# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Juli 1860_S204
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

204 The Struggle within the Prussian Lutheran Church.

On the basis of what has been communicated here, we might consider ourselves entitled to the joy of finding in Räthjen the orthodox doctrine of the church, and accordingly to believe that, to the question, what the church is, he would answer without reserve and out of joyful conviction in agreement with our confessions: "She is properly nothing else than the assembly of all believers and saints." And: "Although the wicked and godless hypocrites have fellowship with the true church in outward signs, in name and offices, yet when one wishes to speak properly of what the church is, one must say of this church, which is called the body of Christ, that she has fellowship not in outward signs alone, but has the treasures in the heart, the Holy Spirit and faith."

This pure doctrine, however, Räthjen has unfortunately not grasped with clarity, decisiveness, and awareness of the truths that follow from it. This may already be gathered from the fact that it is expressed clearly only incidentally, in polemic, and not in the exposition of his doctrine of the church itself. Also, the error that confuses and obscures for him the right doctrine already makes itself not indistinctly noticeable in what has been communicated above. This error consists, first, in this: that he wants to see the church in the proper sense of the word. Whereas Luther says: "She does not wish to be seen, but believed"; Räthjen holds: She does not wish to be believed, but seen.

He expresses this in the following way: "To the important question, How far am I certain of the church of Jesus Christ? — we give the answer: so far as you are certain of the Holy Spirit; that is, not so far as you believe that He works, for He works through everything and everywhere, but so far as you hear and see that He is received, and indeed received to the degree that He leads to the confession of Jesus Christ the God-man, and unites men through the confession of this living truth. So far, and only so far, can one see the church and be certain of it in this world, that it is present here and there; but not in names, or lands, or church governments. One can accept the best everywhere, but that gives no religious certainty. From this it follows that I must always first be certain of my own soul as being in the church, and may never seek my support in other people. That others are right, I can never know as certainly as I must know it of myself. — One must not go off into what is lofty and vast; rather, upon the small territory of the soul heaven is opened, and thereafter you will see whether you have the pure Word and Sacrament in your congregation, and in what connection your congregation stands. And it is by the congregation to which you hold that Christ wishes to be confessed by you. — Nevertheless the soul has come to the church only through the church herself, our mother; through the church as the heavenly one. But this is no consistory, no territorial church, no synod, no individual personality of a single preacher and the like, although all these are at the same time instruments of the heavenly