South Prairie Lutheran Church, Lisbon Congregation,

Kendall County, Illinois

July 2-10, 1870

Grace and peace in Christ Jesus, dear brethren in the faith and in the Ministry!

In his High-Priestly Prayer the Lord says, “I pray not only for these, but also for them who shall believe on me through their word, so that they all may be one, even as you, Father, in me and I in you, so that they should also be one in us!” Thus had God created us from the beginning so that we could be one in him and one with each other. But the devil really wanted to bring about another union, namely, between himself and the people, because he envied people their union with God and the blessedness which flows form it. However, he did not risk saying to people straight out that they should break off their union with God and become one with him. Because then man would have understood more readily who it was who lurked beneath the serpent’s skin. No, he wanted to bring about his union by cunning and lies, and it has always been his way since. First he tried to make them unsure of the Word of God with his, “Yea, has God said?” Next, by arousing dissatisfaction with only being able to be one with God, and a desire to become like God, he got them to listen to and to follow his word.

And thus the union between the devil and people was brought about and it is so intimate and strong a union that even when people feel unhappy about it, they never really want to or are able to tear themselves loose from it. But God took pity upon man and sought to restore the union between him and himself which was disrupted and changed into enmity by Satan’s cunning. Therefore, he let the Word become flesh and dwell among us. He who now receives this Word which was in the beginning, Christ, the Son of God, becomes one with him and through him one with his Father. The devil, though, is vexed over this and by means of his false union seeks partially to hinder the union with God from occurring and partially to disturb it where it has already taken place. It is against the Church, that is, the believers who are in this union, therefore, that the evil foe chiefly directs his attempt at union. And to this end precisely he must seek to create a division and disunity between the members of the church. On the basis of union with Christ, the Head of the Church, there is and there will always be a unity between the true members of the Church. Therefore, we must confess also that we believe that the Church is one. The fact that the Church is one cannot be seen, but it must be believed. The oneness of this Church which essentially consists in this that they have one God and one faith appeared during the time of the apostles in a certain way also in external things because the believers formed a single external fellowship of faith just as Acts says, “And all that believed were together … And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking of bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart.” (Verses 44.46.) That it was also the will of God that the believers should allow such an external bond of fellowship to encircle them all, we see in part from his warning so earnestly against the sects and factions and castigating them as works of the flesh, in part from his exhorting them so earnestly to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. Therefore, we hear Paul say to the Corinthians “that you should all speak the same thing, and that there must be no divisions among you; but that you should be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment,” 1 Co. 1:10. And he cries to the Philippians: “Fulfill my joy, that you be likeminded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind.” (2:2.) However, when we see that the external oneness of this church did not last long and that the church unfortunately now presents a multiplicity of sects and factions which contend internally with one another, then the cause of this is chiefly this that Christians have not remained loyal to the truth but have fallen into various errors through the devil’s seduction.

However much God wishes unity to be preserved, yet, however, he does not want it to occur at the expense of the truth. It is unity in the Spirit which God wants to have preserved. Unity of Spirit though is only present when there is unity in faith, and that is worked by the Spirit of God through the Word of God. When therefore someone in the fellowship falls away from the true faith and forsakes the word of truth, then a person certainly should seek unity with such a person by leading them back to the true doctrine. But when this does not come to pass, when they harden themselves in error, there a person should not preserve an outward unity with such people be they many or few, because unity of the spirit is lacking and without it becomes just a false union, and abomination in the sight of God. Rather, one separates from such people in order not to make oneself guilty of the sin of others and in order to preserve oneness of spirit with the true apostolic church. Then if a separation occurs, so that the erring are driven out of the fellowship, or because they are in the majority they throw the orthodox out, the guilt for the division does not lie with the orthodox but with the erring. It is not the orthodox, but the erring who have separated from the true church. Already by their departure from the Word of God and the true church they have separated themselves from the orthodox church even before the outward division took place. The departure made it apparent in the highest degree.

