# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_April 1858_S107
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Answer to a Voice from the Lutheran Church of Germany, etc.    107

...one should rather let everything go topsy-turvy, so that it seems as
if all were in disorder, than concede anything to the truth and the
principle. God the Lord is present where the truth reigns, and even if
it should seem as though all the devils held their dominion there, he
surely always triumphs, even when he seems to be losing. But woe to him
who, out of obstinacy, sets himself against an order: upon him God's
wrath must burn, and he will one day be summoned before a strict
tribunal for having, by his stubbornness, hindered this or that
blessing." —

Surely, after careful, unprejudiced examination of what has been said
here, you will not be able to argue against it with compelling grounds
or proofs from God's Word, and would in the end find it unobjectionable
as well, were it not for the second stumbling block — namely, that
among us the pastors and bishops are supposed to have no part in the
leading and governing of their flocks. Now here it is quite
incomprehensible to us how you could have given room in your heart to
the slander and calumny of our enemies. You have indeed read the Fort
Wayne Church Order, and there it says, in §21, in express words:
"Neither the teaching office alone nor the hearership alone, but both
together as the congregation, have the right and the authority to
establish the order of public worship prevailing in the congregation, to
introduce, alter, or abolish ceremonies." We therefore expressly guard
against any concept of the congregation that would exclude the preaching
office; we have done so not once but often, in particular and in
public, and yet we still must bear the reproach, and even you, who are
indeed so well disposed toward us, nevertheless fear greatly that this
charge in fact applies to us.

That would surely not be possible, were it not that, unfortunately, a
difference in principle is found here as well. You say that our pastors
and bishops may at most teach and advise, but that governing and
deciding are done by the sovereign flock itself. Evidently, then, you
too locate the governing of the church in the passing of decrees and
resolutions. The apostles at the council in Jerusalem teach us
otherwise; they did not draw up the final decision by themselves alone,
as they might well have done, but rather it says in Acts 15:22, "it
seemed good to the apostles and elders, with the whole congregation,"
etc., and again, verse 23, "and they wrote and gave into their hand as
follows: We, the apostles and elders and brethren," etc. But who would
now wish to say that the apostles, because the final decision did not
proceed independently and solely from themselves alone, had not
governed the congregation with God's Word? For the whole course of
events, even down to the not inconsiderable dissension and tumult that
arose, is described for us plainly by Luke, and it shows, in the most
concrete way, how very differently the church of God is governed by the
Spirit through the Word than is pleasing to the more recent Lutheran
theology, according to which the higher church authority, in an
entirely papistic manner, passes resolutions and