# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_October 1860_S306
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

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

...should regard themselves, over against the Roman Church, as one communion at the Lord's Supper! And yet, through the promiscuous mingling at the Supper that has in practice broken in among us, the gates have been opened to the Reformed nature and principle — that is, to the principle of the Protestant Union — and it is our own fault that everywhere the Lutheran conscience has fallen silent, and the Reformed principle has been brought into honor! This amounts to saying nothing else than that the Lutheran fathers did wrong in their persistent separation from the Reformed and in abolishing the fellowship of the Supper between us and them, and that they are responsible for all the political consequences of this separation. But in making the fathers out to be sinners, one sins oneself against the fathers — and not against them alone, but also against the brethren and against the Reformed, since one thereby renders both of them indifferent to the momentous distinguishing doctrine concerning the sacrament of the altar. Thus the Reformed side turns, the longer the more, away from the sacrament of the altar, and in the end finds, for its part, a flattering theory for a false practice. We become jointly guilty of the evil that attaches itself to the great movements of our day on Reformed ground, and share responsibility when the extraordinary graces produce only such transient blessing, because they do not turn back to the blessing of the ordinary means of grace. We could show no greater love to our fellow believers than if we were faithful with regard to the fellowship of the Supper. A faithful, actual confession would open the eyes of many on the other side to the high grace of the sacrament and the glory of all the means of grace, whereas our lukewarmness and unfaithfulness cast into the shadow, outwardly and then also inwardly, the gift of the pure sacrament entrusted to the Lutheran Church. The tremendous zeal with which, here and there, the Reformed side has of late set forth fellowship at the Supper among all Protestants as a duty will do its part; the emerging world-church can choose the fellowship of all Protestants at the sacrament as its sign and standard, under which, along with the pure doctrine of the sacrament, the pure use of it, and thereby the blessing, and moreover the discipline willed by Christ, will as a matter of principle fall away. Therefore, dear brethren, let us pray that we may become sober, to walk the way of truth and thereby of love."

IX.

"Every church from the beginning has had its tendencies, and every church will retain its tendencies until the end. The Lutheran Church too has had its tendencies, indeed from the very beginning, as can be demonstrated. It still has, even now, these same differences within it. A unity in all points has not been established by any symbol, nor will it be established by any. It is enough if there is unity in what is necessary. Unwisely enough, some in our day wish to establish a unity in all points, even in those in which