# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Juli 1857_S221
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Church and Contemporary History. 221

...strongly hierarchical bent drove him to an overvaluing of the episcopal constitution, and this has been the point at which Satan seized him and led him into further blindness. — Henrici has not drawn a single soul from his parish over with him, but he has indeed done harm to the cause of the Lord by the offense and given room to the blasphemer."

Dr. Philippi's contest against Dr. von Hofmann. Concerning this, Hengstenberg passes the following judgment, applicable to other situations as well: "We cannot share the view that, in the face of the massive unbelief confronting us, such finely drawn controversies ought to be left to rest. The example of Scripture speaks against it. How vigorously does St. Paul, without letting himself be diverted by the sight of the great mass of unbelieving Jews, combat the errors of the Judaizers, for example in the Epistle to the Galatians! How incisive is the polemic of St. John in the Epistles and in the Apocalypse against the burgeoning Gnosticism that arose out of heathen influences. The men of God take these matters very seriously, not although but precisely because the extra-ecclesiastical error confronts them in such masses. If the entrance which this error seeks to gain into the church is not energetically resisted from the outset, the necessary consequence is that the intruded worldly element gradually and by scarcely perceptible transitions consumes the ecclesiastical one. In our time the ruling worldly principle is rationalism" (it ought to be added: and unionism). "Out of this the churchly theology has laboriously wrestled its way up; this makes ever renewed attempts to force its way back into it, and if these attempts are not vigorously met, the sad consequence is that the end returns to the beginning and that the ""true proverb"" in 2 Peter 2:22 befalls us."

The position of the Prussian United Church. On this Hengstenberg expresses himself as follows in this year's preface: "It will not be possible to dispute with good ground that we are set before the alternative: either the confessions of the confessional churches retain their full validity, or the church in Prussia has no confession at all and is built upon the sand of subjective opinions." But since the Prussian church does not accord full validity to the confessions, upon what, accordingly, is it built — together with all similar human Babylonian edifices here in America as well? — Upon sand. — Further, when at the last "Evangelical Conference" the question was put whether the convening of a territorial synod appears timely, the motion first introduced ran: "The assembly resolves to petition His Majesty the King that (for the present) the development of the higher levels of the synodical system be refrained from," with the following grounds: "1. In a church divided within itself, synods can only increase the confusion and the offense. 2. Given the obscurities existing among us with regard to confessional standing, the synods would lack the necessary authority and legitimation. 3. The church government has not yet gained that firm bearing and security which is required if it is to maintain its position over against the synods. 4. The development of the synodical system would afford a dangerous handle to democratic constitutional aspirations. 5. Synods divided within themselves would gain no significance." The mover points to the conference itself and says: "In all questions of any principle the assembly has divided into two nearly equal parts.. If the spirits are further allowed to clash so violently under such delicate circumstances, the end, at no very distant time, will be that the church flies apart, that what is disparate separates outwardly as well. Whoever does not want this ought fairly also to renounce his synodical inclinations! Certainly no one watches the germs of the synodical system with greater satisfaction than our Lutheran brethren, separated from us by an outward partition. These will receive a not inconsiderable accession simply as a result of the publication of our proceedings. Indeed, at this very moment a ferment is showing itself in the