# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Dezember 1856_S370
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

370 A Testimony of Martin Chemnitz Concerning the Right Understanding of the Doctrine, etc.

belongs primarily to the clergy, and in a derivative manner to the
magistracy, while to the people only insofar as "ut rationem assensus
sui reddere possit" [that it may be able to give an account of its
assent].*) Is this not almost to make a mockery, and must one not ask
with deep sorrow: Where has the tender care of the Augsburg Confession
for the freedom of conscience of every individual vanished to? Where
the principle of the Reformation concerning the freedom of a
Christian, and that, moreover, in divine matters that concern the
eternal salvation of the soul?"

"The magistracy was supposed to walk everywhere alongside as a
bugbear, and without it one trusted oneself to accomplish nothing."

In conclusion, Dr. Rudelbach makes the following propositions of the
collegial system his own: "The whole community consists of teachers
and hearers; this division has its foundation in Holy Scripture itself
(1 Cor. 12:28, Eph. 4:11), and is thus grounded in divine right, and
can yield to no human contrivance. For in the first, pure original
pattern of the Church, according to which every later form must be
judged — the Apostolic Church — nothing is found that in any way
resembled an external kingdom or represented such a community as
would consist of rulers and subjects. The Church is no state, but an
equal and free community established within the state (societas
aequalis et libera), which rejects all exercise of dominion in the
relationships peculiar to it. But since not all individuals of the
churchly community can concur in the exercise of the rights that
originally, indeed, belong to the whole body, the administration of
certain rights must be entrusted to certain persons. — The prince may,
indeed, still be a guardian of both tables of the Law, but only
insofar as both tables relate to the civil welfare; for care for the
eternal salvation of the citizens lies upon the prince no more than
the salvation of his neighbor's soul lies upon every Christian; he
therefore has at his disposal only the same Christian means —
admonition, intercession, and so forth. But if one supposed that the
prince, as a Christian, received a different right than all
Christians, one would be greatly deceived; for the conventional rights
of church members can only be conferred by free association."

A Testimony of Martin Chemnitz Concerning the Right Understanding of
the Doctrine of the Three Estates.

Martin Chemnitz composed an opinion, "On the Divinely Ordered Calling
of Righteous Preachers," which is found in Georg Dedeken's Thesaurus
Consiliorum. From this opinion it becomes clear how the theologians,
particularly of the century of the Reformation, understood the
doctrine of the three estates. By the household estate they
understand, namely, the estate of the common Christians, and far from
thereby

*) "Carpzov, loc. cit.: 'Hence it is therefore manifest that the
people concur in the public decision of controversies by consent
alone.'" p. 1286.