# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_December 1858_S355
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Kraußold and the Doctrine of the Ministry. 355

"-lowship"; just as, of course, one must distinguish the tares from the wheat precisely according to their concept, although in the field the one continues to be intermingled with the other. Carpzov, whom Kr. otherwise repeatedly cites, therefore writes expressly: "The Augsburg Confession does not take the word 'Church' in the broad sense, in which it comprehends both chaff and grain, and under the name of the Church all those are understood who are baptized, as opposed to unbelievers or heathen and the unbaptized; but rather in the strict, proper, and original sense: for the multitude of those who are united with Christ as their Head, and among themselves mutually, on this earth by true faith and sincere love, as the Apology explains this on pp. 144, 146, 149, 154, and as the 8th Article has guarded near its beginning. To this meaning the unholy and hypocrites, whether in doctrine or in morals, who are intermingled with the Church, are not opposed. For it is one thing to be a coetus which consists of hypocrites and those who truly and sincerely believe, and another thing to be a coetus with which hypocrites are intermingled. The Church properly so called is not a coetus that consists of hypocrites and the unholy, but a coetus with which hypocrites and the unholy are intermingled. As the Augsburg Confession carefully explains this at the beginning of Art. 8." (Isag. in libb. eccl. Luth. Symb., p. 305.) — Those, to be sure, who have applied the promises to the visible Church and wish preachers as such to be reckoned among the Church, necessarily need the ungodly and hypocrites in their Church; they see quite well that if they may not include the ungodly in the concept of the Church and let them belong to it, then the Church in the proper sense of the word would have to be the invisible Church: but by this they only reveal that they do not have the Lutheran concept of the Church. According to them, the 8th Article ought to have been worded thus: "Although the Christian Church is properly nothing other than the assembly of all believers and saints, yet since in this life many false Christians and hypocrites" — belong to the Church, etc.; — but the Augustana, following the biblical-Lutheran doctrine of the Church, could not possibly continue in that way, but rather thus: "many false Christians and hypocrites are present, and public sinners remain among the devout, yet the sacraments are nevertheless efficacious," etc. Kraußold therefore seems also to have sensed quite well that his theory is not to be found in the 8th Article of the Augsburg Confession. He therefore writes: "Art. VIII of the Conf. Aug. has its difficulties (!), because in the wording of the sentence the contrasts among its clauses do not clearly emerge." Yes indeed, we are quite willing to believe that Dr. Kraußold saw "difficulties" and obscurities in the article; but this lies not in the confession, but in his own head; for it is indeed "difficult" to read out of the confession something that is not in it, and which one nevertheless so heartily wishes to find there.

Since, then, Kraußold's doctrine of the Church is false, his doctrine of the ministry must also of neces-