# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Februar 1857_S33
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Doctrine and Defense.

Volume III. February 1857. No. 2.

(Submitted by Prof. Dr. Sihler.)
How Are Truly Lutheran Congregations Founded
and Raised Up.
Fourth Article.
Church Government.

If we now take up this topic before us, it must again be
noted in advance that here too it is not our intention to treat exhaustively,
as doctrine, the nature and character, the goal and purpose of church government.
Here too it shall suffice to point out the evangelical mind
and spirit of an upright servant of the Lutheran church,
who, guided by the divine Word and without the makeshift aid of human
arts, sails unharmed between the two reefs of priestly rule and mob
rule, and preserves an unwounded conscience,
both toward God and toward men, that is, toward himself and others.

But before this happens, and before we proceed to the matter itself, it will
not be unhelpful if we first call attention to a few historical circumstances
which, on both sides of the ocean, with regard to the
governance of the Lutheran church, now present themselves to us more forcefully than usual, and then
dwell a little on the relationship in which our church
here in this land stands to the civil government.

As to the first point, then, it emerges clearly from most contemporary tracts
and pamphlets, as well as from particular books and booklets from the Lutheran church
of Germany, that the question of constitution and governance of the
church is strongly agitated — and that in the Lutheran territorial churches the supreme-
episcopal church government of the territorial prince is regarded as a firm anchor and support
for the church in good times and bad, indeed almost as one of the most glorious
jewels of the Lutheran church.

Great pains are taken here to demonstrate clearly and irrefutably the so-called "historical right,"
by virtue of which the territorial prince is also the supreme bishop of the Lutheran
territorial church, it being furthermore a matter of indifference whether he himself is Lutheran,
or Catholic, or united, or
Reformed. There one looks, indeed, with a certain condescending pity
upon Luther and his fellow workers and fellow-