# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1848_S34
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

— 34 —

...from the heart; not lording it over those in your charge, but being
examples to the flock." Likewise Paul exhorts his Timothy: "Do not rebuke
an older man but encourage him as a father, younger men as brothers, older
women as mothers, younger women as sisters, in all purity." The holy
apostles grant only one power to those who are to serve the church in
governing it, namely the power of the Word; thus these same apostles
write — first St. Peter: "Whoever speaks, let him speak as one who speaks
the very words of God... in order that in everything God may be glorified
through Jesus Christ"; and St. Paul writes to his Timothy: "Preach the
word; be ready in season and out of season."

It is therefore beyond doubt, venerable brothers in office and honored
congregational delegates, that we renounce no right that is properly ours
when we, as servants of the church and members of a church synod, claim no
power other than the power of the Word. For in the church, where Christ
alone rules, there should and can be no other power to which all must
submit. There are, indeed, matters on which God's Word decides nothing and
which nevertheless must be regulated in the church; but all such matters
are not to be regulated by any power standing over the congregation —
rather, the congregation itself (that is, pastor and hearers together)
regulates them, free of all compulsion, as it finds necessary and
wholesome.

What, then, do those do who claim in the church any power besides that
of the Word? They rob Christ's church of the freedom he purchased for it so
dearly with his divine blood, and degrade this free Jerusalem above, in
which nothing but kings, priests, and prophets dwell — this kingdom of God,
this heavenly kingdom of truth — into a mere policing institution in which
one must be subject to every human ordinance. They contend with Christ, the
one true King, for his royal crown, and make themselves kings over his
kingdom; they thrust Christ, the one true Master, from his teacher's chair,
and set themselves up as masters in his church; they seek to sever Christ,
the one true Head, from his church, and arrogate to themselves the position
of heads of his spiritual body. They exalt themselves above the holy
apostles and lay claim to a power that God's Word flatly denies them —
indeed, a power that God has granted to no human being, no creature, not
even to any angel or archangel.

Can it, then, truly dishearten us, my brothers, that in our American
preaching offices generally we are entrusted with no power other than the
power of the Word, and that in particular this assembly of ours has been
granted no other power? Oh, truly, no! This is exactly what must rouse us
to carry on our office in this land, and our present work, with great joy;
for in this way the church maintains its true character among us too —
that of a kingdom of heaven; in this way Christ remains among us what he
is, namely the one Lord, the one King, the one Head, the one Master; and
our office and work retain the true apostolic form. How could we possibly
crave a power that Christ has denied us, that no apostle ever claimed or
exercised for himself, and that would rob our congregations of the
character of the true church and of the true apostolic form! —

Yet it cannot, of course, be denied that congregations are free to
relinquish their liberties and rights in many matters, to bind
themselves...