# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_October 1860_S304
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

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

...treasures they enjoy, and into which they should and could gather the treasures of the whole world. Since we neither belong nor wish to belong to these, and since, on the very clear path that is indeed ours, we might, because of much contradiction, either lose our footing or, should our eyes waver, be unable to keep to it purely, let us ask the Lord to make us certain of our way, to keep us from error and false paths, and, should we indeed ever go astray, quickly to bring us back, with repentance and praise for his saving grace, to the noble way he has shown us — the way that avoids every excess to the right and to the left, on which one holds fast the inheritance of the fathers undiminished while dealing justly and fairly with all, and increases from the treasury of the divine Word. "Your good Spirit leads us on level ground. — I remain always with you; for you hold me by my right hand. You guide me according to your counsel, and afterward receive me with honor."

VI.

"Among us a principle holds concerning the divine Word, which runs thus: there are passages of the divine Word which everyone understands and can understand who is at all able to read an old writing; there are others which no one understands, on which the skill of every interpreter is applied in vain, because we, as matters stand, are unable to interpret them; but there are, thirdly, also passages capable of interpretation, however difficult, with regard to which we must fall in with that interpretation which has the best and most grounds in its favor. In the territory of this last-named, third class lies the playground of opinions and the battlefield of those who hold the Church to be more a school than a tabernacle of God among men, in which sick mankind, through the light and power of God's great deeds and of the undeniably clear Word, should recover unto eternal life. Let us pray that we may, in the territory of opinions, be modest as regards our own part, patient toward others, and that we may never confuse the venture of human conclusions and interpretations with the light which shines from the clear words of God upon all men who bring to the reading of the Word a simple heart and an open eye. But let us also pray for those who live outside our circles and who, so often out of an unjust love for their own opinion, fail toward us and others in respect and patience toward the opinion of their brothers."*)

VII.

"Centuries ago there were no other Lutheran churches than territorial churches; we understand by this expression such as bound themselves with a

*) This sixth point seems to us, in its very execution, to belong itself among the passages that are "capable of interpretation, however difficult." Why, one wonders, does Löhe write so mysteriously here?! L. u. W.