# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_November 1863_S349
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Church and Contemporary History.                    349

our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly; and by smooth words and fair speech deceive the hearts of the simple"? Who has caused these divisions among us Lutherans in the West? Who is to blame for their continuance? Is it not the preachers, and especially the leaders of these various parties? What do the leaders of the Missouri Synod's party say, of the Iowa Synod's party, of the party of the Evangelical Association, of the Scandinavian parties, to this? Does not Paul condemn them here and declare that they "serve not the Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly"? Will they tell us that the party of the General Synod is equally guilty and therefore equally condemned? We answer that there are, without doubt, people in the General Synod who boast of being called Lutherans of the new school, who were and are just as intolerant as any of the so-called Old Lutherans, who were not willing to unite with their brethren of the old school, and who are therefore guilty of maintaining the division. Such people are of course equally condemned — "they serve not the Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly"! — that is, in this work of division and separation they do not serve Christ. But this cannot be said of the General Synod as a body. It is bound by its constitution and its general principles to receive all Lutherans who hold the fundamental doctrines of the Word of God as they are taught in the Augsburg Confession. True men of the General Synod must therefore extend the hand of brotherhood to all these parties in the Lutheran church, and would thereby heal and remove our divisions, not perpetuate them. They have but one question to put to every Lutheran brother, and it is simple: whether he is a good man and holds the fundamental doctrines of the Word of God as they are taught and confessed in the Augsburg Confession." So far Dr. Harkey. As for us Missourians, we are indeed not ill tempted to laugh heartily at the blind misfire of the clumsy soldier who, in trying to hit others, wretchedly wounds himself. Yet the matter also has a serious side, and since we too are asked what we have to say to it, we will say it in a few words. For our part we mean, quite sincerely, literally, and simply, what Paul means: that those who introduce doctrines alongside the one which we — out of the whole Word of God, in agreement with our whole, pure, Scripture-conformable confession — have learned, namely: the Iowans with their Chiliasm and other rubbish; the General Synod men with their arbitrary distinction between fundamental and non-fundamental articles, whereby they gain latitude to teach otherwise than Scripture and our confessions teach on the latter, and to unite with those who teach differently, as does the Evangelical Association, instead of departing from such in obedience to God's Word — that these, I say, cause division and offense and serve not Christ but their own belly. We also hold ourselves earnestly bound in conscience by Paul's word — and indeed, since Paul's word is God's word — bound, on pain of the soul's salvation, to look upon them and to withdraw from them until they repent and return to unity of doctrine with the Church of God. You see, Herr Doctor, it is not advisable to carry on about unity of doctrine with Scripture while not understanding it — which is not to say that they do not understand it and are unwilling to submit to it unconditionally. — C.

The Adventists, a sect which believes in the near return of Christ, held a general assembly at Wilbraham, Mass., on the last Sabbath of August. Over 7,000 of their adherents from nearly every state of the Union were assembled, with 80—90 preachers, and several hundred tents were pitched. A dispute arose, however, over the resurrection of the wicked, as a result of which those who believe that the wicked will not rise again to life withdrew.

Apostates. The names of those who, as we reported in the previous number, p. 255, fell away to the Roman church are Otto Schnurrer and H. Zeller. The former, a native of Stuttgart, had studied at Gettysburg and was a member of the Synod of Pennsylvania, and for four years had been pastor at Middle Village, Long Island. Already for