Thus it was with the Reformation. The Roman Church had fallen away from the Word of God and the orthodox faith. Luther and the Reformers wanted to preserve oneness with the apostolic church, and testidied against the errors. But this was not tolerated. The Reformers and their disciples were driven out. But although they were clearly in the minority, yet they, however, did not cause the division. It was not they but the Roman Church which made itself guilty of schism because it separated from the true church and formed a sect.

Now as surely as it is the will of God that Christians should preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, so surely also does he want them to seek to bring it about where it is disturbed. It is the duty of the orthodox church as well as of all sects to seek to settle the existing divisions so that they can all be united in one, so that the church can also bring forward one flock even as there is One Shepherd. But the same thing which we heard pertained with respect to the preservation of oneness also pertains to this striving to achieve oneness. It must not be a mere outward oneness, but a oneness of spirit. It must not happen at the expense of the truth with denial of the faith and of Christ. But the kind of union where Christ retains the authority and truth the victory is not what the devil wants.

Therefore he constantly comes forward with his own attempts at union wherewith he reserves the victory for himself and in the highest degree grants the truth equal rights with lies, since he well knows that where he can accomplish it, there, the oneness of the truth and thereby the truth itself is already yielded. Basically it is always truth and lie, light and darkness, the world and the kingdom of God, Christ and Belial, which he wants to promote in such a way. However, his attempt at union appears in different forms, more or less veiled, according to the nature of the people with whom he is dealing. Always, however, he talk about love. “Why so much controversy!” he says. “If only people can be united as one, everything else is unimportant. Let everyone have his own opinion, or no opinion. This is the proper humility, tolerance and brotherly love.” But this one thing is naturally also extremely varied according to the different parties who are supposed to be brought together. Over toward the ungodly of the most base sort he says, “There is no God. Love for self is the basis of all human relationships. It brings everyone together.” Voltaire¹⁶ especially advocated this principle in the previous century. It has now become obvious, it must be admitted, that self-love brings no union but brings rebellion, war and bloodshed. Meanwhile it is precisely this, however, which forms the bond of union among the children of the world as opposed to the Lord and his kingdom.

On the other hand, if he is working with ungodly people of the more refined type, of which Christianity is full in our days, then this is written on the banner: “We all believe in a higher being, Christians, Jews, Muslims, and heathen. We are surely all children of the same Father. We are all brothers. The Christian Church is terribly intolerant. It considers only its own people as brothers. Our brotherhood extends over the whole world and we all worship the same god whether we say that he is three persons or only one, whether we call him the Lord Jesus, or Jehovah, Allah, or Brahma, whether we confess him and worship him according to his Word in Spirit and in truth, or with the Hindus and the Tamuls seek him in the River Ganges or by being crushed under the juggernaut’s wagon.” Such a union is being sought at the present time in India between the Hindus and Christianity. It is, however, especially in the lodges of the Free Masons and the other secret societies that these attempts at union have been effective, by which we surely know that many Christians also have let themselves be misled. Likewise, the disengagement of the schools from the church, with their secularization, is, as much as anything, a fruit of the kinds of attempts at union as well as a means for their promotion.

Such an attempt at union among us, of most recent date, can also be mentioned here: “The Scandinavian Lutheran Union for the Enlightenment of the People.” As is surely known, it is supposed to produce a true Lutheran enlightenment among our people of all Scandinavians, Christians as well as Unitarians, Universalists and Swedenborgians,¹⁷ including Lutherans in a union Jews and heathen (Muslims are not found among Scandinavians). But there are more delicate matters which must be handled in a more delicate manner. In our enlightened century, however, a person does not want to be known as a heathen or be regarded as holding common cause with them. No, one must hold fast to Christianity, but not the kind of Christianity which was set forth by the apostles in the barbaric ancient times and interpreted literally according to the dogmatic restrictions and prejudices of the 16^th century. But the kind which the new Bible Criticism has created. A dish must be prepared from Christ and his Gospel through critical skill which can be palatable for the tastes of our time. It occurs now in different ways, partly by presenting Christ as a light-hearted youth who himself has understood what it means to “live” and who also taught his contemporaries and successors to enjoy life, partly by interpreting Christianity as a myth, and the person of Christ as the perfect model who needs only to be set before us in order to make us able to follow it perfectly. This kind of union presently has its standard-bearers in a Renan, a Schenkel, and several others, and its camp in the German Protestant Union.

