# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_April 1859_S123
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

On the Difference in the Law between the Missouri Synod, etc. 123

General Synod. Those members of it, namely, who assert that they accept
the Augsburg Confession wholly as their confession, and therefore also
believe that in the Holy Supper "the true body and blood of Christ are
truly present under the form of bread and wine, and are there
distributed and received" — these same men also admit to the enjoyment
of the Holy Supper, at synodical sessions and elsewhere, those who do
not believe this, but reject this article as false doctrine — as, for
example, the Platformists, indeed even members of other denominations.
Now, do the "believing" preachers of the General Synod first go, out of
brotherly love, to those who are unbelieving in this article, and
admonish them to desist from their unbelief — since not to believe the
LORD Jesus at His word is sin, and whoever approaches the Table of the
Lord with such sin comes unworthily, and whoever comes unworthily eats
it to his own judgment? Oh no, nothing of the sort takes place; that
would wound people's feelings, would be narrow-minded, would be
altogether not "gentleman-like." Such things the "German" Old Lutherans
may well do, but the American Lutherans find it unsuited to American
conditions. Besides, the free American "faith" is not so narrow a thing
as the "German faith"; the German faith believes that a thing is true,
and therefore its opposite false; the American faith, on the other hand,
believes that a thing is true, but that its opposite is nevertheless not
false on that account either — it too may be heard, it too has truth in
it, it is merely a different "point of doctrinal standing," a different
view of the same central sun. Also, in partaking of the Holy Supper,
what matters above all, they say, is whether the communicant is a
"pious" man of "living, heart-Christianity," an active, energetic
supporter of the many great, holy charitable enterprises, and if
possible also a zealous member of a temperance society — but whether he
believes this or that is held to be of no consequence. That is the
dreadful unionistic indifferentism which so blinds even the heart of the
"believing" that they no longer recognize unbelief as sin. A man who
swears they would rebuke, before receiving the Holy Supper, on account
of his sin; a Platformist they do not rebuke — for the spirit of union
has taught them that false doctrine is no sin. And so this abomination
occurs in the General Synod: that, for example, at synodical sessions, a
preacher who believes the tenth article, and holds the conviction that
bread and wine in the Holy Supper simultaneously convey, under their
form, the true body and blood of Christ, nevertheless administers it
also to those of whom he knows they will take it as mere bread and wine.
And conversely, the Platformists in turn administer mere bread and wine,
and let the others think and believe whatever they please. — Would that
the reverend gentlemen of the General Synod not too readily despise, as
something too "German" for the exalted, grand circumstances of America,
and cast aside, the following earnest word of Luther. He says (XVII,
2446): "And, in sum, to come away from this subject, it seems to me