# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_September 1857_S285
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Church and Contemporary History.   285

be able to be. It is remarkable that this synod wishes to retain the system of licensure as one of those "old usages of the church which have been in vogue in this land for more than a hundred years." The synod is hastening the establishment of a college and theological seminary at Des Moines, Iowa, in order itself to train "thoroughly educated" preachers for the intelligent and enterprising people of Iowa, with the remark that in the "old countries" men "of mediocre attainments and limited talents" might get along, but that Iowa needs more learned and more talented men!

Swedenborgianism. On the occasion of the notice that Pastor Türk had become a Swedenborgian, the Missionary of Pittsburgh remarked that the sect of the Swedenborgians denies the doctrine of the perfection and sufficiency of Scripture and of the Holy Trinity. Remarkably enough, the Swedenborgians have declared this in their New Jerusalem Messenger to be an untrue accusation A new proof how all sects, holding their false doctrine, always have a bad conscience and therefore gladly sail under the flag of the orthodox.

Texas. A certain Mr. Gideon Scherer reports in the "Luth. Observer" that the establishment of a Lutheran college in Texas is in progress, and at the same time calls upon Dr. Benjamin Kurtz, who intends soon to lay down his editorship, as the man to "fill the bill," to take over the presidency of the college or to propose a suitable man for it. In any case, he says, this must not be one devoted to "symbolism," and he must be master of both languages, English and German, since in Texas only that Lutheran preacher finds his bread who can preach in both languages. This last remark sounds strange to us. According to our experience even small and poor German congregations can indeed support their preacher, provided that the preacher does not require all too much "bread."

The East Pennsylvania Synod at its last annual convention adopted the resolution: "that a committee be appointed to report whether it is proper to give laymen of sound judgment and good general education authority to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ." In the "Luth. Obs." this is called "an important resolution." So indeed it is, for it shows that to many American Lutherans even the theological education which is obtained in the institutions here seems superfluous, or that among them, who yet know how to boast so much of "vital piety" in contrast to the "symbolical Lutherans," there is not zeal enough to support the necessary institutions according to need.

How the Romanists now teach concerning the church. The following we read in the "Wahrheitsfreund" of Cincinnati in the number of August 13: "There may nowadays be very many heathen, Jews, Mohammedans, and Protestants who in inculpable ignorance live with pious hearts according to the verdict of their conscience, in accordance with the pious desire truly to please God through faith and virtue. Heathen, Jews, and Mohammedans are baptized through this holy desire, Protestants are made Catholic through this holy desire. How can all these help it that they know nothing of the true faith and never had opportunity to learn to know it? — Of these the Scripture says that they shall be judged not according to the law but according to their conscience.

The church regards herself, by virtue of her divine mission, as the spiritual mother of all men. She calls all her children; these her children now fall into three classes: a) into those who belong to her through baptism and confession and constitute the visible church; b) into those who belong to her by virtue of their holy desire and of the manner of life corresponding to this desire, without knowing her, but of whom the presumption holds that, if they were to come to know the holy doctrine of the church, they would certainly accept it. In order to win them she sends them missionaries.

To this so-called invisible church, whose extent God the Lord alone