# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Mai 1858_S140
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

140 Some Remarks on Joining the So-Called Lutheran General Synod, etc.

they turned away from simplicity and divine purity, and so entangled and beguiled by the unionistic delusion-spirit and the wretched playing of favorites of our day, that they say they enter the General Synod for this very reason, in order to help bring it back to the Lutheran confession — by which, to be sure, they give the lie to St. Paul, who says that the damnation of those is entirely just who say: "Let us do evil, that good may come," Romans 3:8. And indeed, to the Lutheran spirit, which is a spirit of truth also in the sphere of morals, nothing is more foreign and further removed than such sanctimonious Jesuitism.

It was said just now that this making of church fellowship with false brethren — that is, with open enemies of the Lutheran confession founded thoroughly upon God's Word as it stands, who yet, against all right, hold fast to the name of the Lutheran church — is

1) against the honor of God and the clear
pronouncements of his Word.

For God has, in his written Word, clearly and plainly revealed the heavenly doctrine unto the salvation of souls in all the several articles of the Christian faith, and has committed it to his church on earth for faithful proclamation, assertion, defense, preservation, and propagation; this doctrine, in which he has revealed his nature and his will to the children of men, and in which the honor of his name dwells, is in a special sense his exclusive property and the most precious jewel, which he has entrusted to the faithful hands of his church, as his steward, in order that it might be administered, especially through his and her servants, according to his will, for the common use and benefit.

There it is now clear and beyond dispute that not only does he dishonor God who, against all better instruction and teaching, strays from the Word of God as it stands even in a single point of this doctrine, and through the deceit of the devil and of reason foists upon this Word another and foreign sense and thereby falsifies it, but also he who enters into and continues church fellowship with such falsifiers, likewise against all better instruction and teaching.

That such conduct and behavior runs counter to the clear pronouncements of the divine Word is manifest. For thus writes St. Paul, Romans 16:17: "Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them (take heed of them) which cause divisions and offences, contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned, and avoid them."

Now it is manifest and evident that the so-called Lutheran General Synod, for example, in the doctrine of Baptism and of the Lord's Supper, flatly denies the Scriptural and confession-faithful evangelical, that is, Lutheran, doctrine, and has adopted the doctrine of the Reformed in substance — the very doctrine that, at the time of the blessed Reformation, caused division and offense among the Evangelicals, and through its intrusion led a great part of them