We believe that the true unity of the Church is not injured by dissimilar ceremonies instituted by humans, just as the dissimilar length of day and night does not injure the unity of the church. However, it is pleasing to us that, for the sake of peace, universal ceremonies are kept. We also willingly keep the order of the Mass in the churches, the Lord's Day, and other more famous festival days. With a very grateful mind we include the beneficial and ancient ordinances, especially since they contain a discipline. This discipline is beneficial for educating and training the people and those who are ignorant (the young people). We are not discussing now whether it is helpful to keep them because of peace or bodily profit. We speak of something else. The question at hand is whether the observance of human traditions are acts of worship necessary for righteousness before God. This is the point to be judged in this controversy. When this is decided, it can be judged later whether it is necessary that human traditions should be the same for the true unity of the Church. For if human traditions are not are not acts of worship necessary for righteousness before God, it follows that those not having the traditions received elsewhere can be righteous and the sons of God as well...The meaning is this: Righteousness of the heart is is a spiritual matter, a matter of enlivening hearts. Clearly human traditions do not enliven hearts and are not effects of the Holy Spirit. Such efforts are love for one's neighbor, self-control, and so on. They are not tools through which God moves hearts to believe, as are the divinely given Word and Sacraments. - The Apology of the Augsburg Confession VII/VIII: 33-34, 36
Concordia: The Lutheran Confessions. 1st edition. St. Louis: Concordia, 2005.
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