# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Januar 1858_S27
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Church Contemporary-History Notes.                                    27

...set up by his public teaching activity as a judge and master over all churches and schools may be regarded as disposed of by Flacius's brief answer. Flacius's answer is this*):

"That such a ground is false is evident: for where have I presumed to govern even the lowliest pastor? Where have I commanded or forbidden anything to the lowliest sexton? Where have I presumed, in any church, to preach, to baptize, to administer communion or absolution, to constitute or to reform?"

— "Yes, he will say, you have nevertheless written against the Adiaphora, the Interim, Major, the papacy, Osiander, Schwenckfeld, etc.; therefore you have arrogated to yourself a supreme authority."

"My argument is this: whoever writes against every kind of error and seducer sets himself above all churches. Illyricus writes against every kind of error, etc.; therefore he sets himself above all churches."

"This argument holds just as much against Menius as against me. Whoever writes against every kind of error and seducer sets himself above all churches. Menius does this, as can be seen from his writings; therefore he sets himself above all churches. Sed Major est falsa — the first premise is false."

"But if it does not follow from your writing, dear Meni, that you have thereby set yourself up as a supreme pastor over all churches and have meddled in an office not your own, then it does not follow from mine either."

Now, once this exaggeration is set aside, there still remains as a principle: one not lawfully called may not publicly teach, judge, and censure in the church according to God's Word — from which the next question arises: what is the case with the duties of confession and proclamation that spring from faith and baptism?

(Conclusion follows.)

Church Contemporary-History Notes.

I. America.

The Tennessee Synod. In the "Lutheran Standard" of December 23 of last year, we find a letter from the Reverend Pastor Wetzel from the aforementioned synod, in which he demonstrates, with documentation, that the Tennessee Synod has always and everywhere acknowledged the symbolic authority of the entire Book of Concord, and that therefore it is not those who, within the synod, accept the whole body of the Lutheran confessions as binding, but rather those who do not do so, who form a party over against the synod. This is by way of notice, and at the same time as clarification of what was reported in the previous volume, November issue, p. 352. — In the same issue of the "Standard" there is likewise a contribution in which proof is given that the constitution of the Tennessee Synod, which declares the pastorate and the diaconate to be two distinct grades of office, and establishes that the pastor

*) Apologia, signature C.