But there are also many people, however, to whom this union appears too coarse-grained. They say they want to cling to Christ not only in name but to himself, God and man, and his redemption. However, they do not want to retain more of Christianity than that on which Lutherans and the various Reformed bodies are agreed. The remaining doctrines of the Word of God are to be considered as nonessential, as theological questions about which the various human opinions and insights have equally much merit and are equally legitimate, for example, whether baptism is a washing of regeneration or not, whether in the Lord’s Supper the true body and blood of Christ or only natural bread and wine are offered to and distributed to the guests, whether in the person of Christ both natures are mutually sharing in and participating in each other’s properties, and of the consequence of that, that the glorified human nature of Christ is present everywhere, or, whether, as Luther says, is tightly tied in heaven like a dog on a chain, whether God wants all people universally to be saved, or whether he has from eternity elected some to condemnation, and whether because of this the Gospel remains ineffectual for those who are rejected.

You see, these important doctrines about the basis of grace, of the Means of Grace and the order of grace should therefore be considered unworthy of becoming an occasion for controversy. They are supposed to concern the faith of the church, but at best be considered as theological questions which for the sake of their scholarly interest are referred to the scholarly research and discussion of the learned whose various defenses can only create a lust for controversy and intolerance and serve as a proof for lack of unity of faith and a basis for disruption of the fellowship of faith.

The devil has especially afflicted the Lutheran Church with this kind of attempt at union since the days of the Reformation. He got nowhere with Luther because like his Master, Christ, he held firm to that which written. However, the same thing cannot be said about Melanchthon after Luther’s death. But matters pleased the devil even better later when the princes found an excellent means for pushing their ambitious plans through with the people in such a political union. Although all state churches in their present form more or less are obvious and visible fruits of this union-game, resting on these unionist principles and feeding themselves from these unionist tendencies, yet, however, the Prussian State Church more than any offers an example of how with what perseverance and with what cleverness, cunning, yes, power, the devil forces these unionist endeavors of his to the ruin of the church and the people. This is not the place to discuss the Prussian Union in all its phases of development since John Sigismund renounced the Lutheran faith in 1613 and went over to the Reformed Church for self-serving political reasons. It can be sufficient to call attention to how this union-net gradually has as good as spanned all the Protestant German lands, so that now a Lutheran theologian and a Lutheran congregation which are not infected and corrupted by unionism are like the lone bird in the cleft of a rock.

The devil has also pushed this kind of attempt at union successfully over toward the Lutheran Church in this country. Up until a couple of years ago it embraced the Lutheran name, but in reality, it united the General Synod as well as all the English Lutheran, and many German Lutheran synods and congregations. In it fellowship was practiced between people who said they hold very firmly to all the dogmas of the Lutheran Church and people who were completely Reformed in spirit and confession. Eventually the clear, definite testimony of the Missourians the more Lutheran-minded got their eyes opened to the decidedly unionist alliance they had entered. They separated, and in union with a few other independent synods formed the Lutheran General Council. The thought was that this should come to embrace all the Lutheran synods which could not enter the General Synod, while in the meantime it was as clear as day that there was no prevailing unity of faith between the synods who were to constitute the General Council. The Missouri Synod and our synod then proposed that free Lutheran conferences should be held for the discussion of doctrinal positions before people brought about a common external fellowship. This proposal was in the meantime rejected by most of the synods. That the unionist spirit which the General Council had adopted as a heritage from the General Synod had also gained strength and made itself widely felt in the new fellowship has become evident by the declarations which the Council requires with the introduction of the Four Points, namely, about giving up their pulpits to teachers of heretical doctrines, accepting Reformed persons at the Lord’s Supper, Chiliasm, and the secret societies. The Council answered both “yea” and “nay,” which has always been the theology of unionism. The unionist posture which the Council thereby revealed prevented the German Ohio Synod from joining, caused the German Wisconsin Synod to separate from it again, aroused opposition within the newly established fellowship itself, and brought the German Iowa Synod, which itself contains a goodly portion of unionistic leaven, to adopt a “wait and see” attitude as it calls it. This wait and see attitude, though, hinders it neither from letting itself be represented in the General Council nor from representing it itself.

