LUTHERANS. 



521 



" Galesburg Rule " " Lutheran pulpits for 

 Lutheran ministers only ; Lutheran altars for 

 Lutheran communicants only." The ninety- 

 seventh to the ninety-ninth theses, involving 

 the doctrinal discussion of the relation of the 

 visible to the invisible church, were taken up. 

 They are as follows : 



The tokens of an invisible church are invisible 

 tokensj and can therefore only justify an invisible 

 recognition. The communion of an invisible church 

 must, as such, be an invisible communion. " The com- 

 munion of saints" pertains to the invisible church, 

 and is therefore not a visible communion. It is taught 

 in the creed; it is an article of faith, and can not 

 therefore be an object of vision. It is neither made 

 nor necessarily marked by going into one pulpit or 

 coming to one altar. Men may have both in com- 

 mon without being in the " communion of saints," 

 and be in that communion without a common pulpit 

 or attar. 



The church visible may be considered in the wider 

 and in the stricter sense of the term. The wider sense 

 considers it with reference to the essentials of its sim- 

 ple existence ; the stricter sense with reference to its 

 rightful existence in conformity throughout with the 

 divine idea and command. Wherever men may be 

 born to God and divinely nurturedj either through 

 the whole faith they confess, or in spite of parts of it, 

 there is the church visible in its widest sense. The 

 visible church, taking the term in its strictest sense, 

 has its visible tokens, to wit, the official acceptance 

 and confession of the word in its totality, in its pure 

 and free sense, and the use of the right sacraments in 

 their divine essentials. Wherever men are born to 

 God and divinely nurtured, through the whole faith 

 and sacraments confessed and used, and in no respect 

 in spite of parts of that faith and usage, there is the 

 church visible in the stricter sense, the pure church 

 visible ; or with the understanding implied, that the 

 limitation is to the normal and unreservedly right 

 there is the church visible. All Christian bodies, not 

 self-confessed sects or sectisms, claim of necessity to 

 be the visible church in the stricter sense. Not to 

 claim it is a confession of heresy or schism. We are 

 Lutherans because we believe that our church justly 

 claims that her faith is in every part scriptural. She 

 of necessity holds that all claims inconsistent with 

 this are untenable. Our church exists of right, and 

 we are in her fellowship of right, only because she is 

 unreservedly the visible church by an unreserved 

 confession of the whole truth. 



The difference which underlies the distinc- 

 tion between the terras visible and invisible 

 was brought out, in the discussion, to be : 



The visible church is where the Word of God is 

 taught, and the sacraments are administered in accord- 

 ance with it; the invisible church is the communion 

 of all true believers in Christ. Ordinarily, the latter 

 is contained in the former, and becomes possible by it. 

 Where word and sacraments are wanting, no Christian 

 church is possible ; wherever that word is found, and 

 be there ever so little of its essentials, there is the 

 church visible. Where that word is taught in its 

 purity, there is the true visible church. There is no 

 invisible church possible without the visible church, 

 because God has revealed only this one way of salva- 

 tion to wit, his Word. Wherever, therefore, that 

 word is preached, there alone believers are possible, 

 and .the invisible church. 



The doctrine of the relation of the congre- 

 gation to the synod was designated as the sub- 

 ject of the doctrinal discussion for the next 

 year. 



The Synodical Conference has suffered a 



division on a question of a definition of doc- 

 trine. The joint Synod of Missouri, the largest 

 and most influential synodical member of the 

 body, at its meeting in 1881, approved a series 

 of thirteen theses respecting the doctrine of 

 predestination, which had been prepared by 

 Professor C. F. Walther, of the Theological 

 Faculty at St. Louis, but which were regarded 

 by many persons in the other synods of the 

 Conference as setting forth Calvinistic, and 

 therefore un-Lutheran doctrines. The theses 

 declare a belief and confession that God loved 

 the world from the beginning, that he made 

 all men to be saved and none to be damned, 

 and that he wills the salvation of all ; that the 

 Son of God came into the world for the sins of 

 all men ; that he has borne the sins of all men 

 and atoned for all, without exception, and has 

 wrought complete redemption ; that only true 

 believers, who truly believe to the end of life, 

 are the subjects of the election of grace or pre- 

 destination ; that the divine decree of election 

 is unchangeable, and that, therefore, none of 

 the elect can be rejected or lost, but that all 

 the elect are truly saved ; that it is foolish and 

 perilous to the soul, leading it either to carnal se- 

 curity or to despair, when one endeavors to be- 

 come sure of his election or final and eternal 

 salvation, by penetrating the eternal and secret 

 decrees of God; that a believing Christian 

 should seek to become assured of his election 

 from the clearly revealed will of God; that 

 election does not consist in the mere fore- 

 knowledge of God that certain persons will be 

 saved ; that it is not his mere determination to 

 redeem and save mankind, whereby it becomes 

 general and extends to all men ; that it does 

 not embrace those who believe only for a time 

 (Luke viii, 13) ; and that it is not simply a de- 

 cree of God to save all those who shall believe 

 to the end; that the grace of God and the 

 merit of Jesus Christ alone are the cause which 

 moved God to choose the elect, and not any 

 good, not even the faith which he foresaw in 

 them ; that election is not a mere foreseeing 

 and foreknowing of the salvation of the elect, 

 but is also a cause of their salvation, and of all 

 that belongs to it. The substance of the doc- 

 trines thus expressed had been much discussed 

 after the theses were published by Professor 

 Walther, in the press, in a pastoral conference 

 held at Chicago, Illinois, and in a colloquium 

 at Milwaukee, Wisconsin, which was attended 

 by the faculties of the theological seminaries 

 and the presidents of the synods embraced in 

 the Synodical Conference. Having approved 

 the doctrines, the Joint Synod of Missouri in- 

 structed its delegates not to sit with such men 

 "as have publicly decried us as Calvinists"; 

 and not to recognize any synod as being a 

 member of the Synodical Conference " that as 

 such has made that charge against us." 



The subject was the especial object of con- 

 sideration at the meeting of the Joint Synod 

 of Ohio, which was held at Wheeling, West 

 Virginia, September 8th. This body adopted, 



