# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Mai 1861_S139
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

From the Proceedings of the Rhenish Conference of Lutheran Pastors, etc. 139

and set my trust in Luther," but rather because in my conscience I am
convinced, from God's Word, of the thoroughgoing conformity of the
Lutheran confession to Scripture; because, further, I trust Luther and
the fathers, from my heart, to have a better understanding of Scripture
than I do, and know of no one, among old or new, who understands, as
Luther does, how to preach and expound God's Word and to make a
human heart certain of eternal truth from God's Word; and finally,
because it is just as certain to me as the Lutheran confession itself, that
there can be no sound Lutheran churchly theology that is not built up
upon the theology of Luther and the fathers, as the correct and consistent
theology of our Symbols.

Although, therefore, the opponents among my brothers, who
essentially and generally adhered to the direction publicly advocated by
Löhe in the doctrine of the preaching office, believed they could cite
certain passages of the Symbols for their view, I nevertheless had to
regard this as a one-sided and arbitrary interpretation of the Symbols, so
long as they had not come to a complete understanding of the whole
doctrine of Luther and the fathers on this point. It stands as an axiom
for me that, in a question of principle, Luther cannot be in opposition to
the Symbols; it is likewise an axiomatic certainty to me that the
statement of the Symbols (which is fundamental for the question of the
office), "ecclesia habet claves," can be understood in the Symbols in no
other way than as Luther understands it and as the whole old Lutheran
Church has always understood it. But as to how Luther understands this
statement, no obscurity is possible; it is not a matter of a few enthusiastic
sentences of Luther's, but of one of the main questions in all his writings
against the papacy, the result of his most thorough and sober discussions.

I will therefore never depart from the truth I have come to know in
the doctrine of the office; I will never concede to my opponents that they
stand on Scripture and the Symbols, so long as they have not brought
proof of my error from Luther and the fathers and demonstrated to me
the correct doctrine of the latter.

In this alone does the right way seem to me marked out, on which our
points of contention can be resolved among Lutherans.

A friend has requested that the following theological discussions,
carried on between myself and my brothers, be communicated in print;
if by this a contribution can be made toward a public testimony of the
truth and toward mutual understanding for many in today's theological
controversies, then let the following pages, in the freshness and
originality in which they were at first intended only for communication
among trusted brothers, also make their way into publicity.

I.

Of my two chief opponents, the one proceeds from the thought: law
and gospel, work and faith, are the two different