# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_September 1855_S264
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

264 How are truly Lutheran congregations founded, etc.

was troubled, but who was otherwise sincere and truly converted to Christ, a believing Christian — treat him? Could he do otherwise than forever load the Law upon him anew, reproach him with a lack of earnestness in his Methodist striving, praying, and struggling, cast doubt upon his conversion, and, so far as it lay in him and in this his care of souls, do everything to drive his brother's soul to despair, or to total apostasy from Christianity and relapse into the world, indeed to a satanic hatred against God? Further, how could, for example, a Reformed preacher evangelically comfort an upright, believing parishioner who was spiritually assailed precisely concerning his election of grace? Would he not, especially were this spiritual assault to persist, become inwardly doubtful whether this person was in fact elect, and in the end arrive at the assumption that he belonged among the reprobate, on whom it pleased the Lord already now to display the severity of his holy retributive justice? — And in other cases too, of need for comfort, what comforting use could such a preacher make, for example, of the Gospel and the sacraments, since, according to his doctrine, the precious Comforter, the Holy Spirit, is obtained not through the believing appropriation of Christ from the Gospel and the sacraments, but from elsewhere, from something vague and indeterminate, and as the result of this or that spiritual exercise and legalistic, works-driven life? But whoever indeed is not elect — and on this point the preacher himself always remains inwardly uncertain — for him, surely, all is lost, since he cannot truly believe. — Already from these examples — and naturally several more could be adduced — it is clear enough that the evangelical spirit of the pastoral office is to be sought and found neither among the papists nor among the enthusiasts, but only there where the Gospel is preached purely and clearly and the sacraments are administered in accordance with it, that is, in the orthodox church, at present called Lutheran. Here there prevails by no means the soul-destroying delusion current among the papists, that everyone is saved who finds himself in the outward association of the Roman church and walks in obedience to it — that is, to the pope and his clergy — but is, in the contrary case, banned, cursed, and eternally damned. But just as little can there develop — at least not from any fault of, or as a consequence of, Lutheran doctrine — that legalistic, driving spirit which prevails in the private care of souls by enthusiast preachers, which lays now this yoke, now that yoke of the Law, that is, of human ordinance and practice, upon the necks of the disciples, aims at and drives toward nothing but a work-righteous, pietistic, legalistic sanctification, while at bottom leaving precisely the deeper and more serious souls in suspense about their evangelical state of grace and blessed sonship of God, and above all is unable to give the spiritually assailed any thorough help or lasting comfort. A Lutheran pastor of souls, however, as such, has nothing to do with either of these two aberrations in the treatment of individual souls. Although he must indeed conduct himself differently