# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_August 1860_S252
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

252 Church and Contemporary History.

the hyper-orthodox Lutherans in this country accused them of falling away from the faith of the church, and therefore demanded of the synod that it accept the Augsburg Confession unconditionally. The bait, it is said, worked on the Americans, and only for that reason did they consent to the change. — Shame upon such huckstering and deceit with a public confession!

From the General Synod. The "Luth. Observer" of June 29 contains an article which candidly sets forth the state of affairs in the General Synod and the sentiment of many of its members. After the progress of "Symbolism" in the General Synod and the rigid unyieldingness of the Symbolists has been discussed — the former with a certain amount of exaggeration — the Observer continues: "But what can we do? Yes, that is the question. Now I will set forth my views freely and fearlessly: we must separate — and the sooner the better. We must organize new synods and adopt the basis of the General Synod, or a similar one. We can never subscribe to the errors of the Augsburg Confession. That is the cause of all our embarrassments, and as long as this state of affairs continues, we shall have no peace. Let a separation take place; let those who can swallow the errors of the sixteenth century, long since hissed off the stage, place themselves under this banner: "'The true body and the true blood of Christ, in a natural manner, in the elements,'" and on the reverse: "'Regeneration through baptism and priestly absolution essential to true Lutheranism.'" That is the theology of the Symbolists, and it can be understood no other way. This popish theology we neither can nor will subscribe to in America. For it is a theology drawn not from the Bible, but from the Roman church." It is then said that the Reformers, since they lived in the twilight of a new age, had not yet been able to shake off all the errors of popery, and a saying of Luther's is cited as proof, in which he says that for the sake of the weak they had retained certain usages, and that he hoped they would in future, through the aid of the Holy Spirit, be able to do more. But of doctrines — the only thing actually at issue here — Luther says not a word. — One really does not know what to marvel at more in the Observer's talk: the ignorance with which it charges the Augsburg Confession, and those who carry its faith in their hearts, with the false doctrines of a natural presence of the body and blood of Christ in the holy Supper and of the necessity of a priestly absolution; or the dishonesty with which people who stand thus toward the doctrine and confession of our church still arrogate to themselves the Lutheran name. Alongside this dishonesty, however, it is certainly gratifying that the enemies of the Lutheran faith within the Lutheran church of this land are now themselves beginning to perceive that they do not belong in the fellowship of those who sincerely and decidedly profess Luther's faith, and therefore press for separation. — From the mass of empty, wild chatter that makes up the content of the article in question, I will, in closing, select only the following characteristic words: "Let us speak our opinions before the world. We are not merely just as good, but far better qualified for the drawing up of a confession of faith than those who lived three hundred years ago. We now have men in our church who understand just as much of the Bible and of theology as our fathers did. Were this not the case, we would have to be stupid pupils, a degenerate race," etc., etc. Is it indeed conceivable that a man who can talk this way has ever made himself acquainted with the works of any great theologian of our church? If he still did so, with an earnest desire for truth, he would come to realize that the doctrine of the Lutheran Reformation is, in every particular, the doctrine of the Lord Jesus and his Apostles; that the precious Augsburg Confession, therefore, contains nothing but divine truth, precisely because it is taken from Holy Scripture — a truth that can appear as error only to carnal reason; and that the theologians of our day, and especially he himself, would seem to him, compared with a Luther and his kindred spirits, so small that he would be glad and ready to sit humbly at their feet and learn from them all his life long. — S.