# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_October 1858_S302
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

302     Lutheran-Theological Pastor's Library.

...doctrine and life a distinguished man. The Mansfeld superintendent Hieronymus Mencelius writes of him in the preface to the second edition of the aforementioned Pastorale: "A particularly great sorrow has befallen us in this county through the unforeseen fatal passing of this excellent man, who would only now have become a man in his full prime, one whom not only our churches but also many others should have had the benefit of enjoying. For he was a man of excellent, high gifts, of good judgment [Judicii] and untiring diligence in reading, writing, preaching, and in all the labor which our office demands and brings with it. And withal he was not puffed up, proud, and haughty, but humble, friendly, obliging, and compliant toward everyone. A particular lover of peace and brotherly unity. With all his colleagues he got along very well, and wherever he noticed that rivalries [simultates] or some aversion might arise, he took pains to forestall it and counseled and helped toward peace. Toward other people, too, he was such a man as always let an honest disposition be found in him, so that he went straight to the point and told everyone the truth, yet with all modesty. Therefore he was also dearly loved by everyone, and by his passing he grieved many pious people and left behind in them a longing desire for him." As for Porta's doctrine, he was, to put it briefly and precisely, a faithful disciple of Luther, who had not only made Luther's writings his chief study but had turned their content into succum et sanguinem [flesh and blood, i.e. thoroughly assimilated it], and was filled, as few were, with Luther's spirit. When the Flacians, under the leadership of Cyriacus Spangenberg, caused the well-known sorrowful confusions in the Mansfeld territory, our Porta stood unmovably on the side of the orthodox Lutherans. He paid no heed to the fact that the counts of Mansfeld, on January 5, 1574, issued a mandate in which they called him and Fabricius, on account of their persistence in the pure doctrine of original sin, "false teachers," and added: "We hereby give you, Fabricius, Porta, and Krause, our earnest mandate that you no longer presume upon the church office in both our churches of St. Peter's and St. Nicholas's; as we, for our part — provided there is still a single peace-loving drop of blood left in you — fully expect this to happen." Only the intervention of the princess Margaretha of Brunswick protected Porta from the threatened dismissal. As for Porta's "Pastorale Lutheri" itself, now at last, the title already indicates clearly enough what is to be found in it. It is divided into twenty-four main articles concerning what belongs to the right conduct of the office, and into an appendix which gives instruction on the necessary increase and the honest administration of church property. The main articles treat: 1. of the worthiness and dignity of the holy preaching office, 2. of the call of preachers, 8. [sic] of study, 4. of the preachers' gifts and their manner of teaching, 5. of teaching in itself, 6. of rebuking, 7. of comforting, 8. of admonishing and warning, 9. of prayer, 10. of their life and conduct, 11. of the priest's marriage and household governance, 12. of marriage-mat-