# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1846 11 24_S40
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

"...not of your own, but of the other's. For why should my liberty be judged by another man's conscience?" (1 Corinthians 10:28–29.) But shortly before this statement the holy Apostle sets down the important rule: "All things are lawful for me, but not all things are helpful." (v. 23.) With these words, clear limits are drawn even around the domain of Christian liberty — limits which no one who wishes to be a Christian may overstep. For as often as the exercise of our Christian liberty is not helpful, so often are we, according to this apostolic statement, obligated voluntarily to refrain from the exercise of our liberty; otherwise we sin gravely. This is why Luther, too, in his magnificent sermon "On the Freedom of a Christian," treats the paradoxical (seemingly contradictory) theme: "1. A Christian is a free lord over all things; and 2. A Christian is a dutiful servant of all things."

The question now arises: in which cases can a Christian not act arbitrarily, even with regard to ceremonies, and appeal to his liberty? We answer:

1.) The individual is obligated to observe the ceremonies and to submit to all the human ordinances which have been duly introduced by the majority of the congregation to which he belongs. This rests on all those passages of Holy Scripture according to which everything in a Christian congregation should proceed peacefully, in order, and honestly, and all should be subject to one another, and especially the young to the elders. Compare 1 Corinthians 14:33, 40; 1 Peter 5:5. This divine law, to whose fulfillment the conscience of every Christian is directly bound, gives to all church ordinances, for the individual, a binding force that is indeed indirect, but nonetheless real. A stubborn-headed person can therefore in no way say: he will conform to no congregational order, he will not observe this or that ceremony adopted by the congregation, since human commandments do not, after all, bind the conscience, and ceremonies are, after all, free matters of indifference whose omission he will not let be made into a sin for him, and the like. It is indeed true that if a Christian is required to regard human commandments as commandments of God, he should rather die than submit to them; but if, on the other hand, he is required to observe human arrangements for the sake of love, of peace, of order, then he may by no means insist upon his liberty; then his conscience is indirectly bound by it, for by transgressing such a church ordinance he would transgress the divine law: "Let all things be done decently and in order. Be subject to one another." Here belongs the passage from the Augsburg Confession already cited: "It is fitting for the Christian assembly to keep such order for the sake of love and peace, and to be obedient to the bishops and pastors in these matters, and to keep the same only so far that one does not offend another,

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so that there may be no disorder or unruly conduct in the church." (Article 28.) On this point Luther writes in his sermon on good works: "The second work of this (the fourth) commandment is to honor and be obedient to the spiritual mother, the holy Christian Church, to the spiritual authority — whatever it commands, forbids, appoints, ordains, binds, or looses — so that we conform ourselves to it; and just as we honor, fear, and love our bodily parents, so also the spiritual authority,*) letting it be right in all things that are not against the first three commandments." (L.W. X, 1649.)

*) By the "spiritual authority" is to be understood not only the so-called clergy, but also not the lay congregation alone, but rather the whole church or congregation as it consists of teachers and hearers, and is represented either by all men of legal age, or, according to circumstances, by a few. Hence Luther writes in the appendix to the Smalcald Articles: "Christ gives the highest and final judgment to the church, where he says: Tell it unto the church." (On the Power and Authority of the Pope.) The Apology says: "It is likewise not immediately the decision of the church, whatever the bishops and priests decide." Luther expresses himself even more clearly on this point in the so-called Wittenberg Reformation of 1545, where he writes: "Since our Savior Christ says: 'Tell it unto the church,' and thereby commands, by these words, that the church shall be the highest judge, it follows that not one estate alone, namely the bishops, but also other God-fearing scholars from all estates are to be appointed as judges, and are to have voces decisivas (decisive votes)." (L.W. XVII, 1754.)

Since there are, not infrequently, members in congregations who believe it is against their liberty when they are required, in indifferent, sinless matters, to conform to the majority, we let follow, on this point, a few further testimonies from pure teachers. First, Luther further writes in his book on Councils and Churches: "Over and above such outward signs and holy things (sacraments), the Church has additional outward forms by which and through which she is not sanctified, either in body or in soul, and which have likewise not been instituted or commanded by God, but rather ... are well and fittingly suited because they are outwardly necessary or useful; as, for instance, that one keeps certain holidays for preaching or prayer, certain hours, whether morning or afternoon; that one uses a church building or a house, an altar, a pulpit, a baptismal font, candlesticks, candles, bells, priestly vestments, and the like. Christians can indeed be sanctified and remain so without such things ... but for the sake of the children and the simple folk it is fitting, and it makes for a fine order, that they have a certain time, place, and hour by which to govern themselves, as St. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 14: Let all things be done decently and in order. And such order no one — as indeed no Christian does — should despise without cause, out of sheer pride, merely to create disorder against it; rather, for the good of the flock, such order should be kept, or at least not disturbed or hindered. For that would be against love and kindness." (Luther's Works XVI, 2814–15.) Luther writes further: "Between God and you alone, liberty is entirely full and complete, so that before him you need hold to none of these things which he has not commanded; here heaven and earth are full of your liberty — indeed, heaven and earth cannot contain it. But between you and your neighbor, or your authority, it extends no further than insofar as it is harmless to your neighbor; indeed, where it can be useful and helpful, it should not wish to be free, but should yield and serve." (L.W. XIX, 1671.) Finally, Heinrich Müller writes in the appendix to his "Hours of Refreshment": "One is not bound to the confessional in such a way that the Holy Supper is simply denied to someone who has not first appeared there — especially in the case of persons who have come from evangelical places where (private) confession has not been the custom, and who, as young, growing members of the church, cannot yet accommodate themselves to this practice; for in that case the confessional would become a compulsion of conscience, whereas private confession itself is not of divine but of human institution, and has been introduced not universally but only in part. Although the aforesaid persons, in order to prevent any offense among the simple and the weak, are to be kindly disposed and admonished to attend the confessional. For where private confession is customary and confirmed by a church ordinance, there even one who comes from foreign places, insofar as he intends to remain permanently as a member of that same church, is bound to conform to the established church laws existing in this regard, which bind the conscience no less than other laws; and here applies what Augustine writes in Epistle 86: In those matters concerning which Holy Scripture has determined nothing, the custom of the people of God or the practices of the ancients are to be regarded as law." We add further what the church father Augustine reports elsewhere on this point, when he writes, among other things, to Januarius: "When my mother followed me to Milan, she found that the congregation there did not fast on the Sabbath. She began to be troubled and to doubt what she should do. As for me, it did not concern me, but for her sake I asked Ambrose, of blessed memory, for counsel on this matter, who said to me: When I am in Rome, I fast on the Sabbath; when I am here, I do not fast. So you too, whatever congregation you may come to, keep its custom, if you do not wish to give offense to anyone, and none should be given to you."

2.) Another case in which matters of indifference cease to be matters of indifference and to remain within our liberty is this: when, through the use or the omission of them, the weak would be given offense. On this point St. Paul writes at length not only to the Romans (14:13–22) and to the Corinthians (1 Corinthians 8:9–13), but this dear Apostle also shows us, by his own example, how a Christian ought to conduct himself in such a case. For Paul once wished to take the young Timothy along with him as a companion on his apostolic journeys; but Timothy, because his father was a...