# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1847 11 16_S51
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Lutherans," since in fact and in truth there are only Lutherans, that is, fellow confessors of the Lutheran confession, and non-Lutherans, that is, those who more or less reject this thoroughly scriptural, orthodox, churchly confession — be they papists, enthusiasts, or false brethren — and whether the pride of self-righteousness and work-holiness, as among the Romanists, or the pride of proud carnal reason, as among the enthusiasts and the false brethren, be the chief cause of this partial rejection of the truth. The (true) Lutherans, or orthodox Christians, stand now as ever, in all articles of saving doctrine, upon God's clear and unambiguous Word in Holy Scripture, just as it reads; and just as this sun of truth does not grow old, but was, is, and remains the same yesterday, today, tomorrow, and until the Last Day, so it is likewise with the faith, confession, and doctrine of the orthodox Christians who, in their present confessional character, are called Lutherans — who, with sincere heart, mind, and conscience, ground and found themselves upon this word of Scripture just as it reads, and who, in matters of faith and the salvation of souls, are never able to recognize any opposition of old and new.

It can indeed happen that this or that doctrine, mostly occasioned by the contradiction of false teachers, is set forth more precisely and maintained and proved against every side of attack, and thereby comes into a brighter light than it formerly had; and yet it remains essentially the same in its earlier and later expression, neither having become obsolete in the former nor new in itself in the latter, and it is with it as with a precious gem that formerly lay in a narrow case but later in a wider one, perhaps with glass walls, so that the gem can be viewed from every side.

Thus, for example, the doctrine of the holy sacraments, as held by the orthodox teachers of the church from ancient times, is, in essence, entirely the same as in the confessional writings of the Lutheran Church; for both alike ground this doctrine on the words of institution of the almighty Son of God, exactly as they read, and which, as God's Word, can never anywhere, in the course of the centuries, change or shift or take on a new meaning. But it is quite natural that this doctrine, in opposition to the superstitious additions of the papists and the unbelieving subtractions of the enthusiasts — who both alike, against the old and ever-new truth, brought forward their carnal new little human notions — is treated much more fully and developed in the symbolical books of the Lutheran Church than in the books of those ancient teachers, who did not yet have the same adversaries to contend with.

Instead of designating us with this perverse epithet "Old Lutherans," let the so-called Lutheran General Synod rather — which, as is well known, has in the doctrine of the holy sacraments fallen away from the Lutheran Church and over to the Reformed — thoroughly turn itself to those symbolical books and see whether it can, from God's Word, refute the arguments of the Formula of Concord, for example, that the Reformed doctrine of the sacraments does not stand simply upon God's Word and is therefore erroneous. But as long as they fail to do this, all their assertion that the Lutheran doctrine of the holy sacraments is worn out and obsolete, and no longer in accord with the so-called "results of modern scriptural scholarship," is an empty delusion by which they deceive themselves and others; for to assert is not to prove.

We will therefore keep our cheerful courage in the words of the contributor, "that our theology is as straight and direct (straight) as the symbolical books can make it." For since, by God's grace, these precious testimonies of the fathers are the pure and unadulterated explanation and exposition of the divine saving truth of Holy Scripture, and since our heart and conscience are first of all captured and bound with love and delight in the latter, we are naturally, in a mediated way, also heartily subject to the confessions of faith of our church, precisely because they entirely agree with God's Word. We are so joyfully certain of this that we hereby publicly call upon not only Mr. Hermann but the whole so-called Lutheran General Synod, with Dr. Schmucker and Dr. Kurtz at its head, to furnish proof from Holy Scripture that, for example, the doctrine of the sacraments of our church, as our symbols unanimously testify to it, is not solely and entirely in accord with Holy Scripture, and that they were right to adopt the opposing Reformed doctrine and to fall away from the Lutheran Church.

But as long as they remain in default of this proof, we must, unfortunately, declare their theology, as it lies before us, say, in the writings of Dr. Schmucker and Dr. Kurtz, to be crooked and skewed for the very reason that it does not, in all articles, conform to the straight rule of both the divine Word and the symbolical books (as norma normata). In doing so, however, we expressly guard against the assumption that we place the symbolical books, as such, on the same level as Holy Scripture; we by no means regard them as the actual and original rule of faith, which alone is the harmony of the clear passages of Scripture unto the soul's salvation, the sum and substance of the saving doctrine of the divine Word. For if we did this, and regarded the churchly symbols as such a rule of faith alongside Holy Scripture, we would indeed be no orthodox and confession-true servants of the church, but orthodoxists and confessionalists, and would truly be doing, as we are here and there falsely accused of doing, namely making of them a paper pope; we would then, in this respect, be not essentially different from the papists, who place the so-called oral apostolic traditions alongside, indeed actually even above, Holy Scripture.

On the other hand, however, we maintain just as decidedly that the symbolical books of our church, on account of their complete agreement with God's Word, contain thoroughly pure, error-free truth, which as such, in essence and content, is exalted above all change of fleeting opinions of the time and subject to no alteration. And for this reason we consider it right that the servants of the church should solemnly and publicly confess themselves to these testimonies at their ordination as well, indeed that such a confession should also be required by the ordaining ministry of the church of those to be ordained.

If, furthermore, the Lutheran Observer characterizes our religious customs as "stiff," and indeed to the degree that we dry and ossified fellows could only wish, then it speaks more than it can know; for the contributor has hardly ever himself attended a worship service among even one of us, and from our synodical constitution and first synodical report he cannot know this for certain either.

Our view regarding ceremonies is that they are matters indifferent, neither commanded nor forbidden by the Lord in any fixed form, but left to the freedom of the church and of each individual congregation to establish as it pleases, insofar as they serve edification and also the discipline of the rising generation. In this area, then, we are by no means so rigid as to insist upon absolute unity and uniformity, except that, naturally, we do not consent to any ceremony that, like the sacrifice of the mass, the adoration of the host, and the like, presupposes doctrine contrary to Scripture, or that is otherwise habitually practiced among the opponents of pure doctrine — as, for example, the breaking of the bread among the Reformed — so that in this respect too we may avoid every evil appearance of being, by adopting religious customs from the opponents of the pure and singular doctrine of salvation, indifferent to the corruptions of that doctrine, or secretly inclined toward them in the end. Otherwise, however, we by no means insist, for example, that the same liturgy and the same hymnbook be used in all congregations; we content ourselves with holding fast to this, that both rest upon the foundation of Holy Scripture, and that it is the praying and confessing church — not, however, the individual faith, or even the chance mood of heart of this or that spiritual speaker, as is mostly the case among the Reformed and the so-called Lutheran General Synod — that is made manifest in them. An impartial eyewitness and earwitness who might travel among our congregations would thus find a great diversity in the handling of church ceremonies, according to the liturgical standpoint of each individual congregation; yet he would, we hope, at the same time discover in this diversity a