# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_October 1857_S293
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

From a Country Pastor.   293

present herself in perfection in the full number of her members, without strife, without unequal distribution, without confusion, pure, holy, beautiful, strong, inwardly free in highest dignity, in an order that lasts forever.

At present the unity of the church is only an inward one, subsisting in faith, not visible in outward nature; her members are scattered over the face of the earth. At present the business of the church is not to give herself a constitution, but to gather men into her fellowship of faith and to preserve and strengthen those gathered therein. For this she has received gifts from her Head: apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers, workers of miracles, gifts of healing, helps, governments, divers kinds of tongues. Her present organization and activity is not that which corresponds to her purpose, but a provisional one, which will cease along with the piecemeal character of the gifts. This provisional ordering of her members is no outward articulation of one great whole, of which even the apostolic age knew nothing. Living together in ordered congregations suits her just as well as, in particular cases, being free from any outward congregational union. In her the wandering Paul is found no less than James at Jerusalem. Both spatial dwelling together and spatial dispersion must serve the heavenly Head for the gathering and preservation of believers, without the member itself being thereby more or less firmly joined to the body of the church; and the church is not destroyed when God permits persecutors to tear apart the bonds of fellowship and to scatter the members. For in the outward dispersion and unequal distribution of gifts they are nevertheless inwardly one in faith.

The church of Christ, then, is the totality of all who truly believe in Christ, inwardly joined into one holy fellowship. To her belong all the gifts of Christ, and therefore also to every believer — not indeed insofar as he as an individual distinguishes himself from and within the church, for what is given to the congregation belongs also only to her — but certainly also to the one who stands alone in space; for since the church is united not spatially but spiritually, the believer who is spatially isolated is also one with her. Where therefore the Christian confesses and acts in faith, there the church confesses and acts. In her there is complete freedom and equality, for in Christ they are all only one, and among themselves no greater arbitrary liberty is granted to some and less to others, such that the former could by their arbitrary will press upon the latter and freedom would be distributed in unequal measure; rather, such a freedom of arbitrary will is entirely cast out of a fellowship which is governed solely by the Holy Spirit, who belongs to all the members. And since the special endowment and the special calling are not given to the individual for arbitrary use, but are the property of the whole church, the Christian as an individual is distinguished only by the particular service, according to gift and calling, which he is to render to the whole. For each is a member of the other, each single one the member of all the rest. Of the