Church
is the only known religious body which, in the Book of Concord of 1580,
confesses the truths of the Gospel without admixture of any doctrines
contrary to the Bible. Hence its organization is in perfect harmony
with the divine object and norm of Christian union and fellowship. Its
basis of union is the pure Word and Sacrament. Indeed, the Lutheran
Church is not the universal or only Christian Church, for there are
many believers belonging to other Christian bodies. Nor is it the only
saving Church, because there are other Churches preaching Christian
truths, which, by the grace of God, prove sufficient and powerful to
save men. The Lutheran Church is the Church of the _pure_ Word and the
_unadulterated_ Sacraments. It is the only Church proclaiming the
alone-saving truth of the Gospel _in its purity_. It is the Church with
a doctrinal basis which has the unqualified approval of the Scriptures,
a basis which, materially, all Churches must accept if they would
follow the lead of the Bible. And being doctrinally the pure Church, the
Lutheran Church is the true visible Church of God on earth. While all
sectarian churches corrupt God's Word and the Sacraments, it is the
peculiar glory of the Lutheran Church that it proclaims the Gospel in
its purity, 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 th