# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_December 1863_S358
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

358 Some Remarks on a New Apology for the Reformed Church.

"man is not justified by the merit of works, but through faith, for the sake of the sole prevailing merit of Christ, and becomes righteous and blessed. But precisely because of these repeated reproaches from the Lutheran side, and because of the irenic character of our Reformed church, we hold her — our dear mother — dear from the bottom of our hearts, and are at the same time vividly conscious that we hold dear, from the heart, all our Lutheran brothers and sisters who, with us, through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, wish to be saved, even though some of them reject our brotherly hand because we do not swear by the Formula of Concord. On the other hand, indeed, we hold fast that our Reformed church, on account of her particular charisms, has a very important mission from the Lord, and therefore can never, at the price of surrendering her distinctive character and charisms, enter into a union with her Lutheran sister church — although she does well appreciate those distinctive traits of the latter, insofar as they stand in harmony with the Word of God, and its charisms (e.g., its wealth of hymns, its theological labor)."

Marginal Notes: Here Mr. K. again offers three reasons why he wishes to be not Lutheran, but Reformed. His first is that the Reformed church has suffered bitter reproaches from "not a few Lutheran spokesmen." We must confess that, even if this accusation were true, it would still be a rather strange reason for adherence to the Reformed church. Where is there a party that would not have to complain of reproaches suffered? — But here comes the point: although we do not wish to justify every word spoken against the Reformed in the heat of controversy, we must nevertheless utterly deny that the Reformed church has ever, from the side of Lutheran spokesmen, been the object of "bitter reproaches." It is indeed true that the Lutheran theologians have held up much that is bitter to the Reformed church, again and again, and still do so — but these are just as little "bitter reproaches" as are the rebukes directed against false teachers by the Apostles and Prophets, and by Christ Himself, the highest model of all gentleness; they are rather bitter truths. These truths, however, have not been so bitter because the presenting of them proceeded from a bitter heart, but because truths always taste bitter to those unwilling to give them a hearing. — Another reason which Mr. K. gives here for his attachment to his church is that it is supposed never to have reviled in return! To assert this is in fact a bold stroke. Or is it even necessary here to unroll the "register" of the unheard-of reproaches, or rather the open slanders, with which the gentlemen of the Reformed — from a Carlstadt, a Zwingli, a Calvin, a Beza, onward down to the most recent times — have poured over the Lutheran church, her holy doctrines, and her teachers? That would truly give a "long register!" But whoever knows the church history of the sixteenth to the nineteenth century inclusive needs no such register, and whoever does not know it, we do not wish to torment his ears and heart with it. Of the great hosts of faithful Lutheran