# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1852 12 07_S59
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

59

thy as well as to the unworthy, to the latter however unto judgment: the body and blood of the Lord. 3) The Reformed Church does not have this confession, and the United Church denies its fundamentality*) and, in general, the essential character of the differences (distinctions) between the two churches; therefore the Lutheran Church enters into no fellowship with either church, least of all Supper-fellowship, where she is mindful of her calling and does not fall away from herself. 4) For all church fellowship is the expression of fellowship in faith, and the summit of all church fellowship is Supper-fellowship, for which reason all unions have from of old been carried out and sealed through it. 5) The confessional and principled position of the Lutheran Church toward the Reformed and the United is normative**) for the practice of the Lutheran church ministry; it may not admit Reformed and United who wish to remain such to Supper-fellowship with our Church, and may not place the members of the Lutheran congregation in Supper-fellowship with them. 6) Mixed Supper-fellowship cannot be justified by any case of necessity, for nothing can become a duty of love which is against the duty of faith. In mixed congregations of Lutheran name and confession it is to be openly declared that from all who partake of the holy Supper the willingness to belong to the Lutheran Church with heart and mouth, word and deed, is expected and must be required.

*) That is, that it belongs to the fundamental doctrines. The Editor.

**) That is, it gives the rule and guiding line for the practice. The Editor.

Only two cases have we not yet discussed. The first is the communion of the dying. That their gaze is to be directed no longer to the church strife of this side, but only to the heavenly manna of the Sacrament itself and to the conditions for entering into the Canaan beyond, goes without saying. The other case concerns the conduct toward those who are convinced of the Scriptural character of our Confession, but have not yet pressed through to the resolution to withdraw from the Reformed or United Church. Such persons are to be admonished with wise tenderness, for the sake of their own conscience, to desist for the present from their request, because the granting of it would lay duties upon them which they do not yet acknowledge. If they are sincere, there will grow out of this for them the blessing of a salutary hastening of their crisis (decisive turning-point), whereas admission is bound up with the danger of slackening and of being lulled to sleep.

Thus we can follow the seemingly all too rigorous practice of the ancient Church to its utmost limits, and nowhere has it, when exercised with spiritual wisdom and loving tenderness, the repellent and offensive character which people charge it with. It is the indispensable consequence (conclusion) of our faith insofar as it is sure of itself. That we shrink back from this consequence is the power of habit, which has quite put the good old order of the Church out of our sight. But if we would only be in earnest with a consistent (logical) practice of what we believe and confess, it would be shown that on our side are the victory and the blessing.

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To all those who have not been convinced by the exposition thus far, let a mirror now be held up at the close, in which they may look at themselves, to recognize to which class of the unconvinced they belong.

1) Perhaps they belong to those who hold it a matter of indifference whether one is of the Lutheran or the Reformed faith in the disputed doctrines. They think it is enough that one hold the holy Supper to be a means of grace of mysterious union with the God-man Jesus Christ, whatever one may think about the manner and way in which this union is realized. The strife over this counts with them as a more or less scholastic one.*) But with most joyful confidence we hold against them: the Supper-confession of our Church is nothing other than the unfolded Yes and Amen to the words of the Lord: "This is my body, This is my blood." Our Church requires no more than humble submission to these words of Him who is true God and man in one Person. It will be objected: Are there not many simple-hearted souls in the Reformed Church who do indeed humbly bow beneath these words? To be sure, and we too take comfort in that, but the Reformed Church in her confessions does not bow.

*) Which concerns only the theological schools, not the Christians. The Editor.

2) Perhaps, however, the readers whom we have not convinced belong to those who hold it a matter of indifference whether one belongs outwardly to the Lutheran Church or to another. They can cite our own concession that there are also in other churches Christians who believe according to Scripture, but wrongly. For even if the erroneous doctrine of their church exerts no clouding influence upon the faith of some, yet the danger is always present, and also by imputation, though in many gradations known to God alone, the connection with the church to which one belongs is always a solidary one.†) And is it not, even apart from this, a wretched contradiction if one belongs to a church outwardly and does not belong to it inwardly? Nevertheless this indifferentism (indifference toward religion) sits in many, if not on the lips, yet deep in the heart. If they recognize the Lutheran Church truly as the church of the Scriptural confession, then it is sheer immorality; but if they suppose that the Scriptural truth is distributed among the confessions of all churches, or even that the confessions of all churches are products of a scholastic reflection (thinking) and stand apart from any relation to the personal relationship of man to God, then that is an eclectic, a theosophical standpoint,*) which fancies itself exalted above all churches and hovers on false heights and has no right in any church.

†) That is, one which imposes mutual obligations and makes the individual responsible for the whole. The Editor.

*) That is, such a standpoint, on which one supposes that one must pick out the best from all religions, because none is wholly true. The Editor.

3) Perhaps, however, the readers whom we have not convinced belong also to those who, far from the kinds of indifferentism just described, are with all their heart for the faith and confession of our Lutheran Church, and yet cannot get rid of some scruples, partly of principle, partly drawn from the actual state of our territorial church, against the stricter practice of the Supper. With such we will speak at the close yet a word of brotherly understanding.

The strife over Supper-fellowship is now once for all here. Whatever one may judge concerning the manner and way in which this fire was kindled and stirred up — it burns, and no human power can make it undone. Let us then seize the right means to quench it!

Like the Culmbach Conference, so the church government itself has declared the offensive conditions to be conditions of exception and has promised to "regulate" the exceptions. Is it then right to speak a word for these conditions of exception, which one basically disapproves, because one holds the Löhe opposition against them to be too stormy?

And does the conflict of conscience into which sincere souls are put by those conditions deserve no regard at all? Is it not apostolic to restrain oneself in one's freedom when it gives offense to others?

One is unfortunately accustomed to see on Löhe's side only hard-hearted harshness. It is also true that the Schwabach petition and declaration did not make the impression of compassionate, patient, hoping love. But shall we throw away the kernel because the shell is rough? shut our ear to the nevertheless resounding plaintive notes of troubled consciences?

O that one would but let go what is only an individual (one's own personal) opinion and submit to the practice and order valid in our Church from the beginning! The Reformed and United themselves cannot wish and demand that we sacrifice to them the unity and peace of our Church. We are, after all, in the first place to our own household obli-