The Conservative Reformation and Its Theology - Saint Mary ...

they are scriptural in nothing. Such hopeless errorists are not sound, on the
showing of these polemics, even on the general truths of the Apostles'
Creed: they are doubters of the very elements of Christianity: they are on
the way to Atheism, only kept from running into it by their fear or by their
inability to follow their premises to their fair conclusions. It is true, the
most extravagant of this school in the Lutheran Church have been far
outstripped in their exclusiveness by sectarians of different kinds: but this
is no apology for them. A Church so large-hearted, so truly catholic in her
genius, and so mild in her spirit as is the Lutheran, expects better things of
her children. As she does not rear them with a sectarian bias, she cannot
allow them to plead sectarian excesses as an offset to their own. -In treating
of the doctrines of such a Church, men should be thoroughly acquainted
with them, deeply convinced of their truth, and transformed by their power;
and men of this stamp will develop them not in a little, sectarian spirit, but
with a largeness and nobleness of mind, which will attest the moral power
of the truth they hold.
Official protest against the persecutions of other churches.
If our Church ever could have been moved to a different spirit, it
would have been during those exasperating controversies with open
enemies, and still more with false brethren, which led to the preparation of
the Formula of Concord. Yet, in the Preface to the book in which that
Formula was embodied, the Electors, Princes, and Orders of the Empire
thus declare themselves: "It is by no means our will and intent, in the
condemnation of false and impious doctrines, to condemn those who err
from simplicity, and who do not blaspheme the truth of God's Word. Still
less do we wish to condemn whole churches either within the bounds of
the German Empire or beyond it,... for we entertain no doubt whatever
(ganz und gar keinen zweifel machen) that many pious and good people
are to be found in those churches also, which to this time have not thought
in all respects with us; persons who walk in the simplicity of their hearts,
not clearly understanding the points involved,...and who, it is to be hoped,
if they were rightly instructed in the doctrine, through the guidance of the
Holy