# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Mai 1856_S155
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Recovery of an Old Treasure in Mecklenburg. 155

—certainly most interesting and important for the elucidation of the history of the American-Lutheran Church, if the two writings of Falckner and Berckenmeyer could be recovered and, at least as to their substance, put once more into the hands of our Church here. (Unschuldige Nachrichten, vol. 1731, pp. 72–105.)

(From the "Freimund.")
Recovery of an Old Treasure in Mecklenburg.

In all the German lands where, at the time of the Reformation, Protestant congregations were formed, church orders were also soon drawn up. These still retain their standing, insofar as they have not been legally abolished, but they have for the most part fallen so far out of use that the congregations know little more of them. What a support it would be in the present day, if these dormant church orders were called back to life! Here, as a solitary and good confession, is to be regarded the ordinance of the reigning Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, by which the territorial church order of 1602 has been renewed in a very handsome new printing. It reads:

Friedrich Franz, by the grace of God, etc. Among all the blessings with which the mercy of God has daily and richly favored Us throughout Our life, We know none greater to name than this: that HE has given to Us and to Our lands His holy Christian Church, has led it back, more than three hundred years ago, to the pure Gospel and to true Christian order, has preserved it in pure doctrine even until now, and has indeed, in Our own days, begun to awaken it to renewed strength; even as We also steadfastly believe and trust that the grace of God will not let this work, once begun, fall to the ground, but will rather preserve for Us and for Our people, unto child and child's child, the truth of the Gospel, and will nevermore thrust the lampstand of the Lutheran Church from its place in this Our land. Since, then, We have during Our reign ever striven to thank Our God above all for such His great benefits, by tending faithfully and diligently, according to Our ability, to the office of chief episcopal oversight belonging to Us — together with Our forebears now at rest in God — in the Church of the Lutheran confession within Our lands (?), it has therefore also become Our concern, upon the report of Our Supreme Consistory that the copies of the revised Church Order of the years 1602 and 1650 were out of print and worn out, at once to arrange for a new printing of the same.

The present printing follows word for word the editions of 1602 and 1650, also noting in the margins the folios of the latest edition. Only