# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_M rz 1858_S78
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

78 On the Divisions in the Lutheran Congregations Here.

darkness, it will be wholly full of light." By this allegory or parable Christ shows that the eye — that is, doctrine — must in short be wholly pure and clear, bright and full of light, so that no part of darkness, not even a single little cloud, be found upon it, etc. St. James too, in his epistle, no doubt not out of his own spirit but as he had heard it from the apostles, said very beautifully and finely, 2:10: "Whoever sins in one point is guilty of the whole." Therefore doctrine should be like a fine, wholly golden ring, on which there is no crack or break; for as soon as such a ring gets a crack or a break, it is no longer whole. What does it profit the Jews that they believe there is one God and Creator of all things, yes, that they believe all the articles and accept the whole Scripture, if they deny Christ? Therefore it is as St. James says: "Whoever sins in one point, the same is guilty of the whole."

Therefore this saying is to be diligently noted against their argument, by which they falsely charge us with tearing apart the love and unity of Christendom to the great harm and detriment of the holy church. We are truly ready and willing to show them peace and love; but only insofar as they leave us the doctrine of the faith unharmed and unfalsified. Where we cannot obtain this from them, it is in vain that they praise Christian love so highly. Cursed be the love kept at the cost and to the detriment of the doctrine of the faith, at the bottom of hell — a doctrine to which everything else must rightly yield, be it love, apostle, an angel from heaven, or whatever it may be, etc.

Therefore, by holding this matter so lightly and so cheaply, they show plainly enough what they think of the majesty and glory of God's Word, etc. If they seriously and heartily believed it to be God's Word, they would not toy and play with it so frivolously, but would hold it in the highest honor and believe without any doubt or dispute what it tells and sets before them; they would also know that one Word of God is all, and again that all the Words of God are one; they would know that all the articles of our Christian faith are one, and again that the one is all, and that if one is let go, the others will certainly all, in time, one by one, fall after it — for they all hang together and belong together.

Therefore we let it happen that they praise Christian love as highly as ever they please; we, on the other hand, praise the majesty and glory of the Word and of faith. Love one may somewhat relax where it can be done without harm or danger; but that cannot happen with the Word and with faith. Love should suffer everything and yield to everyone; faith, on the other hand, should and can suffer nothing at all, and in short yield to no one. Love, which readily yields, believes everything, thinks the best, forgives, and suffers, is often deceived; but nevertheless all such deceptions