Yes, the nominally Christian Church had largely lost that Way. God wanted to put her right again. For this purpose He raised up the great Reformer. Is it not reasonable to believe that He would lead him and guide him and enlighten him to know and point out this Way aright? If the Lutheran Reformation was a work of God, does it need constant improvements and repetitions? No! we believe that God led Luther aright, that the Way of Salvation to which He recalled the Church through him is the Divine Way. Millions have walked in it since his day, and found it a good, safe, and happy Way. No one who has ever left it for another way has gained thereby.
To abandon the Lutheran Church for another is to exchange a system that is based on sound and well-established principles of interpretation, logical, consistent, thoroughly scriptural, and therefore changeless in the midst of changes, for one without fixed principles of interpretation, only partially loyal to the inspired record, more or less inconsistent, uncertain, shifting and changing with the whims or notions of a fickle age.
It is to exchange a faith that satisfies, brings peace, and manifests itself in a child-like, cheerful, joyous trust in an ever-living and ever-present Redeemer, for one that ofttimes perplexes, raises doubts, and is more or less moody and gloomy. A faith that is built either on uncertain and ever-varying experience or on an inexorable and loveless decree, cannot be as steadfast and joyous as one that rests implicitly in a Redeemer, who _tasted death for every man_.
We conclude with the eloquent words of Dr. Seiss: "We do not say that none but Lutherans in name and profession can be saved. But we do assert that if salvation cannot be attained in the Lutheran Church, or the highway of eternal life cannot be found in her, there is no such thing as salvation. There is no God but the God she confesses. There is no sacred Scripture which she does not receive and teach. There is no Christ but the Christ of her confession, hope and trust. There are no means of Grace ordained of God, but those which she uses, and insists on having used. There are no promises and conditions of divine acceptance, but those which she puts before men for their comfort. And there is no other true Ministry, Church, or Faith, than that which she acknowledges and holds."