# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Mai 1858_S159
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Church and Contemporary Notes.    159

insofar as the budgeted funds for this purpose suffice, be permitted. Royal Government of Upper Bavaria. Baron v. Zu-Rhein, President."

Professor Baumgarten. The Berlin "Deutsche Zeitschrift" announces in its issue of March 6 of this year the following publication: "Documents concerning the Dismissal from Office of Prof. Dr. Baumgarten in Rostock. Schwerin, Stiller, 1858." Among other things it says there: "The dismissal decree with which these documents begin is dated January 6. Baumgarten is removed from office 1. because he broke his sworn obligation to conduct himself, without any innovation, according to the rule of the revealed divine Word, of the unaltered Augsburg Confession, the formula concordiae, and all the other symbolical books received in the Mecklenburg lands, and made the attempt to shake the foundation of the territorial church to its very depths; 2. because from these theological deviations in doctrine he at the same time derives political teachings of the most questionable sort. As for the rest, it is decreed that the deposed professor's salary shall continue to be paid until such time as he either obtains another position, or by his further conduct occasions the discontinuance of this payment. The second and final document is a "Requested Opinion" of the Consistory, 237 pages in length, signed by Wiggers, Krabbe, Mejer." The reviewer adds: "The authors of the Opinion say: the legitimate freedom of teaching has its limit at the content of faith of the symbolical books. If one holds this factual finding together with the Lutheran symbols, one must say: either Baumgarten believed that the whole formula of obligation was not meant juridically (which, to be sure, would have been a very strange presumption), or that one part of it, in which he vowed to follow the rule of the revealed divine Word, was suited to protect him provisionally against an appeal to the symbolical books (which, likewise, would have been just as strange, since the very act of co-swearing to the Symbol required is a confession that one has recognized the thoroughgoing consensus of the biblical and symbolical doctrines) — "but if Baumgarten knew that one considers oneself obligated to interpret the whole formula according to the strictest right, then he was, in our opinion, obligated to lay down his office voluntarily. For the oath is a matter of the highest importance." (Certainly a remarkable concession from a theologian of the Union!) The Unionist reviewer adds further: "Professor Philippi in Rostock we are sorry for. He has a fine work in hand, his "Church Doctrine of Faith." The Prolegomena were, apart from a few trifles, very much in accord with the church. The second volume is already far more infected with what one might call modern culture. It is to be feared, if things go on this way in the following volumes, that a further "Opinion" would prove of him too that it was not "without any" innovation having taken place in him. Indeed, these innovations — if only one could avoid them! But they seem to be in the air; the pillars of orthodoxy are tottering. There is Thomasius, v. Hofmann, and whatever their names are, who invent novelties and hold, withal, the peculiar opinion that something can be not wholly Lutheran and yet wholly biblical." However repugnant the Unionist hostility toward Lutheran right belief sounds from these words, it is all the more regrettable that such sarcasms are only too much provoked in our time.

Kingdom of Saxony. In a private letter from there, of April 9 of this year, it is said of that country: "Besides, there is even talk of an alteration of the church constitution now existing among us. The proposals have already been submitted to the Diet now in session at Dresden; but the particulars are not yet known in detail. As it is said, we are to get, looking upward, a Consistory-General, and looking downward, church councils as representatives of the parish congregations, and perhaps also general and diocesan synods as in Bavaria. This would at least achieve the result that those who are constrained and reduced to passivity by our present constitution, with its innumerable laws and ordinances (two thick volumes),