# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Juli 1857_S201
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

The General Synod of the Lutheran Church in Prussia in the Year 1856. 201

...and who in the end are compelled to declare our own action to be sin. But this way he still holds, and hopefully will hold to his end, to be the only right one, and he must reject everything by which this way would be rejected. But we also wished to testify that we are not indifferent to the woe of separation, and that we do not, as has indeed been said of us, stand in fear of God's mercy. The more certainly we know that God can never cast us away and disown our struggle, the more cordially and gently could we grasp the hands stretched out toward us. To that end may the Lord give us a unanimous testimony, which would be a blessing not only for those outside but also for ourselves. — Dr. Besser later set down such a testimony, which after some alterations was unanimously adopted by the synod, and which will be communicated by us in the "Declaration of the General Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Prussia concerning," etc., to be given later.

Professor Dr. Kahnis likewise declares it desirable, in view of the prejudices about the harshness of the so-called "Old Lutherans," that the General Synod should officially express its mind; but there ought to be no entering specifically upon those Lutheran endeavors. Whoever stands clearly upon the Lutheran confession ought properly to join himself to the Lutheran Church; but many do not stand so clearly, and still wish, with the best knowledge and conscience, to save the whole complex. With such one must have forbearance; one must not approve their ways, yet must acknowledge the growth of Lutheran consciousness. For that very reason a detailed declaration is desirable.

Professor Dr. Lindner concurs, and wishes at the same time to see it emphasized that, in the event of the establishment of a Prussian Lutheran territorial church, one would want not two church bodies but only One.

Superintendent Wagner, one of the movers, points out: the real tendency of the Posen motion has not yet been rightly grasped at all; the Lutheran element in the territorial church has by now taken on a different shape than ten years ago. There are captive Lutherans within it; we ought to help them to right ground and abandon the hitherto prevailing system of mutual ignoring.

Against this, to be sure, much objection was raised. Pastor Diedrich remarks that the Lutheran associations are something wholly intangible. For the rest, he must enter a protest against any acknowledgment that there are Lutherans in the united church who could reach the goal along their own way. — Church Councilor Ehlers protests against the expression "separation," since we never separated ourselves from the Church, but the Unionists did. — Pastors Gumlich, Lohmann, Latzel, Frommel, and others point out how questionable it is that such a declaration — for which we have neither occasion nor any summons — might give rise to possible offense in our congregations, as though we wished to draw near to the Unionists and, as it were, to abandon the rock on which we stand. — Dr. Besser meets this with the remark...