# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_September 1858_S275
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

From the General Synod. 275

On the other side, he who has accepted the Confession without full
devotion to all its teachings can, with some justification, say to the
strict symbolist: "your conviction is unlutheran, your views destroy
living piety, you stand on untenable ground, you ought to be in another
church." He cannot reproach him with holding views which would make him
contemptible among other Protestants. When such views are entertained and
expressed, let their representatives withdraw from a union in which they
are not united from the heart. Mutual toleration is the right principle.
Where this cannot be practiced, let there be a peaceable separation, and
let those unite who think alike and are willing to act in perfect harmony.

Whether unity can be maintained with such materials as exist in the
Lutheran church of the United States is a weighty question. We have often
and earnestly weighed it and have arrived at no definite decision. We do
not hesitate to affirm that agreement is compatible with considerable
difference of opinion, but there are differences of so repellent a kind
that they cannot easily be kept sufficiently at rest to prevent serious and
painful friction. — We hold that those present in our Zion are not of this
kind. — Some yielding in non-fundamental matters and in forms of worship,
together with a fitting reconciling of views on points of doctrinal
difference, would contribute much to freer movement and peaceful progress.
The question does not present itself to us as a theory to be decided a
priori, but lies before us as a practical problem. This state of affairs
exists. How it came about must still be shown; the history has been
attempted, it has not been written. What exists has come about through the
providence of God; it has not come by calculation, and it is our part to
treat the case as it presents itself, and not to speculate about it as an
abstract question. There are two ways in which it can be treated — one may
be called the symbolical platform, the other the platform of the General
Synod. Under present circumstances we prefer the latter. One cannot claim
that it is infallible; earnest doubts may occur to one regarding its
stability, regarding its ultimate success, yet hope prevails over anxiety,
and what is not without parallel in church history can be repeated by us,
and our union, like the union of our great fatherland, can be maintained
despite all difference of views. For this we mean to labor by word and
writing, in the belief that the cause is good, in agreement with the
spirit of our holy religion, and conducive to the honor of God in the
saving of men. If we should be deceived in our expectations, and the
crisis should come, if this foundation wall should be undermined or
attempts made