# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_M rz 1858_S86
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

86 On Lay Elders or Congregation Presidents.

his Christeis: "The governors are, as it were, quaestors and censors, who
are set over the discipline of morals, προϊστάμενοι (Rom. 12:8), προεστῶτες
(overseers) and presbyters (elders), who are distinct from those who labor
in the word and in teaching, 1 Tim. 5:17, out of whom together with those
the presbytery (1 Tim. 4:13) was composed." (I, 79.)

Hieronymus Kromayer (Professor at Leipzig, d. 1670) writes:
"That already in the times of the apostles there were two kinds of
presbyters, of whom some taught the word and administered the
sacraments, while others exercised care and oversight over the church's
goods, as today the overseers of the church treasury do, of which we are
instructed from 1 Tim. 5:17." (Th. posit.-polem. p. 1078.)

In similar fashion almost all the eminent theologians of our church
express themselves on the so-called lay elders. Compare, among others,
also Aegidius Hunnius in his commentary on Matthew, ch. 18:17. Balthasar
Bebelius in his Antiquitates eccl. I, 12. Friedrich Balduin in his
Institutio ministr. verbi, ch. 10. Weller in his commentary on the
epistle to the Romans, ch. 12:8. Hemming (the Dane) in the same place.

However undeniable it is, then, that within our church the right is
acknowledged to entrust certain functions of the office touching the
government of the church to lay elders specially appointed for the
purpose, who together with the preacher form the presbytery of a
particular congregation, it nevertheless cannot be denied that this
institution has been put into practice within our church only here and
there. Since in most Lutheran lands church and state remained in the
close connection into which both had been brought by circumstances at
the time of the Reformation, matters touching church government and
discipline were for the most part attended to solely by the civil
authority and the so-called spiritual estate, namely by the consistories
composed of persons from those estates alone.*) Although

*) It is, however, an error to suppose that the consistories already
possessed, in Luther's own time or even by his ordinance, that judicial
and legislative power which they later obtained and retained. Löscher,
in his "Unschuldige Nachrichten," gives a chronicle-like history of the
Electoral-Saxon church order. There it states under the year 1517: "At
that time the first Saxon consistory was also established at Wittenberg,
though it had no jurisdiction." Under the year 1543 it goes on to say:
"At Leipzig a consistory was set up, though without jurisdiction, in
which, as in the one at Wittenberg, anyone could obtain information."
Only under the year 1555, thus long after Luther's death, does it say:
"Elector August established three consistories, at Leipzig, Wittenberg,
and Meissen, with some jurisdiction." Under 1580 it finally says: "The
consistory at Meissen has been moved to Dresden and made into the upper
consistory." (Jahrgang 1708, pp. 24, 25, 26.) Löscher therefore derives
the power given to the consistories solely from the princely power. He
writes: "It is indeed correct that the consistory depends solely on the
princes as far as jurisdiction and formal organization are concerned;
but the presbytery, both as regards the office of the Holy Spirit and