# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_April 1859_S116
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

116

(Contributed.)

On the Difference in the Law between the Missouri
Synod and the So-Called "Lutheran" General Synod.

That the two synods are not of one mind, that the Missouri Synod
indeed has a different spirit than the General Synod, is evident. This
difference is also often felt keenly enough as unpleasant on both sides,
and is expressed more or less clearly and sharply. Thus, for example, the
"Missionary" and other papers of the General Synod evidently take nothing
less than pleasure in the "spirit" that shows itself in the Missouri
Synod, and therefore naturally also in that Synod's own organs, its
periodicals. And that the spirit of the General Synod does not please us
is shown plainly enough by the fact that we repeatedly and decisively,
and publicly, attack it as dangerous and false.

Such a rending of the Lutheran Church, such an inner estrangement,
coldness — indeed, mutual conflict among its individual members — is
deeply to be lamented. How glorious it would be, how the Lutheran Church
could let her light shine to the glory of God and the furtherance of His
kingdom, if in both German and English tongue the pure confession of our
Church were proclaimed in unity and strength, and stepped into the
confusion of the sects! But let no one suppose that this unity can be
achieved, that the deep-seated rift can be healed, by a glossing-over
external courtesy, by the outward appearance of brotherly love and
brotherly phrases. The real discord, the inner antipathy, is thereby at
most only temporarily veiled, and lets its own true nature show through
all the more bitterly on occasion. We at least will have nothing to do
with hollow brotherly phrases; we will and must maintain the outward
separation until it is in truth inwardly overcome and abolished. Once we
are of one faith, one mind, one and the same opinion, then we are also
brothers; until then we must contest and refuse the name of brotherhood.

Now, to heal an injury, the first remedy is to uncover it openly, to have
the courage to be sincere and truthful. Let us therefore first show what
these synods have against one another, how the spirit in them stands
opposed to one another: the General Synod finds in the Missouri Synod too
much narrowness of mind and too little brotherly love; whereas the
Missouri Synod finds in the General Synod too much carnal, false love and
too little honesty toward God and man. The deeper ground of this
going-apart-and-going-against-one-another, however, lies in this: that in
the Missouri Synod respect for God and His Word prevails, the Word of God
is its sole rule — not in doctrine alone, but also in love, and in the
judging of church affairs generally — whereas in the General Synod the
old enemy, Dame Hulda, dear Reason, carries on her mischief,