# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_October 1858_S312
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

312 The Glory of the Lutheran Church.

...or with other communions of faith — such as, for example, that there is one God, that he has created all things, that there is a life after death, and the like — but the confession of the truths peculiarly Christian; and it is these that of necessity form the ground of Christianity and the foundation of the church, and with which, if they are denied, church and Christianity themselves fall.— — I have said expressly in No. 6 that I hold Calvin's doctrine of the election of wrath to be a grave error, and that I consider it justified that the Reformed be denied participation in our Lord's Supper on account of these errors. But errors that justify this must not be trifling ones. Yet I am expected to deny that the Reformed church possesses the fundamental truths of Christianity, and to cast it away like a hollow nut, so that it should follow that the Lutheran church is the only Christendom on earth, outside of which the saving truth is nowhere to be found.

But this I will not do. I will not deny that there is a Christendom outside the Lutheran church. God forbid! If you mean, my dear brothers, to maintain in the fear of God that outside the Lutheran church there is nothing of the church of Christ on earth (in fairness, holding this opinion, you ought to drop the name "Lutheran church" and simply say "church of Christ" instead — for why say "Lutheran" at all, if the concepts "Lutheran" and "Christian" coincide absolutely?) — then know that I too open my mouth for the opposite opinion, truly likewise in the fear of God; for otherwise I would far rather be silent. But my conscience forbids me to keep a fearful silence merely so as not to offend anyone, and commands me to testify against what I hold to be a dangerous error. I am afraid of the sin of doubting, and as far as possible nullifying, the most palpable workings of the Spirit of God — as, for example, in the missions to the heathen carried on by congregations of other confessions — and of calling congregations that bend their knees in the name of Jesus Christ to the glory of God the Father mere heaps held together by error. This, so God helps me, I will never do, even if I should on that account, were it possible, be cast out by the Lutheran church — which, however, will never happen, for the opinion I am contesting is, as I said before, a new one, and is, thank God, shared by only very few members of the Lutheran church, relatively speaking.

To be sure, that is a true congregation where the Word of God is taught purely and clearly, and where those who hear it also live holy lives accordingly as children of God (and would to God it were so in all congregations that bear the name "Lutheran" — but if they are to be measured by this standard — even merely by the standard rule of doctrine alone — where would that leave the hundreds of Lutheran congregations?); but is it therefore said that in congregations in whose common confession of faith errors are found, the Gospel cannot be so preached that it is truly a power unto salvation to those who believe it? This is demonstrably the case, and indeed,