# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_September 1858_S282
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

282                    Illusions of Present-Day Theologians etc.

(Liesching) 1855." 8vo. XIV and 219 pp. This work sets itself the task
of establishing the doctrine of the Lutheran Church concerning the Holy
Supper, of presenting it in its necessity, and of defending it against its
opponents. Nonetheless, the whole development of doctrine given in this
book is, as Ströbel proves with citations, nothing but "a subjective attempt,
standing midway between evangelical truth and Calvinist error, to make
the mysterium tremendum acceptable to speculating reason." The Sartorius
work named above is reviewed twice in the newest quarterly number of the
Rudelbach-Guericke journal. The first review has Rudelbach for its author.
Not only does one look in vain in this review for any forceful, earnest
testimony against Sartorius's misdirections, but one finds in it, quite
unexpectedly to us, Rudelbach's own declaration that the conceptions of
the nature of the sacrament put forward by Sartorius are his own as well!
The more it must grieve one to see ever more of the German theologians,
of whom one supposed that they carried the sword of the Spirit in the
front ranks for the Lutheran faith, dwindling away from those ranks, the
more gladdening and comforting it is that the testimony for the old truth
and against the new error has still not fallen wholly silent in our old
fatherland. Such testimony is plainly borne, in particular, by Mr. Licentiate
Ströbel, as tirelessly as earnestly, fearlessly and decidedly — a testimony
whose joy an unjust attack recently made by Ströbel against us shall not
spoil for us. Rudelbach's review of the Sartorius work in the journal named
is then followed by a similar one from Ströbel. This review, too, is indeed
far from denying, or merely concealing and hiding, the many excellent
things the Sartorius work contains. It brings them out, rather, with the
most joyful acknowledgment, and shows that Sartorius proves himself in
his work to be "the wholly fitting man" "to set forth subjectivism in its
true shape and to criticize it as it deserves." "How splendidly," writes
Ströbel, "he (Sartorius) exposes the nihilistic rhetoric of the symbolic-
reformed doctrine of the Supper in the Heidelberg Catechism! Nothing but
a little piece of dry bread, nothing but a little sip of table wine! Although
much is chattered here, as Sartorius himself puts it, about spirit, that is
in fact really nothing but wind!" Through all this, however, Ströbel has
not let himself be bribed, not let himself be blinded, into failing to see
that Sartorius nonetheless still stands himself within the magic circle of
error. The former writes further, namely, as follows:

     "The limping messenger follows after. Sartorius steps forth boldly
against Calvinist subjectivism, but himself stands, unfortunately, on
subjective ground in two main points. First, in the doctrine of the Supper,
whose positive determinations amount, with him, to this: that a power
streaming out from Christ's glorified body and blood unites with bread and
wine, and