# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_November 1856_S339
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Church Conditions in the Coburg Region. 339

1 Peter 5:2-3. Therefore the Church has the right and the power to call the shepherds;

4) From the benefit to the hearers. What concerns all must be done with the approval and consent of all. But that capable and rightly-believing church ministers be installed concerns all estates. Therefore this too must be done with the consent and agreement of all. This is what the Apostle means when he requires that the bishop who is to be elected must have a good report from those who are without. 1 Timothy 3:7. If he must have a good report from those who are without, how much more from the Church, over which he is to preside!

To the second class of reasons belongs apostolic practice. From this the following principle arises. The manner in which the Apostles were accustomed to call church ministers is rightly still observed in the Church today. But the Apostles called church ministers in such a way that the consent of the Church was also added. Acts 1:23, 6:3, 5-6, 14:23, 15:22, 1 Corinthians 16:3, 2 Corinthians 8:19, 1 Timothy 3:7, 4:14, 5:22.

The third class of proofs is the custom of the early Church, as attested by the decisions of church councils, the sayings of the fathers, and the well-attested examples of lawful calling. All this is described in the sixth part of the treatise on the church ministry, § 94 ff.

Johann Gerhard.
(Catholic Confession.)

Why does one kiss the Pope's feet?

Because the Antichrist touches what is holy only with his heel: for he tramples underfoot, so far as it lies in him, the little worm Jacob. K. R.

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(From the "Freimund.")
Church Conditions in the Coburg Region.

As far as there is a Lutheran Church in Germany at all, our duchy passes, in a Christian and ecclesiastical respect, for the darkest corner, and scarcely without justice. Whence comes this darkness? — For about fifty years, rationalism, or the fanaticism of reason, has ruled among us, and is now, more than ever before, penetrating the whole life of the people. This fanaticism (for what is greater fanaticism than to suppose that the reason of sinful man could sit in judgment over the Word of God!) has long since taken possession of the schools. Many of our schoolteachers do genuinely have their calling at heart. They are equipped, for various subjects of instruction...