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and administers the Sacraments without adulteration. This holds good with regard to all Lutheran organizations that are Lutheran in truth and reality. True and faithful Lutherans, however, are such only as, being convinced by actual comparison that the Concordia of 1580 is in perfect agreement with the Holy Bible, subscribe to these symbols ex animo and without mental reservation or doctrinal limitation, and earnestly strive to conform to them in practise as well as in theory. Subscription only to the Augustana or to Luther's Small Catechism is a sufficient test of Lutheranism, provided that the limitation does not imply, and is not interpreted as, a rejection of the other Lutheran symbols or any of its doctrines. Lutheran churches or synods, however, deviating from, or doctrinally limiting their subscription to, this basis of 1580, or merely pro forma, professing, but not seriously and really living its principles and doctrines, are not truly Lutheran in the adequate sense of the term, though not by any means un-Lutheran in every sense of that term.

      5. Bible and Book of Concord on Christian Union and Fellowship.— Nothing is more frequently taught and stressed by the Bible than the truth that church-fellowship presupposes, and must be preceded by, unity in the spirit, in doctrine. Amos 3, 3: "How can two walk together except they be agreed?" According to the Bible the Word of God alone is to be taught, heard, and confessed in the Christian Church. Only true teachers are to preach, in the Church: Deut. 13, 6 ff.; Jer. 23, 28. 31. 32; Matt. 5, 19; 28, 20; 2 Cor. 2, 17; Gal. 1, 8; 1 Tim. 4, 16; 1 Pet. 4, 11. Christians are to listen to true teachers only: Matt. 7, 15; John 8, 31; 10, 27. 5; Acts 2, 42; Rom. 16, 17; 2 John 10; 1 Tim. 6, 3–5; Eph. 4, 14; Titus 3, 10; 2 Cor. 6, 14–18. In the Church the true doctrine, and only the true doctrine, is to be confessed, and that unanimously by all of its members: 1 Cor. 1, 10; Eph. 4, 3–6. 13; 1 Tim. 5, 22; Matt. 10, 32. 33. Christian union and fellowship without the "same mind," the "same judgment," and the "same speech" with respect to the Christian truths is in direct conflict with the clear Scriptures. The unity of the Spirit demanded Eph. 4, 3 requires that Christians be one in doctrine, one, not 50 or 75, but 100 per cent. With this attitude of the Bible toward Christian union and fellowship the Lutheran symbols agree. The Eleventh [tr. note: sic!] Article of the Augsburg Confession declares: "For this is sufficient to true unity of the Christian Church that the Gospel be preached unanimously according to the pure understanding, and that the Sacraments be administered in agreement with the divine Word. And it is not necessary to true unity of the Christian Church that uniform ceremonies, instituted by men, be observed everywhere, as St. Paul says, Eph. 4, 4. 5: 'One body, one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one Baptism.'" "Pure understanding of the Gospel" is here contrasted with "ceremonies instituted by men." Accordingly, with respect to everything that God plainly teaches in the Bible unity is required, while liberty prevails only in such things as are instituted by men. In this sense the Lutheran Church understands the "Satis est" of the Augustana, as appears from the Tenth Article of the Formula of Concord: "We believe, teach, and confess also that no church should condemn another because one has less or more external ceremonies not commanded by God than the other, if otherwise there is agreement among them in doctrine and all its articles, as also in the right use of the Sacraments, according to the well-known saying: 'Disagreement in fasting does not destroy agreement in faith.'" (Mueller 553, 7.) It cannot, then, be maintained successfully that, according to the Lutheran symbols, some doctrines, though clearly taught in the Bible, are irrelevant and not necessary to church-fellowship. The Lutheran Confessions neither extend the requirements for Christian union to human teachings and institutions, nor do they limit them to merely a part of the divine doctrines of the Bible. They err neither in excessu nor in defectu. Accordingly, Lutherans, though not unmindful of the admonition to bear patiently with the weak, the weak also in doctrine and knowledge, dare not countenance any denial on principle of any of the Christian doctrines, nor sanction the unionistic attitude, which maintains that denial of minor Christian truths does not and must not, in any way, affect Christian union and fellowship. In the "Treatise on the Power of the Pope" the Book of Concord says: "It is a hard thing to want to separate from so many countries and people and maintain a separate doctrine. But here stands God's command that every one shall be separate from, and not be agreed with, those who teach falsely," etc. (§42.)

