# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_M rz 1863_S92
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

92 Church and Contemporary History.

Mr. Dr. Harkey not read the Augsburg Confession? Or, if he perhaps thinks that it rejected a fundamental doctrine of Christianity on this point, where then does even a single letter stand in holy Scripture of any divine institution of a New Testament Sabbath day? — Even Spener, who indeed, like all Pietists, taught on this point in a more Old- than New-Testament way, nonetheless openly confesses in a theological opinion: "To prove the necessity of observing Sunday for the whole day against an opponent will be harder than one might believe." (See Theol. vol. I. 475.)

The "Observer" on Confessions of Faith. When we found, in the number of Dec. 25 of last year of the paper named, an essay on the above subject that was meant to be well-intentioned, we were, made wary by years of experience, reminded almost involuntarily of the Virgilian line: Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes — and our misgivings have, unfortunately, not been disappointed. This time, to be sure, the Observer condescends so far as to acknowledge, graciously, that brief, clear statements of the fundamental Christian doctrines, when rightly used, are harmless, indeed may even prove useful. But — but the abuse, that such a confession should now be "binding, in all its particulars, upon all members of the church, upon all who wish to join it, who desire to commune with it, upon all their children and children's children, upon all descendants" — that is appalling! One must cry out in horror: "Does this do no harm? Is this no encroachment upon the individual's conscience? No presumption of undue power? No usurpation of the inborn rights of others, indeed of thousands yet unborn?" — Yet the valiant Observer is no sentimental world-weary soul, but a man of counsel and action. He therefore steps into the breach for the rights of the enslaved consciences, of a humanity languishing under the compulsion of confessions, and serves first of all with his wise counsel, by telling the church what a confession should be and do, and how it ought to stand. Hear then, you tyrants of conscience, you believers in symbols, you hard-headed Lutherans, the great physician of the suffering church and of mankind! A confession "should set forth the incidental opinion of the majority, and, on points that are not essential to a living faith and to the soul's salvation, should not be forced upon the minority. It should be subject to improvement and growing perfection." And why not? "It would indeed be folly to maintain that wisdom died with the old fathers, or with the Reformers, or will die with the present generation. Giant strides have been made in scholarship, in history, chemistry, philology, and every other field. The advances in astronomy and chemistry have enabled us to understand the Bible better than our fathers did; geology has taught us to interpret the first chapter of Genesis more correctly than was done a century ago." Etc.

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"Yes, even if, compared with the Reformers, we were dwarfs," (of course only the case being supposed, not granted, for that would be far too much throwing oneself away) "we ought, with our increased advantages, to understand the Bible better than they did; a dwarf standing on the shoulders of a giant can see farther than the giant himself. Hence we said, a confession of faith should not be fixed like the (unalterable) laws of the Medes and Persians, but should be subject to improvement and growing perfection. As soon as we come nearer the truth, look more deeply and clearly into the revealed will of the Holy Spirit as it is set forth in holy Scripture, we are bound to revise our symbols and adapt them more perfectly to the better-understood teachings of Scripture."

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"We venture to assert," (what a bold venture) "that Luther and his learned fellow-workers in Saxony interpreted the Bible more correctly than any equal number of their contemporaries. Nonetheless we do not believe that they understood it as well as God's enlightened people of the present day do. Indeed, an intelligent Sunday-school child has