# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_September 1860_S281
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

A Scriptural Proof against the Union. 281

with unbelievers; for what fellowship has light with darkness?" "It is hard that one should separate oneself from so many lands and peoples and set up a special doctrine of one's own; but here stands God's command, that everyone should take heed and not be of one accord with those who lead false doctrine or think to maintain it by violence." — Another example. The tenth article of the Formula of Concord treats of the so-called adiaphora, that is, such church ceremonies as are neither commanded nor forbidden in God's Word, such as liturgical customs and the like. Concerning these our fathers confess that the congregation of God, in every place and at every time, has power to change such customs, provided that in doing so no offense is given, but that regard is had for the weak in faith. But especially when false teachers and enemies of the Gospel attach a different sense to such church customs than we do — when they take such church customs in a sense that is contrary to God's Word — then we too are to have no fellowship with them even in such customs. "For in such a case," it says, "the matter is no longer one of adiaphora, but of the truth, that the weak in faith should not be offended and the idolatrous not confirmed in their idolatry (that is, in false doctrine)." And in proof of this our fathers appeal, at that very place in the Formula of Concord, to 2 Corinthians 6:14: "Be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers; for what fellowship has light with darkness?"

There you have examples, dear reader, of how the Lutheran Church has understood and explained St. Paul's word, "Be not unequally yoked together." She declares every false doctrine of the Pope to be "unbelief and darkness," and commands that every devout Christian, for the sake of the false doctrine which he holds, renounce the Pope; and in proof of this our Church appeals to the word: "Be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers." And yet the Pope and his following were also baptized Christians and confessed the triune God. Indeed, the Lutheran Church declares such church customs, which are in themselves permissible, to be "darkness and unbelief" the moment the adversaries of pure doctrine attach an unscriptural sense to them — customs in which no upright Christian may take part.

It is thus proven that these words (2 Corinthians 6:14) are applied and so explained, not by me alone, but by the Lutheran Church, to the relationship of Christians to one another, so that thereby every churchly fellowship with false doctrine is forbidden.