# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Februar 1858_S47
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Menius and Flacius in Their Dispute over Ministry and Priesthood. 47

...among us "for the present still conceals the true state of affairs" — that the kindly reader may decide for himself. Time will tell. To be sure, the answer to this question, Luther or Arndt?, "will not be a peaceful one." Because this struggle and contention against the Arndtian direction, prophesied by Str., is at bottom only a struggle against troublesome Pietism, of which that direction is the root, it follows of itself that the struggle, at its height, aims at the sweeping-out of this leaven, and that "the breach" will therefore also, in part, "prove more painful and more harmful than in the struggles hitherto"; but because it is only the final and last clarification of a murky affair, it will, in our humble opinion — for we cannot yet boast of having, in and through our Lutheranism, attained to the gift of prophecy — nevertheless probably lack the grandeur and eventfulness of the main struggle. Yet — experience will teach!

A plain, simple-hearted preacher.

(From the Erlangen Journal.)

Menius and Flacius in Their Dispute over Ministry and Priesthood.
(Conclusion.)

Since Flacius, in earlier writings, had already justified his public appearance by appealing to these same matters, Menius sees himself prompted to explain them at once from his own point of view. He says*):

"But that Illyricus wishes to prove his calling from baptism, from the Ten Commandments, and from the fact that he held a lectureship at the University of Wittenberg, is utterly ridiculous. — — He says he swore to Christ in baptism that he would serve him against the devil and all his following, confess the divine truth, and curse Satan together with all his pomp and finery."

"Here I ask all sensible Christians — indeed, even the slanderer Illyricus himself — what it means and is to serve Christ? What it means and is to confess the divine truth? What it means to curse Satan together with his pomp and finery? — Can one, then, serve Christ without and against his Word, command, and order? Or is it not the Lord Christ's Word, command, and order, what his apostles have taught, ordained, and commanded? St. Paul commands his disciple Titus that he should so establish the churches on the island of Crete that every city have its own particular bishop. And in Acts 20 St. Paul admonishes the elders of Miletus and Ephesus, that they

*) Verantwortung, Bog. H, Bl. 3.