# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Dezember 1856_S372
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

372 Testimony of an Old Theologian against Licensing. — An Explanation Concerning, etc.

which indicate what order should be observed regarding the calling of
preachers." (as cited above, Vol. I, Part 2, p. 449.)

Testimony of an Old Theologian against Licensing.

Can those who, upon being examined, are found not to be properly
prepared for the administration of the holy office of preaching,
nevertheless be admitted to this office — namely on condition that
they solemnly promise to continue studying diligently?

To this question the old Danish theologian Dr. Caspar Erasmus
Brochmand (d. 1652) answers: "By no means. For, first, Paul does not
permit anyone to be ordained to the holy office of preaching unless he
is both apt to teach and able to stop the mouths of those who
contradict, 1 Tim. 3:2, Titus 1:9. Second, the Spirit of God expressly
reminds us that he makes himself a partaker of others' sins who lays
hands on a person not sufficiently fit, 1 Tim. 5:22. Third, experience
testifies only too often that those who have been admitted to the
holy office without education (rudes) remain in their lack of
education, however much diligence in learning they may have promised.
Fourth, what shall we answer to God if many of the hearers are lost
before the pastor has learned what he is to instill in others?
Ezek. 33:1-8." (Systema theologicum, art. de ministerio, f. 875.) The
reasons which the old, faithful teacher gives for his denial of the
above question may well find their application also to the licensing
system so often followed here even now.

(From the Prussian-Lutheran "Kirchenblatt" of September 1, 1856.)

An Explanation Concerning the Doctrine of the Church.

It has been reported in the Kirchenblatt, No. 10, concerning the
pastoral conference in Cologne, and it was reported at the same time
that one of the assembled pastors had contradicted the others in the
doctrine of the Church, but later retracted his contradiction. In
response to the editor's wish to hear more about this, I comply, both
out of the heartfelt desire to bear public testimony to the truth, and
also in the thought of serving as a warning to some brother to whom it
goes similarly in this point of doctrine, as it did to me.

In the controversy which today so widely agitates the Church, namely
whether by the body of Christ or the true Church one is to think only
of the so-called invisible Church, that is, the truly believing and
converted