American Lutheranism | Page 5

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