# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_September 1862_S263
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Theological Axioms. 263

regeneration, and outside the Church there is no salvation. So everywhere
that baptism is administered, there is a church of Christ.

39. "They do not distinguish: erring, and remaining in error. Erring
does the Church no harm, but remaining in error — that is impossible; as
Christ says, Matt. 24:23, that even the elect would be led into error,
were it possible." (Luther.)

40. "By what else should one otherwise take the distinction, which is
the true Church of Christ and which is the Devil's church, if not by
obedience and disobedience toward Christ; particularly when the
disobedience, once publicly recognized and understood, excuses itself
insolently and shamelessly and insists on being right! For the holy Church
does indeed sin and stumble, or err, as the Lord's Prayer teaches; but she
does not defend or excuse herself, but humbly asks forgiveness, and
amends herself as best she always can: so it is forgiven her, that her sin
is thereafter no longer reckoned as sin. Now if, in the matter of
obedience and stubborn disobedience, I am not to recognize or distinguish
the true Church from the false, then I know no longer how to speak of any
church at all." (Luther.)

41. Voces illae, schisma et haeresis, si usum biblicum respicias,
habent se, ut terminus latior et strictior. Nam schisma in sacris
quamvis scissionem significat, sive ob dogmata sive ob ceremonias;
haeresis autem sectam notat, phrasi scripturae, in primario fidei
articulo errantem. (Calov.)

Those words, schism and sect, if one has regard to biblical usage,
relate to one another as the wider and the narrower concept. For schism
in Scripture means any division, whether it occurs on account of
articles of faith or on account of ceremonies; sect, however, denotes,
in Scripture's manner of speaking, a group that errs in a primary
article of the Christian faith.

42. "The Holy Spirit has, in 1 Cor. 3:12, prophesied not secretly nor
weakly, but publicly and mightily, that in the holy Church there would
sometimes be wooden, straw, and hay builders, that is, teachers, who
nevertheless remained on the ground or foundation, and who, though they
would indeed take harm through the fire, must still be saved. This
cannot be understood of heretics. For these lay another foundation. But
these others remain on the foundation, that is, in the faith of Christ,
are saved and are called God's saints, and yet have hay, straw, and wood
that must burn through the fire of Holy Scripture, though without harm
to their salvation; as St. Augustine says of himself: Errare potero,
haereticus non ero — I may err, but a heretic I will not become. The
reason is that heretics do not merely err, but refuse to be corrected,
defend their error as right, and fight against acknowledged truth and
against their own conscience. Of such St. Paul says, Titus 3:10-11: A
heretic you shall avoid, once he has been admonished once or twice, and
you shall know that such a one is perverted and sins autocatacritos, that
is, that he willfully and knowingly wishes to remain condemned in error.
But St. Augustine