# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Mai 1858_S136
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

136 On the Divisions in the Lutheran Congregations Here.

was founded, to establish yet another congregation — is not merely restricted to heathen mission congregations is already made plain from the fact that, among the heathen, there can be no talk at all of a "foreign foundation," a foundation laid by another, in the Christian sense. Further, the apostle Paul gives his Titus the general instruction to set up the holy preaching office not by man, but by place; just as, indeed, nowhere in Holy Scripture is a congregation ever named after its preacher who serves in it, but always after the place where it has gathered. Titus 1:5: "For this cause left I thee in Crete, that thou shouldest set in order the things that are wanting, and appoint elders in every city (κατά πόλιν, per civitates, oppidatim, city by city), as I had appointed thee."

The correctness of this principle is also plain from the divine prohibition of attachment to persons in matters of faith. For if each person, in choosing a steward over God's mysteries, does not go by whom God has set over him, but instead each one chooses, according to his own preference, whoever exactly suits his taste, then it is the standing of the person, instead of the divine office, and the gifts of the preacher, instead of the Word that he preaches, that have come to prevail in the church. Faith in the divine calling of the preacher — to preach precisely to me, and in his divine sending precisely to me — is destroyed and abolished; the whole relationship of the preacher to his spiritual children has sunk down to a faithless, human contractual relationship, and obedience toward the servant of God, as toward God, has been transformed into a wretched playing of favorites.—Indeed, the necessary caution and provision against the agitating and faction-forming of conceited, doctrine-hungry, fanatical people already leads us, of necessity, to this salutary order. For if, even in a place like Corinth, where there was but one congregation, vexing partisan strifes and divisions could occur, how much nearer does not this danger lie when the members of different congregations live jumbled together in one place! And further, if every other preacher again has the right to gather yet other people in the same place, attach them to his person, and form new congregations! How, then, should order be maintained, how should any limit at last even be found, if it does not stand firm: here God has already set a servant, and therefore no other may come to this place, no new congregation may be formed — rather, if need requires it, the already existing congregation, as mother congregation, must mark off and set up locally separate daughter congregations of its own, so that in a manner pleasing to God, unity may be preserved and order and peace maintained. E. Brauer.