Among our countrymen, as we know, there are two others, outside our synod, which call themselves Lutheran. We must say to the censure of the Ellingites that they have not shown themselves much inclined to have union on the basis of truth with their countrymen in this country, yet credit must be given them that neither have they shown themselves very approachable to the prevailing attempts at union. They have not sought connections with all kinds of American church bodies in order to win honor and glory for the sake of expediency. They have shown themselves as tenacious in holding fast to truths as well as errors, though in the course of time they have made some headway in Lutheran thought. If they can even tolerate many things within their own fellowship, it does, however, sooner have its basis in the lower level of Christian knowledge on which they are, than in the politics of union. The situation is different with the other synod, the Augustana Synod, which up to now has consisted of a Swedish and a Norwegian group. One can say that it has really been a pawn in the devil’s union-game. The basic elements from which the Norwegian faction was formed already has to make it completely unionistic. And this unionistic character is obviously growing both in external and internal appearance. First it was associated with the notorious Franckean Synod where Reformed doctrine and practice were altogether prevalent, and later with the unionistic General Synod. Although it did right in separating from it, yet we have not been able to see in this step an abandonment of its earlier unionistic position since it has never publicly acknowledged and confessed it as sin, and neither, so far as I have seen, anywhere declared that it took that step in order to get out of the sinful relationship in which it was.

When the Lutheran General Council was formed the Augustana Synod showed itself quite willing to join it and has in actuality, if not formally, done so in spite of the ambiguous attitude the Council has adopted over toward the Four Points I mentioned earlier. The Augustana Synod has shown thereby that essentially it retains its unionistic position even if a more subtle form. The same thing is evident from the consideration of its internal behavior. From its first beginnings it has contained very conflicting elements and highly disunited doctrinal positions: Reformed, high churchly, pietistic and orthodox. I shall only mention here how Ole Andrewsen¹⁸, who in the old days defended the Reformed doctrines of baptism and the Lord’s Supper, toward the last has used the unionistic form of the Lord’s Supper. At our second conference with the pastors of the Augustana Synod in Chicago in 1863 a great disunity was evident among them with regard to the doctrine of the means for regeneration. At the conference at Jefferson Prairie in 1864 several of them declared themselves in agreement with the doctrine of absolution which we defended according to the Bible, but, however, held with their own and our opponents because of our coarse expressions, as they called them. Recently two of its pastors have shown that they favor completely differing doctrines regarding Sunday. In spite of this sorry situation within the synod with regard to unity of faith, it has, however, never shown any zeal for bringing about greater unity through diligent discussion of doctrinal questions. It was though it feared that by just such a discussion the disunited elements should come to light, and by appearing, force the dissolution of the synod.

What people call church politics, a characteristic of false union, has frequently been apparent in its conduct. It was not only entirely natural, but also our Christian duty to approach these countrymen and brethren in the faith of ours and seek to enter into a church union with them. Not only was this division and sectarianism extremely sinful, but also brought much pain and misery with it and sorely hindered the progress of the kingdom of God among us. This troubled us and we have earnestly striven to counsel repentance for it. But just as we in our synod have never pasted over indifference in matters of faith, but have always sought to bring about unity of faith by persuasion, conviction, instruction and admonition, so have also our efforts toward these separated countrymen of ours constantly been in the direction of paving the way to a true church union through discussions of doctrinal topics. Toward that end we have constantly invited them to conferences and made us of the few it has been our good fortune to bring about. We have been convinced that without unity of the Spirit and a common faith there is no true unity of churches, but only a false union. We certainly have not lacked temptations to such from the devil’s side when we acquired the reputation of being intolerant, unloving and contentious because we would not keep silent over toward errors, but thought we owed both God and the truth, as well as our adversaries, publicly to make them aware of the same and earnestly to rebuke them for them. There was surely nothing easier for our natural man than to let all controversial questions drop, let the Word of God say both “Yea” and “Nay” and everyone hold his belief unchallenged, or without regard to the Word of God, let the majority, “The voice of the people,” or human authority, make the judgment and settle the matter, and on such a unity build a union. But whom would it have profited? Neither the adversaries nor us. Because it is the truth which makes free, and when love rejoices in truth then our love toward it must reveal itself exactly therein that we speak the truth to them plainly.

