h consists of the priests and the Sacraments. 4. The priests
have the power on earth to administer the Sacraments and to forgive
sins. 5. The Sacraments have in themselves the power to save. 6. Baptism
regenerates the child. 7. The Lord's Supper nourishes the seed implanted
in Baptism. 8. Hence man is not saved by the individual experience of
something, but in a mass. I know that our symbolists will say that this
is slander. But I affirm that it is a sincere and honest presentation of
the matter.... The advocates of symbolism probably have never been
converted, or they have backslidden again. This is a severe judgment. So
it is. But must we not judge them by their fruits? How many souls have
been converted by these symbolists? Go into their congregations and
speak to their members on religion; what do they know of it? In 19 out
of 20 cases their members, when awakened, seek Christ in other churches.
We have held back too long with our testimony. I fear that by our
negligence souls have gone to hell. And what have we won by our
pusillanimity? The advocates of symbolism have grown and become more
impudent by their success." (_L. u. W._ 1867, 88.) In a subsequent issue
the same paper, after boldly defending the baldest Zwinglianism,
remarked with respect to the symbolists that, in a way, their success
involved a certain blessing, inasmuch as they would serve as "an
ecclesiastical sewer into which sooner or later the dead formalism, the
cold, heartless ritualism, and the lager-beer Lutheranism of this
country would find its way." (_L. u. W._ 1867, 125.) Even the _Lutheran
Observer_ was censured by the _American Lutheran_ for becoming too
conservative. (_L. u. W._ 1875, 375.) But the difference was one of
degree only. In its issue of October 3, 1873, the _Observer_ charged the
Germans and Scandinavians, because of their adherence to the Lutheran
Confessions, with sectarian presumption, enmity against other
Christians, foreign bigotry, dead orthodoxy, cold dead faith, etc. "The
position," the _Observer_ continued, "which these bigots assume in our
enlightened land of churches, where the Lord Jesus is more universally
honored than in any other country of the world, is ridiculous.... For
while these short-sighted men set themselves against the liberal and
enlightened spirit of the General Synod and against the times and the
country in which they live, other churches annually lead away thousands
of their most intelligent members."