# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Januar 1859_S31
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Ecclesiastical-Contemporary Chronicle. 31

[Historical] Zeitblatt," that there is a party in the Ohio Synod which, in the doctrine of church and ministry, agrees neither with the Buffalo nor with the Missouri Synod, the following in its number of December 10 of last year: "These brethren are just as conscientious and firm in their position as any of the others, and therefore they believe that the truth is found neither in the Missouri extreme nor in the Buffalo extreme." If, accordingly, the dear Standard holds our doctrine and that of the Buffalo people to be the two extremes, then it has scarcely taken the trouble to become well acquainted with either. The two real extremes in the doctrine of the ministry are the Buffalo-papistic and the Höfling-Socinian.

"Christian Hours of Devotion." Under this title the former pastor Ch. C. A. Brandt intends to publish a paper "devoted especially to edification," in which, first, extracts drawn from Luther's writings and from older and newer devotional books are to be communicated, and then, further, the struggle for the doctrine is to be carried on and correspondence given concerning ecclesiastical events in Germany from over there. The paper, whose first number has already been issued, appears, at the annual subscription price of one dollar, twice monthly in Canton, Stark Co., Ohio.

The United Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Ohio, on the occasion of its sessions of October 21 of last year and the following days, received into its body both the English District Synod and the Indianapolis Synod, the latter as the Synod of the "Southern District."

The "Lutheran Standard," as we have noted above, had called the doctrine of our Synod concerning church and ministry the one extreme. Thereupon Rev. Pastor P. Eirich, a member of the Ohio Synod, gave the following statement in the paper named:

"In the last number of the 'Standard' I find an editorial article which refers to an article by the Rev. Hahn that recently appeared in the H. u. L. Anzeiger. In this reference the editor of the 'Standard' brands (as he has done in some earlier numbers) the Missourian doctrine of the church as an 'extreme.' I consider it my duty to protest against the imputing of such reproaches. It naturally matters nothing to me that this doctrine is styled 'Missourian,' so far as its existence or authority is concerned. The circumstance that the Missourian brethren profess it makes it neither true nor false, and gives it no authority over any man. But many brethren in our Synod, as I myself also, hold the firm and abiding conviction that the Missourian view is the doctrine of the holy Word of God and is [contained] in our confessions. To call it an extreme, as a view that lies outside the truth and beyond it (and is therefore false), means, in my conviction, to charge the Bible and our confessions with teaching an extreme, an error, in this matter. I therefore ask, in all modesty, for information. If the brethren in our Synod are in error in this matter, then I, if anyone, desire most earnestly to be rid of it. I should like to see it proved, if it be possible, that the Missourian doctrine — which from conviction is my own as well — is contrary to Scripture and the Symbol, so that those of us who now hold it may recognize the truth and embrace it with the whole heart. Unity of faith is my goal, without which our synodical union and our confessional foundation are vain and an empty form." Respectfully,

P. Eirich.

Thereupon one of the editors of the "Standard," Prof. Worley, appends the following "Explanation":

"From Br. Eirich's brief communication, printed elsewhere, our readers will note that it grieves him that we have applied the word 'extreme' to the position of the Missouri Synod [and] the Buffalo Synod regarding the doctrine of church and ministry. The tone of his article is not quite to our liking, but we gladly grant him the privilege of expressing his difference of opinion in his own way. The writer of the article in which the censured expression occurs, who is also the writer of this one, would like it to be understood that he alone is responsible for that article; a member of the Editing Committee, as he has occasion to know, does not agree with him in his view of the position of the Missouri Synod."

II. Abroad.

Word and Sacrament. It is strange what "gaps" the newer theologians manage to discover in the old Lutheran theology. Mostly they are gaps in their knowledge of that theology, or in their own soundness of doctrine. We were reminded of this when, in a report on a pastoral conference held in Dresden on August 25 of last year, we read the following in the Saxon Church and School Gazette: "The second part (of an address by Superintendent Otto of Glauchau) dealt with Word and Sacrament in their relation to each other, with the remark that in the dogmatic development a gap remained in this regard, which scholarship has not yet made an attempt to fill. The speaker himself, undertaking this attempt, drew, unless the reporter is mistaken, the distinction between Word and Sacrament that the former