# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Januar 1858_S17
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

The Evangelical Church Convention.                                    17

...in some respects, already carried it too far*). Therefore we must ward off the deviations of the evangelical denominations just as much as those of the Catholic."

Although people had so far listened, even if in part not merely with strained attention but also with inner interest — for one sensed that one was learning something from such a Lutheran and at the same time lucid address, unaccustomed as it was in Württemberg — yet in many respects with inward reluctance, and not without manifold expressions of contradiction, still the last sentences proved too strong a fare for them to bear. From many quarters — and bearers of well-known theological names are said to have taken part in it — there arose noise and shouting, by which people wanted to have the floor taken from Stahl. But Stahl, as president, refused the floor to anyone who wished to speak further on the question of whether he had a right to speak, and insisted that the right he had expressly requested was his due, to express his conviction hitherto unrepresented; if it were taken from him, he said, he would have to leave the Kirchentag together with his friends, and there would then remain on it only a unionist rabble. This dilemma determined the assembly to grant him the right to continue his address.

"The confessional standpoint — Stahl continued — does not hinder us from acknowledging catholicity. We ground it, first, on sonship to God, which is found among believers of all confessions, among Catholics as well as among the evangelical denominations. We ground it, second, on the apostolic symbol and baptism; where these are, there is Christian religion, regardless of all difference of confession, and there is a bond to Christ and a working of the Holy Spirit. We ground it, third, on the distribution of the gifts of grace among the various confessions. The Lutheran church is the church of the true doctrine, but many gifts of grace are found richer in other churches than in it.**) In the first centuries the fullness of the gifts of grace was with the orthodox church. Now none of the churches can claim that for itself. Therefore none of them, either, can be regarded as the una sancta catholica.†) This catholicity is wholly different from union and from the Evangelical Alliance. It does not strive for outward union, but only for inward recognition. It is not grounded on the negative, that one [regards]...

*) Editor's note. That is a proposition which we do not hold. Distinct from it is the question whether we might not, in many respects, judge the Roman church more fairly, and therefore acknowledge much in it which could not, at that time, find its due recognition.

**) Editor's note. True doctrine is not a gift of grace co-ordinate with the others. The Lord indeed rewards obedience to his Word with the corresponding knowledge, but unreserved obedience to it is a moral duty.

†) Editor's note. But the one as the true, the other as the false manifestation of the same.