# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Juni 1857_S171
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

How Are Truly Lutheran Congregations Founded and Raised? 171

...maintain in theory the truth that essentially and properly only Christ the Lord, through His Gospel and Sacraments and in the public administration of both by means of the preaching office, governs His Church on earth; but in practice, for example when they found a new congregation, they nevertheless soon strive to set up a rather elaborately articulated congregational constitution, and imagine that by this they have accomplished something very salutary, forestalled all manner of disputes, and spared themselves and the congregation various troubles. No less do they imagine that the congregation thereby already takes on an ecclesiastical form, when it willingly accepts such a church order — whether it be an older German one adapted to local circumstances here, or a new one specially drafted; and in the latter case there not seldom occurs the twofold ill and want of understanding, that either the church order of an older and larger American congregation is adopted word for word, or one drafted without the counsel and assistance of older or more experienced fellow ministers is laid before the congregation and approved and accepted by it.

However honest and sincere the disposition of our dear fellow ministers may be in this, it is nevertheless certain that, amid such well-meaning zeal, the evangelical view of the Church — and of how God's Word alone should properly and essentially govern within it — had, as it were, fallen into forgetfulness with them. For he to whom this stands clear before the soul and remains so will, upon taking over a new congregation, strive only toward this: that first of all the rule of the divine Word come to power and validity, and that especially the Gospel work faith and love in the hearts of the members of his flock.

To that end he will, as has already been shown in the first article, exert all diligence rightly to divide the Word of truth, Law and Gospel, to administer the holy Sacraments according to Christ's institution, and, as a faithful and wise steward, the more closely he becomes acquainted with his parishioners, to render to each in private pastoral care what is due him and to satisfy the particular spiritual need of each individual, whether by teaching or admonition, rebuke, comfort, and so forth.

He will also, furthermore, keep watch over his conscience in this, that he give the holy Supper to no manifest non-Christian — in sum, that he conduct his office, in all the matters the Lord has specially commanded him for the feeding of His people, in accordance with Holy Scripture and the confession of the Church, and especially according to the direction and instruction he has given in St. Paul's pastoral epistles. Here, too, he will, as is fitting, allow his congregation no say in the matter, and will put back within their proper bounds any presumptuous spirits and self-appointed advisers.

But in all those matters which are subject to Christian liberty and which each congregation can order according to its own best judgment, as serves its spiritual welfare, he will be just as far from wishing to diminish the congregation's evangelical rights and, through deceptive appli-