# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_December 1858_S360
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

360 Kraußold and the Doctrine of the Ministry.

apostles, was a sinner, and he appealed, 1, to the fact that all the other apostles were sinners just as much as Peter, and, 2, that indeed, according to Scripture, all men without exception are sinners. Here, admittedly, the doctrine of the universal sinfulness of mankind would not be treated ex professo in the sense that presenting this doctrine had been the next purpose; nonetheless this doctrine would thereby be clearly expressed, and would take on here a place all the more important, in that it would hold here the position of a postulate, or better, of a generally recognized major premise. So too the presentation of the doctrine of the ministry is not thereby made, by virtue of the relation in which it stands above, something secondary or inessential within the confession; on the contrary, it becomes all the more important, since the whole argument is built upon it as upon something unshakeable. Still more foolish, indeed, is the claim that in that passage it is not at all a question of the relation of the pastors to the Church, but of that of the Pope; that, as regards the Pope, everything is of course quite right, but what has this matter to do with the office of the pastors? From this one sees only how blind false doctrine and preconceived opinions can make a person; otherwise one would and must see that an intensification is indeed taking place here: namely, in order to refute the claim that the Pope has a headship in the Church, it is first proved that Peter had no headship over the apostles, and then, second, that in general no one in the Church possesses a headship at all, since the power on which the headship is supposed to be grounded — namely the keys or the office — is given to the whole Church. The privilege of the keys or of the office, which one wished to claim for the Pope alone, is thus taken from him by the very proof that this privilege belongs not even to the apostles alone, indeed not even to the pastors alone, but to the whole Church, that is, to all believers.

It is remarkable that Kraußold, who nevertheless undertakes to set forth the doctrine of the ministry exactly as it is contained in the confessions of the ev.-luth. Church, and indeed especially with regard to the relation of the office to the spiritual priesthood of all Christians, fails to take into account, and to compare with his own system, the chief passage in which this relationship is expressly considered — namely the passage from the tract appended second to the Smalcald Articles: "Of the Power and Jurisdiction of Bishops," which reads as follows: "Here belong the sayings of Christ, which testify that the keys were given to the whole Church and not to a few particular persons, as the text says: Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them, etc. Finally, this is also confirmed by the saying of Peter, where he says: Ye are the royal priesthood. These words properly concern the true Church, which, because it alone has the priesthood, must also have the power to choose and ordain church servants." It almost seems as if Kraußold has a particular reluctance to come too close to the passages in which the phrase "whole Church" is elucidated by Matt. 18:20; for