# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Januar 1860_S9
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Preface to the 1860 Volume.    9

...contained in Luther's writings and laid down in the Lutheran Symbols — this, indeed, is undeniable, and more than that: even the grossest heresies made themselves loudly heard there. But when the Reverend Pastor Löhe writes: "Formerly, and for the most part in her best times, the Lutheran Church knew how to bear her directions" — this we do not understand. If Pastor Löhe meant by "directions" only that variety of individual character according to which, for example, some are more directed in their activity toward speculation, others more toward the practical; according to which some in practice follow more the principle of freedom, others more that of strict order; according to which some, in matters of ecclesiastical ordinances, institutions, customs, and ceremonies, proceed more conservatively, others more radically and puristically; some more strict in a legal way, others more mild in an evangelical way, in church discipline of morals, and the like — then indeed we would have nothing to object to; but the reproach made against us would not touch us even in that case, for such different directions as our Church indeed knew how to bear in her best times, we too know how to bear, and know well how to distinguish them from the divisions and offenses alongside doctrine which we have been taught to avoid. But Pastor Löhe evidently means by the different "directions" different doctrines, which touch on important articles of the Christian faith — for example, concerning the Church, concerning the holy Office of the Ministry, concerning the Last Things — and indeed a divergence in which the one party makes the church's confession its own without reservation, the other with essential restrictions. But such different directions our Church precisely did not bear, even in her best times; rather, whenever they appeared, they called forth counter-testimony and resistance in our Church, and the latter did not rest in those days until the false directions showing themselves within her were overcome. Only when Pietism at last flooded over our Church like a tide no longer to be dammed did our Church finally fall into the present condition, in which the exercise of doctrinal discipline seems incompatible with the continued existence of our Church as an organized fellowship.

It is true that Luther bore with a Melanchthon with admirable patience. But in this connection the following must not be forgotten. In the first place, Melanchthon submitted himself to Luther, while the latter still lived, often with great inward reluctance and repugnance. He confesses — truly to his own discredit — in that notorious letter to the councillor of Elector Moritz, Christoph Carlowitz, in the year 1548, when he was to cooperate in the introduction of the Interim: "Even if I shall not approve what the prince may decide, yet I will undertake nothing in a seditious manner, but will either keep silent or endure whatever may come. For I have also, in times past, endured an almost shameful servitude, when N. (Luther) often gave way more to his own nature — in which there was no small measure of self-will — than either to his own person, or to the