# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Juli 1858_S203
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Münkel on Prof. Baumgarten's Dismissal. 203

addition that "the authorities will consider whether a synod ought to
be held." The first of these, the admonition, had already occurred long
before, when B. was dismissed from the examination commission. A synod,
however, is not prescribed for every case, but is left to the discretion
of the authorities or government, who must judge whether a synod could
be fruitful. The grand-ducal government would indeed have had to be
blind not to see what a synod could have produced other than welcome
material for newspaper articles. B. appealed to the claim that, according
to God's Word as set forth in the church order, he must be given a
hearing, by which he sought to escape a judgment based on the symbolical
books. That would have made for a strange disputation, especially had B.
appealed to his own extraordinary communication of the Spirit; for if,
according to B.'s own teaching, the highest authority lies not in the
killing letter of Holy Scripture but in the person filled with the Holy
Spirit, then he ought to have demanded as judges not Scripture but
Spirit-filled persons. The government could then have told him that such
persons had already examined his writings, and himself, out of longer
acquaintance, and had found him to be a fanatic. It would, moreover, be
all the less necessary to negotiate with him, since his declaration was
already on record in writing, to this effect: "Therefore I will not let
myself be led astray in this my calling by anyone, whoever it may be."
One can only regard it with astonishment that a man who fights church
order and church law as enemies of Christian life should, for the
protection of his own person, appeal to them. Church order and church
law, then, are to count for something only when B. can make use of them
to entrench himself in his position of attack against church order and
church law.

The government sent Professor B.'s petition back to him, with the
notice that it could not accept a document composed in such unseemly
and immoderate expressions. B. thereupon submitted a second document,
which struck a gentler note, but achieved nothing more than the
decision that matters must rest as determined on January 6. With that,
this sorry affair is for now brought to an end — one that once again
lets us look into the deep wounds of our Church. According to the
remarks of the documents, it is an excessive estimation of his own
person that has brought Prof. B. into this abyss. And indeed such a
thing, when it is combined, in so significant a man as B. undoubtedly
is, with Christian powers of light and life, must become very
dangerous — first of all for himself, and, as soon as a sufficient
strength of character is added, for others as well. One has good reason
to recall the word of the Lord: Watch and pray, that ye enter not into
temptation; for the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak!