# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_April 1857_S121
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

The General Synod of the Lutheran Church in Prussia of the Year 1856. 121

occasions already now present for such a testimony to the Lutheran
territorial church there is a system; they had their source in the Lutheran
territorial churches themselves. It is not a letter of rebuke that should be
issued, but rather a setting-forth: our position is this and that — and in
keeping with it we must find fault with this and that. We maintain the bond
with you, yet find in it this and that difficulty; these we now modestly set
before your eyes — remove them. — Yet after much had been said pro and con,
a motion to move to the order of the day was finally adopted. We have
wished to give the foregoing account, partly as proof of our modesty, since
we have indeed already so often been reproached with pride toward the
Lutheran territorial churches; partly in order to let our heartfelt desire
come to the fore, to stand with them in closer union.

We now come to a very important point, which touches us from without in a
peculiar way, and whose entire coincidence with us within the periphery of
our faith we nevertheless so ardently wished for. A man very highly placed
in the united Prussian territorial church, a dear man who without doubt
also stands high in the eyes of God and is beloved and precious to him, whom
one may not unjustly regard as the head of the so-called Lutheran societies
within the united territorial church, Dr. G., had addressed a heartfelt
letter to the chairman of the synod, in which he asked for "occasional
admission to the Holy Communion" in our church. The importance which such a
request, from the mouth and pen of such a man, carried in itself was felt by
every synod member. But since the chairman could not decide the matter
privately, it had to be brought to public knowledge and discussion. The
chairman opened the discussion, however, with the request that we too
should approach so humble an overture from such a man not, as it were, as a
tribunal, but in a spirit of humility.

In the discussion, Superintendent Pistorius first remarks, formally, that
the refusal may not be expressed in so final a manner, since Dr. G. himself
may possibly still have further negotiations in view. As to the matter
itself, however, he disputes two things in the letter as unhistorical: 1)
the false view, as though the territorial church were the earlier, merely
somewhat corrupted, Lutheran territorial church. Rather, it is now a
different bond that holds it together, namely not the pure doctrine;
therefore the territorial church is not the continuation of the old Lutheran
church, but a new church, whose confession has not yet been found. Not
wanting to abandon one's position means, in this case, entering into the new
church. 2) The other claim, that the reproach of disobedience toward the
church government, made from our side against those of Lutheran mind within
the Union, is groundless. Their thought — "insofar as the church government
is subject to the Lutheran confession, so far are we also subject to it" —
does not satisfy the conscience. For the government exists there for the
whole church, and must