easier for us to recognize, since precisely in our own days that same realm is again growing so very strong, again gaining so many deceitful powers, so that one may well observe how the devil is at just this time going about it in earnest, that, were it possible, he might seduce even the elect into taking the mark of the beast upon themselves. All the more should we rightly be alarmed that even Lutheran theologians could stray so unashamedly onto Roman territory, could so carelessly take Roman false coin for good Lutheran gold and pass it on, and rightly we should in all earnestness return to the feet of our old, faithful teaching fathers, whom God once deemed worthy, in the bright light of the gospel brought forth anew, to recognize clearly the satanic depths of the antichristian papal realm, to refute victoriously, in the power of the Spirit, the errors of the Roman doctrine, and, in the clear knowledge of the infallible word of Scripture, to demonstrate and maintain valiantly the eternal truth of the gospel. Rightly should we learn from these faithful witnesses, and, strengthened by their pure doctrine and their Scripture-conformed confession, fight a manful, untiring battle, with all the strength of faith which God would grant us, against every incursion of Roman errors into the territory of our precious Lutheran Church. —

Let us then also hear, on the doctrinal point in question, some of their glorious testimonies, examine these simply by God's Word, and, when we must then recognize that their very different view of the salutary efficacy of the sacraments — an efficacy which, in accordance with the pure doctrine of the justification of the poor sinner before God, they could not conceive of apart from faith on the recipient's part — is in deed and truth the