# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Juni 1855_S163
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

How Truly Lutheran Congregations Are Founded, etc. 163

the consciences would thus be held captive and entangled by the word, as though that form did not belong to matters of indifference, subject to the congregations as a merely human ordinance under evangelical freedom, but were a kind of apostolic and divine church order and something original and essential, necessarily required for the emergence and continued existence of Lutheran church life.

For who could be so deluded as not to see that, through such an illusion and its practical implementation, a side gate and little back door would, as it were, be broken open for the Roman papal forces, so that, at least later—very much contrary to the intention and will of those well-meaning Lutheran spokesmen—they might gain entry into the brazen tower of the Lutheran confession and in the end conquer the entire fortress? For wherever and however Law and Gospel, and the doctrine of Christian freedom contained in them—indeed, as must logically follow, even the doctrine of justification—are mingled, the essence of the Lutheran confession and church is displaced, and the Roman papal corruption takes its place; and this may now be all the more alarming and dangerous, since the signs of the times show clearly enough to all who have eyes to see that the Roman Church, now more than in the recent past, is employing every cunning device and deception and traversing land and sea to make proselytes.

After these observations, we now take up our question again:

How Are Truly Lutheran Congregations
Founded and Nurtured?

Answer: 1. Through the pure and unadulterated preaching of the divine Word and through the right division of the Word of truth (2 Timothy 2:15), that is, of the Law and the Gospel. The former is the will of God concerning what a person should be and what he should do and refrain from doing, together with every appended threat of divine wrath and of the Lord’s righteous judgments of punishment against malicious transgressors, as sacred history also demonstrates in many ways, in order to move both gross and subtle sinners to recognize their sinful corruption, to feel heartfelt repentance and sorrow over it, and sincerely to confess it. The latter, the Gospel, is the joyful message of the grace of God in Christ, who in our place fulfilled the Ten Commandments through His active obedience, and in our place, through His passive obedience, paid the penalty for and atoned for our transgression and sin; who allowed all our sin, guilt, and punishment to be imputed to Him, so that, through faith in Him, all His righteousness and merit might be imputed to us and we might partake of eternal salvation.

The Lutheran, that is, the churchly manner of preaching Law and Gospel differs, however, from that practiced by both the papists and the enthusiasts, partly with regard to its content and partly with regard to its form and