# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_October 1857_S291
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

From a Country Pastor.   291

an individual knows as his own and to whom none feels himself a stranger either. This Spirit by His very nature transcends individuality and is the work of the personal Holy Spirit dwelling in believers. With one disposition they carry on the same thing. Their prayers have the "we" and the "us." And wherever a judgment, a prayer out of faith expresses itself in one, it appears unfailingly also in the others who hear it, as the prayer and judgment of the hearer himself. Only by virtue of this union already present in faith can the Christian and churchly unity come outwardly to light in the congregational union. It happens at times that one thought, one will animates a whole nation, so that it acts as one man — what is here a passing thing, the congregation of Jesus possesses abidingly. In respect also of men's capacity for union with one another, faith fulfills the prayer of Jesus: I pray also for those who through their word shall believe in Me, that they all may be one.

This spiritual bond, which does not let believers be individuals but joins them all into one holy congregation, is present only in believers, for it is given along with faith. It therefore shares in the very conditions of faith; it is more or less conscious, strong or weak, as faith is. The confession "I believe in one holy Christian Church, the communion of saints," in the mouth of the confessing Christian declares that there truly are believers in Christ who are bound to one another into one holy congregation, and it testifies without doubt to that becoming aware of the communion of saints which is present in faith. If your definition of the church is correct, then this confession is no article of faith but an absurdity; for what every sensible man can see and know, namely that Christians come together into congregations, is left to be believed only by fools.

You have perhaps long had an objection ready: I speak only of the spiritual bond of believers. But a congregation, you say, requires also a constitution, a definite ordering of the members, which assigns to each individual member a definite position in relation to the fellowship, so that he may render the contribution due from him to the whole. This organization of the church, you say, takes place precisely through the coming together into congregations, in which the individuals are ordered as teachers and hearers.

The ordering of individuals in the church is the second thing; the uniting of the many is the first. For without a united willing there is no society worthy of the name. It must also already exist before it can be ordered. The common will makes the society; it unites those previously separated, and it is that whereby an assembly, a society, a fellowship is distinguished from a mere gathering. But every will has an object which it wills, a purpose. Through its purpose the society becomes a definite one, this or that; and in order to attain the purpose that stands firm for all the members, so that what is desired may go forward,