# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Juni 1862_S168
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Report on the Right Mean of the Lutheran Liturgy. 168

yet it must be seen to, that freedom is, and is to be, the servant of love and of the neighbor. Where it happens, then, that people take offense or are led astray by such varied usage, we are truly bound to restrain our freedom, and, so far as possible, to do and to leave undone, so that people may be bettered by us and not offended. Since, then, nothing depends upon this outward order for our conscience's sake before God, and yet it can be useful to the neighbor, we ought, out of love, as St. Paul teaches, to strive after this, that we be of one mind — just as all Christians have one baptism, one sacrament, and none has been given anything peculiar by God. Yet I would not hereby demand that those who already have a good order, or who can make it better through God's grace, should let theirs go and yield to us. For it is not my intention that all Germany should adopt our Wittenberg order in just this same way. It has, after all, never yet happened that the collegiate chapters, monasteries, and parishes were alike in all particulars; rather, it would be a fine thing if, in each territory, worship proceeded in one and the same manner, and the surrounding small towns and villages conformed to a given city; whether other territories held the same, or did something else besides, should be left free and unpunished." Luther, Works, Erlangen Edition 22, 228.

The same, Letter to the Christians in Livonia, 1525: "If one takes up and establishes one single form, then people fall upon it and make of it a necessary law against the freedom of faith. But if one establishes and settles nothing, then everyone runs off and makes as many factions as there are heads; and this indeed offends against the Christian simplicity and unity of which St. Paul and Peter so often teach. Yet one must still, for all that, speak the best one can to the matter, even though not everything will go just as we speak and teach." (Erlangen Edition 53, 316 and 317.)

The same, further: "Now although the outward orders in divine services — such as Masses, singing, reading, baptizing — do nothing toward salvation, it is nevertheless un-Christian that people should be at odds over them and thereby confuse the poor people, paying more regard to their own opinion and pleasure than to the improvement of the people. So I now ask all of you, my dear sirs, let each one give up his own opinion, and come together in friendliness, and become of one mind as to how you will hold these outward matters, so that in your own district it may be uniform and the same, and not so disordered — held one way here, another way there — thereby confusing the people and making them disheartened.

For (as has been said) although the outward manners (or orders) are free, and, reckoned according to faith, may with a good conscience be changed in all places, at all times, and by all persons,