# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_October 1860_S301
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Indirect Declaration by Löhe concerning His Position within the Lutheran Church.                                                    301

...of the confession. We all bow our knees before the Father of our Lord JEsus Christ, and worship God and the Lamb in the Holy Spirit, and give to the Triune God alone the glory. — That is our unity over the confessions, a witness of our own confessions. Let us pray that, alongside the differences that exist, and which we may not withdraw from our sight, we may recognize this unity at all times and, clothed with power from on high, bring it also to the consciousness of others, so that, over against the Jews and the heathen, the Christian host may find the unanimous preaching and the harmonious confession which can overcome the adversaries, and that, through the weapon of the existing unity consciously taken up, the harm may be averted that grows out of the reproach of our division. It will not be granted us to abolish the divisions themselves, but we can indeed ask of the Lord, and obtain, that we feel ourselves united, so far as we are. Even toward the abolition and overcoming of the divisions we shall accomplish the most by the way of the unity already present, especially since the love we require does not darken the eye to the error of our brothers, but rather makes it pure and clear,*) and thereby we also find the strength to make good our own defects and, through the example of penitence, to lead the erring to the truth.

So then, dear brethren, let us pray for the quickening and strengthening of the sense of unity and oneness among the confessions."

III.

"But as necessary as that is, it is equally necessary, on the other hand, to stand firm in the particular truth which has been given by God to the Lutheran Church over against the Roman Church.**) As true as it is that a bond of unity exists between us and other confessions, it is equally certain that we must hold fast the results of the Reformation as precious treasures for the salvation and benefit of all, including the separated brethren. When we cling to what God has said, and agree with no false doctrine, we love God — for it is without doubt love to God when we cling faithfully to His mouth, and let nothing else be substituted for us as God's Word than what the Lord has said so clearly and plainly to His children. But we exercise not only love to God, but also love to the brethren, when we hold fast to the grace and the truth of the Lutheran doctrine, and indeed no less than does he who, on dangerous nightly paths, carries the torch ahead for others. Let us therefore pray that the Spirit of grace may grant us to unite both: the unity truly existing between us and the separated ones, and likewise the holding fast of the truths for whose sake we separated. Let us pray

for confessional fidelity out of love to God and to men.

*) Unfortunately the foregoing proves the opposite. L. u. W.
**) Only over against the Roman one? Why are the papists alone named here in particular? L. u. W.