# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_April 1859_S121
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

On the Difference in the Law between the Missouri Synod, etc. 121

...concerning this: many of them will have taken hard offense at these
vehement, swift words of the Apostle, and thought thus: How can St. Paul
act so hastily against love? Why is he so stiff and headstrong in so
small and light a matter? Why does he so quickly hand over to the devil,
unto eternal perdition, those who are surely just as much servants of
Christ as he himself is? For all that, he asks nothing; nor does it
trouble him in the least that they had the appearance of pious, holy,
learned men, and were held in high esteem on that account; but because
they distort the doctrine of faith, he curses and condemns them most
assuredly, and does not doubt by a hair's breadth that he does them
right. So we too, at this time, hold as banned and condemned all those
who say that the article of the Sacrament of the body and blood of our
LORD Jesus is uncertain, or who do violence to the words of Christ in
the Lord's Supper. For, in short, we wish to have all the articles of
Christian doctrine — be they great or small (though none is small or
slight to us) — wholly pure and certain, and will not yield a single jot
in them. And so it must also

be. For doctrine is our only light, which shines upon us and guides us,
and shows us the way to heaven: if we let it be weakened and enfeebled
in a single point, it is certain that it becomes wholly and entirely
powerless; if we fail here, love will not help us at all. We can indeed
be saved without the love and unity of the Sacramentarians; but that
cannot happen without pure doctrine and faith." How then can one
recommend universities where false prophets dwell, who "distort the
doctrine of faith"? How can one send young men who have not yet laid a
firm foundation in doctrine, whose faith is still to be established, to
such institutions, willfully plunging them into such temptation, such
peril of soul? Thus one toys and experiments with the faith and
salvation of poor young people, and then still wishes to speak of love,
of "brotherly love"? And with such young men, whom one has equipped on
mere chance — whether pure doctrine, or false doctrine, or a mixture of
both is instilled in them — does one then intend to supply the poor
congregations, who must in turn leave it to mere chance whether they are
worked upon in a Lutheran, or Reformed, or Methodist direction? And must
this irresponsible unscrupulousness and unloving mischief then even bear
the name of "brotherly love" and gentlemanly broad-mindedness! Has then
no one in the General Synod the courage to stand up against this
abomination? To accuse the false teachers and demand their removal? —
In Germany, where the universities are institutions of the state,
preachers and church members unfortunately have their hands tied, so
that they cannot fulfill their holy, earnest duty of seeing to the
training of the future servants of the Church on the basis of pure
doctrine. But here, in free America, where every member of a synod has
the right and the power to intervene in the affairs of the church, here,
where false teachers can openly, on the