# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Januar 1856_S13
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Theses on the Church.                    13

cannot look toward the west and toward the east at the same time, nor turn both hands heavenward and earthward at the same time. The explicit, vowed utterance of the abrenunciatio Satanae is not so absolutely necessary to baptism as the explicit, vowed utterance of believing surrender to the triune God.

But there are cases in which an otherwise less important matter enters the sphere of the duty of confession. And I hold that this is such a case, where it is a matter of standing firm under scrutiny and not yielding for a single moment out of desire to please men, mindful of the word: "If I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ!" For in this case it is demanded of the Church that she suppress a piece of her confession and, by that very suppression, mark it out as erroneous, perverse, out of keeping with the times! And of what sort, then, must the faith in Jesus Christ the Lord be, and of what sort therefore the capacity for a Christian, formative influence, on the part of such godparents as refuse to renounce, on the child's behalf, the devil and his works and his being —?

I now take the liberty of putting this question to the conference of the dear brothers: whether, in the case where the baptismal question concerning the abrenunciatio is expressly refused, they recognize the duty of resolutely resisting such a request; and whether they do not consider it timely to petition the high church government for a revision of the Agenda and for a fixing of the actual act of baptism, without variation of the baptismal questions, and specifically including the question concerning the abrenunciatio — so that the suspicion may be lifted from our Church that she practices manifold weight and measure, which is an abomination to the Lord.

Theses on the Church.

[These theses come from Pastor Crome in Rade vorm Walde. *)]

1. The existence of the Church is bound to the presence of the means of grace.

2. The Church, however, is present not only where the means of grace are complete and altogether pure, but also still there where only the most necessary parts of them are present, namely, so much of the Word as suffices for one to come to know Christ from it, and Baptism.

3. In full truth, to be sure, the Church exists only where Word and Sacrament are present wholly and unimpaired.

*) These theses on the Church as well, taken from the Prussian-Lutheran Kirchenblatt, we communicate here in order likewise to round out the picture of the doctrine of the Church as it is set forth in Germany. Even if somewhat more distinction were to be wished for in them, they nevertheless plainly rest on the right view of the Church.                    L. u. W.