# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_October 1859_S317
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Does the Iowa Synod Really Strive, etc. 317

Antichrist; but we have a different, better one, and prefer it for that reason. I should think that means abandoning the way of the Symbols and wanting to teach one's own newly invented paths into the labyrinth of sectarianism. In general, when I hear people who call themselves Lutherans speak so foolishly and beggar-proudly about the Symbols, about Luther and the fathers in general, the thought forces itself on me that such people must have very little acquaintance with them and their works. Whoever had looked about among them even a little would be ashamed, in the depths of his heart, to set the scholarship and habits of Scripture use, the little ideas and opuscula of our dwarfish generation — nearly all of them born already on their own graves — over against their scriptural knowledge and fidelity to Scripture, their penetrating acuity, their iron diligence, their crushing power of speech, and their unbreakable dialectic, merely to see how they compare with one another; not to mention wanting to surpass them and give their works a greater perfection. But if anyone insists on being more learned than the Book of Concord and the church whose confession it is, he is free to do so — only let him then also be honest and confess openly: I do not agree with this; on this point or that it is no longer my confession; and let him not try to maintain his standing by seeking to throw the greater part overboard as not belonging to it. The Iowa Synod, which does this, may go on calling itself "evangelical Lutheran" as much as it likes; in reality it is not so now. It sails under half a flag, under a false name, and such, as is well known, are suspicious ships.

Finally, to show by what path the Iowa Synod strives for the greater perfection of the Lutheran church, let the following statements be compared:

Sayings of the Jesuit Bellarmine.

"The Antichrist will be only one person, but the popes were many and will still be many, clothed with the same dignity and power; therefore the Antichrist is to be sought elsewhere than on the Roman chair."*)

"The Antichrist has not yet come; the pope is already here; therefore he is not the Antichrist."**)

Sayings of the Iowa Synod.

"If he (the Antichrist) is the man of sin, he must indeed be a particular person. But a man can be neither an institution nor a plurality of persons. It shall not be denied in the least that the papacy is antichristian, or that many popes may be called Antichrists.... But the man of sin mentioned in 2 Thess. 2 is a particular, human personality."

"We too must expect this falling away in Antichristendom as still future, because by the man of sin we can understand not a papacy, but only a particular, individual human personality." Synod. Rep., p. 28.

*) "Antichristus erit una tantum persona. Pontifices autem multi fuerunt eadem dignitate et potestate praediti. Ergo alibi quaerendus est Antichristus quam in Romana sede." ["The Antichrist will be only one person. But the popes were many, endowed with the same dignity and power. Therefore the Antichrist must be sought elsewhere than in the Roman see."] Lib. 3 de R. P., cap. 2.

**) "Antichristus nondum venit. Pontifex jamdum venit. Ergo pontifex non est Antichristus." ["The Antichrist has not yet come. The pope has already come. Therefore the pope is not the Antichrist."] Loc. cit., cap. 3.