# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_November 1859_S332
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

332 The Buffalonians Once More on Our Catechism.

is once accommodated, in the large Dietrich, by a word appearing there of 'the whole Church.'" Over this testimony we can only rejoice heartily; for if our doctrine can be smuggled in and accommodated by means of Bible passages and by statements of the Symbolical Books, then our doctrine must indeed be biblical and symbolical. It is true Mr. H. also speaks of misconstruction, but we have construed nothing at all — we have simply reproduced the bare words unchanged — so the charge is absurd. In another place, Mr. H. further says that the passages [we cite] are "torn out" and are "genuine pieces of the Symbolical Books" only "in context." But although we readily grant that passages are sometimes torn from their context in such a way that their true sense can no longer be recognized and they can easily be twisted, we may fairly demand proof that we have proceeded in this manner. Empty, unproven accusations and assertions fall back upon the one who makes them, and prove only that his case is lost.

Another accusation is that we gave Dietrich's answer to question 527, "What is the ban?" in two paragraphs and marked them 1 and 2! Mr. H. even calls this a falsification! We confess herewith that not only in this passage but very frequently, when an answer contained several parts, we have given them in paragraphs and numbered them. This was done so that children, and also inexperienced teachers, might more easily survey the various components of the answer. To call this a falsification is just as ridiculous as if someone wished to accuse Luther's catechism of falsification because it speaks of the first, second, etc., petition of the Lord's Prayer. That the accusation was so ridiculous was, indeed, the sole reason why we paid no attention to it a year ago. Mr. H. now triumphs over our silence as a manifest confession of our great guilt! We gladly leave him this triumph. — Equally comical, moreover, is the charge that we "freely fabricated" a question.*) The old Dietrich writes, namely, in his extensive catechism: "The right and the power to call preachers belongs to the whole Church." Since now, in

*) Not only did Mr. H. declare a year ago that the introductory questions we took over from Dietrich's small catechism, because they do not stand in the large one, were our own fabrication; he also writes in his latest essay: "Since, further, the additions by which the large Dietrich differs from the smaller one — especially in other doctrines, e.g. concerning the person and office of Christ — are very frequent, it was simply not possible to judge the Missourian book without having the large catechism in hand." Were we not compelled, by this and by a host of other telling remarks, to conclude that Mr. H., in his critique of our catechism, has never even seen the small catechism of Dietrich — which is, after all, the one chiefly at issue whenever omissions, alterations, and additions are being discussed — we would speak with the deacon in quite another tone. Although it is reckless and unconscionable enough to fall upon a book and charge it with omissions, additions, and falsifications when one does not even know or has never seen its original!