# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_September 1858_S284
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

284                    Illusions of Present-Day Theologians etc.

blood (ichor, divine blood) to us to kiss and taste in bread and wine, who
dares forbid him?"' — The whole view attaches itself closely to Calvin's
opinion, "'that the Holy Spirit leads down to us from the transfigured
body of Christ in heaven, as a ray from the sun, a life-emanation (vigor
vitalis),"' — only that "'these life-rays"' are directed "'not directly into
the life and being of believers,"' but rather "'at the elements of the
sacrament"' (cf. p. 255). That is not the New Testament, not the
symbolic, doctrine of the Holy Supper, but a subjective attempt, standing
midway between evangelical truth and Calvinist error, to make the
mysterium tremendum acceptable to speculating reason."

     So far Ströbel. — The observation that many theologians nowadays,
even distinguished and learned ones, give themselves over to the illusion
of having arrived, in their study of Scripture, at the same results as our
Lutheran Church, while in fact paying homage to a wholly different
doctrine — this observation makes us ever more certain in the conviction
that there is no more fitting means, under God's blessing and help, of
vigorously working against the present confusion concerning doctrine
than conferences such as have come into being here in America, in which
the Lutherans, with heartfelt calling upon God, discuss doctrine — namely
the true sense of our church's confessions — and unite upon it. Would that
this were more recognized and acted upon accordingly! Would that those
who wish that the church of our fathers might, not indeed come newly
into being here, but rise again and, as a tree of life, spread its branches
over the whole land, would not withdraw in such great numbers from a
work by which, beyond doubt, the one right way to true, God-pleasing,
and strong unity has been taken! We are indeed of the firm conviction
that God will preserve and bless this work, begun in simplicity, without
any impure intent, in his name and solely for the furtherance of unity in
truth; but should it not accomplish what it could accomplish, then let all
those who call themselves friends of the Lutheran Church and timidly
withdraw take the responsibility for that upon themselves alone. The
objection that the conference, if it wishes to be genuinely Lutheran,
ought to take as its basis not the Augsburg Confession alone but the whole
Book of Concord, is groundless; for whoever truly stands on the ground
of the unaltered Augsburg Confession according to its plain sense of the
words thereby stands on the whole of the Concordia, which only develops
the doctrine of the Augustana, rescues it from misunderstanding, and
defends it. If, then, the whole of the so-called American Lutheran Church
were only to stand once more, wholeheartedly, on the Augsburg Confession,
it would need no arts of persuasion to bring it also to co-confession with
the Apology, the Smalcald Articles, Luther's Catechisms, and the Formula
of Concord. But if we have not yet in truth united upon the basis of the
fundamental Lutheran confession, then everything is still so