# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Januar 1862_S28
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

28 Church and Contemporary History.

truth, however, congregationalist and Methodist." This testimony of a Reformed man is what has brought upon the English-American Lutherans their reputation for flirting with the Reformed.

The Swedenborgians count, in the United States altogether, 34 congregations.

Advisory members. In this year's annual report of the Synod of North Illinois, mention is again made that the Synod has also received a minister of the Union Church as an advisory member. How genuinely Lutheran a Synod must be that seeks counsel from United, Reformed, etc. men for its ecclesiastical affairs is easy to conclude.

"The Lutheran Observer." The Eastern Conference of the Franckean Synod passed the following resolution in October of last year: "Resolved, that we regard the Observer as a strong and effective dam against the flood of Symbolism that seeks to spread over the Lutheran Church in our fatherland." These gentlemen's fear seems greater than our hope. If by "Symbolism" the former indeed mean the outcry, "We confess ourselves bound to all the Symbols," then there may well be danger that Symbolism itself will overflow and engulf the green meadows of the General Synod. But if by "Symbolism" they mean a clear recognition of the Scriptural character of the Lutheran Symbols and a corresponding faithful adherence to the pure doctrine laid down in them, then the gentlemen General-Synod men may set their minds at rest. As for American-Lutheran Symbolism too, the same proverb holds as of the German kind: "Much outcry, little wool."

Denial. The "Lutheran" had been described by the editor of a Methodist paper as Lutheran of the "old school" and the Observer as Lutheran of the "new school," and the former tendency was described, among other things, as follows: "that these papers (the Lutheran and Missionary) and their friends favor the old and literal interpretation of the Augsburg Confession, which among other points teaches the doctrine of regeneration through baptism (baptismal regeneration) and a view of the Lord's Supper which the Lutheran Observer and its friends reject as unbiblical." To this the "Lutheran" of November 21 replies: "As regards the doctrines of baptism and of the Lord's Supper, the Lutheran Church has in its confessions and elsewhere always and ever protested that it holds no such views on these points as it has often been accused of holding." That is all the Lutheran has to say to the Methodist on this point. Truly, a more shameful denial of recognized truth can hardly be found.

"Evangelical Mennonites." In the Mennonite "Christian People's Paper" of November 7 of last year we read: "Here in the eastern part of Pennsylvania a small party has formed in the year 1858 that calls itself Evangelical Mennonites; up to now they have differed from us essentially in this, namely, that in the doctrine of conversion they stood very close to Methodism, yet in the doctrine of baptism they diverge again somewhat from Methodism, but lean all the closer thereby toward Baptist views. Several have already been baptized twice, and some three times — infant baptism included. We regard their view of baptism as an irresponsible abuse of this holy act, especially in the case of those who have already once been baptized on an evangelical confession of faith, which even Menno himself did not do. One has therefore had no scruple in regarding them as Methodist Anabaptists. They call themselves Evangelical, without doubt, because they claim to have found again the right life from God; at least formerly they regarded the other Mennonite confessors around them, who could not agree with them, as a dead mass and thus as not evangelical. A particular preaching spirit seems to have awakened among them, since they have, mostly from among themselves, already elected seven new preachers since their founding and have also taken in some from other confessions, while their actual membership will not much exceed 60."