# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_April 1858_S105
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Answer to a Voice from the Lutheran Church of Germany, etc.    105

prayer, can prevail and beat down the strongholds of the devil. That,
you will object, was indeed so in the apostolic congregations, when the
Word was in power; but among you the arbitrary will of the mob rules,
for so it stands in the Fort Wayne church order: the congregation is the
supreme instance and court in all church matters, and above it stands no
one else. But we ask you, read the relevant §8 once more. It says there
not merely: "the congregation in its entirety has the supreme power in
the outward and inward administration of all ecclesiastical and
congregational affairs," but at the close it is also expressly stated:
"yet the congregation has no right to ordain or decide anything against
God's Word and the Symbols of the pure evangelical Lutheran Church.
Should it do so, all such ordinances and decisions are null and void."
You see, then — and this is a general and constant principle among us —
it is not arbitrary will but the Word of God that rules and governs in
our congregations; and yet you can say: "I confess that, for
conscience's sake, I could not be a pastor of a congregation that, as a
matter of principle, should possess such power and plenary authority."
Then, to be consistent, you would also have to reject and dispute Thesis
VII of Part 1 of Walther's book, together with the proofs and evidences
from Scripture and the Symbols adduced there, for it says there
expressly: "as the visible communions, in which Word and Sacrament are
still substantially present, bear, according to God's Word, the name
church on account of the true, invisible church of truly believing
people found within them, so these same communions also possess, for the
sake of the true, invisible church hidden within them — even if it were
only two or three — the power that Christ has given to his whole
church." — Yet you have not objected to this thesis in the least, and
nevertheless you recoil in horror from the simple, practical application
of the doctrine expressed in it — a doctrine unshakably grounded in
God's Word and clearly attested in the Symbols. This we could indeed not
reconcile at all, were it not that we could see from your letter that,
alongside manifold unclarity in doctrine, significant misunderstandings
again prevail with you on this point as well. You cannot free yourself
from the concern that arbitrary will must rule in our congregations, or
will at least gain the upper hand at the first best opportunity, since,
as you believe, all church matters are decided in our congregational
meetings by majority vote, and the pastors and bishops have no part in
the leading and governing of their flocks. To this we can, of course,
confidently say: come and see; and in truth it is incomprehensible to us
how you could have arrived at such an opinion at all. We indeed confess
ourselves unconditionally bound to the canonical Scripture of the Old
and New Testaments, and without reservation to all the Symbols of our
dear Lutheran Church. How, then, could there still be any talk of
matters of faith and doctrine being decided by majority