Neither would it do us any good. Because “the friendship of the world is enmity against God,” and what an earnest caution does not lie in the word of the Lord, “He who denies me before men, him will I deny before my Father which is in heaven.” In his grace the Lord has thus far preserved us from these attempts of the devil toward union so that we have not aspired to any union on such a basis. In his grace may he help us also further to be faithful to the truth in love. We want rather to be few and to have God and his Word with us than to be many and as a result be without the Word of God as a light and shield.

May God in grace also preserve us against other attempts at union by which the devil wants to mislead us to fashion ourselves like this world. I am not thinking here especially of the world’s grossly sinful nature with which he certainly also tempts us and from which God must in grace preserve us, but of the more subtle worldliness which has a pious, handsome exterior, which makes its way into our congregations from every direction and still wants to leave the appearance and name of being Christianity. As a consequence of the devil’s various union endeavors in our days there is a strong tendency toward making a, so to speak, fluid crossing over between the kingdom of God and the world. This really wants to pass for Christian, with its purely worldly nature, its decency, its humanism, and human love, its agencies for the enlightenment, development and progress of man, its beneficent, aid and insurance associations, its lotteries, fairs and exhibits for one or another religious aim, is all supposed to pass for Christian even if the whole thing does not have a trace of the Spirit of Christ, but obviously the opposite. Its instruction, education and religiosity are supposed to pass as Christian even if it is altogether lacking a Christian basis and a Christian aim and takes place without Christian means. Outward splendor, the incentivizing of great sacrifices, the improvements which have occurred in outward respects and the undeniable marks of favor under which they appear are often looked upon as sufficiently capable of claiming a Christian character. Much of this is worthy of all honor and can have its great benefit as worldly contrivances. It can, however, for the most part be reckoned to civic righteousness. But now it is supposed to be regarded as true Christianity, yes, as the proper manifestation of life of an ennobled Christianity. And people want us to accept this modish Christianity now instead of the antiquated Christianity of our olden days. It cannot be denied that in this way the devil is aiming at a union between the world and the kingdom of God, and that great danger is at hand because precisely in this way the spirit of the world is going to enter our congregations and make them worldly. When to our great dismay we see many traces of this especially among our dear youth, then this most certainly is due in large part to the education they receive in the public schools and to the harmful effects to which they are exposed during their accompanying upbringing and development. I see in this the greatest danger for our dear religious community and the rising generation which is so precious to us. I have therefore cried a warning. Truly, it calls for watching and praying.

Our synod is still in its childhood. It is important that the right foundation be laid so that the building can withstand the storms of time and remain standing! It is important that the right course be chosen from the beginning so that the later course will not be a failure but will lead into the right harbor. In a spiritual sense this is still such a time for our synod. But he who sows to the wind reaps the whirlwind. He who sows to the flesh harvests corruption from the flesh, but he who sows to the Spirit harvests eternal life from the Spirit. Dear brethren and congregations, may God grant us and our synod both at this meeting and in all our church work that we might sow to the Spirit so that we and our children, by the grace of God, might one day harvest eternal life from the Spirit! May he hear us for Jesus our beloved Savior’s name’s sake! Amen.

16 The pen name of François Marie Arouet (1694-1778). French poet, dramatist, satirist and historian.

17 The theological philosophy of Emmanuel Swedenborg of Sweden (1688-1772),claiming direct mystical communication between the world and the spiritual realm; it also affirms Christ as the true God.

18 Ole (Aasen) Andrewsen (1818-1885) was a pastor in the Augustana Synod for a while.