      6. Misguided Efforts at Christian Union.—Perhaps never before has Christendom been divided in as many sects as at present. Denominationalism, as advocated by Philip Schaff and many Unionists, defends this condition. It views the various sects as lawful specific developments of generic Christianity, or as different varieties of the same spiritual life of the Church, as regiments of the same army, marching separately, but attacking the same common foe. Judged in the light of the Bible, however, the numerous sects, organized on various aberrations from the plain Word of God, are, as such, not normal developments, but corruptions, abnormal formations, and diseased conditions of the Christian Church. Others, realizing the senseless waste of moneys and men, and feeling the shame of the scandalous controversies, the bitter conflicts, and the dishonorable competition of the disrupted Christian sects, develop a feverish activity in engineering and promoting external ecclesiastical unions, regardless of internal doctrinal dissensions. For centuries the Pope has been stretching out his arms to the Greek and Protestant Churches, even making concessions to the Ruthenians and other Uniates as to the language of the liturgy, the marriage of priests, the cup to be given to the laity, etc. In order to present a united political front to the Pope and the Emperor, Zwingli, in 1529, offered Luther the hand of fellowship in spite of doctrinal differences. In political interests, Frederick William III of Prussia, in 1817, forced a union without unity on the Lutherans and Reformed of his kingdom. In America this Prussian Union was advocated by the German Evangelical Synod of North America. The Church of England, in 1862, 1874, and 1914, endeavored to establish a union with the Old Catholics and the Russian Church even at the sacrifice of the Filioque. (The Lutherans, when, in 1559 and again in 1673 to 1681, negotiations were opened to bring about an understanding with the Greek Church, insisted on unity in the doctrines of Justification and of Free Will, to which Jeremiah II took exception.) Pierpont Morgan, a number of years ago, appropriated a quarter million dollars in order to bring the Churches of America under the leadership of the Protestant Episcopal Church, which demands as the only condition of union the recognition of their "historical episcopate," a fiction, historical as well as doctrinal. In 1919 three Protestant Episcopal bishops crossed the seas seeking a conference with the Pope and the representatives of the Greek Orthodox churches in the interest of a League of Churches. The Evangelical Alliance, organized 1846 at London, aimed to unite all Protestants against Rome on a basis of nine general statements, from which the distinctive doctrines were eliminated. The Federal Council, embracing 30 Protestant denominations, was organized with the definite understanding that no Church, by joining, need sacrifice any of its peculiar doctrines. The unions effected between the Congregationalists and Methodists in Canada, and between the Calvinistic Northern Presbyterians and the Arminian Cumberland Presbyterians in our own country, were also unionistic. Since the beginning of the last century the Campbellites and kindred sects were zealous in uniting the Churches by urging them to drop their distinctive names and confessions, call themselves "Christians" or "Disciples," and accept as their confession the Bible only. Indeed, the number of physicians seeking to heal the schisms of Christendom is legion. But their cure is worse than the disease. Unionistic henotics cannot but fail utterly, because their object is not unity in the Spirit of truth, but union in the spirit of diversity and error.

      7. Lutherans Qualified to Head True Union Movement.—Most of the union-efforts are failures ab initio. They seek outward union without inward unity. They proceed on a false diagnosis of the case. They observe the symptoms, and outlook or intentionally ignore the hidden cause, the deviations from the Word of God, which disturb the unity of the Spirit. And doctrinal discussions, which alone can bring about a real cure, are intentionally omitted and expressly declared taboo, as, e.g., by the Federal Council. The Church, suffering from blood-poisoning, is pronounced cured when the sores have been covered. They put a plaster over the gap in Zion's wall, which may hide, but does not heal, the breach. Universally, sectarian henotics have proved to be spiritual quacks with false aims, false methods, and false diagnosis. Nowhere among the sects a single serious effort to cure the malady from within and to restore to the Church of Christ real unity, unity in the true doctrine! Indeed, how could a genuine unity-union movement originate with the sects? Can the blind lead the blind? Can the beggar enrich the poor? Can the sects give to Christendom

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