# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_August 1860_S239
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

The Struggle within the Prussian Lutheran Church. 239

ment. In his polemic against Ehlers he expresses himself thus: "So Ehlers finally admits that in reality he agrees entirely with those who teach a "higher church government" de jure divino (by divine right), which he himself utterly rejects. He admits that his church government must be clothed with a certain fullness of power and must demand obedience even where the congregations are not in a position to convince themselves of the rightness of his course of action. Were it not so, Ehlers thinks, the church government could not exercise its governing office either. — Against this we must protest throughout. Wherein is this "certain fullness of power" supposed to consist? In the spirit and word of the Gospel? No, for the "higher church government" has no Gospel to preach; it is even supposed to "demand obedience without conviction." That happens only on the ground of the Law and by outward compulsion, and in no other way, however one may twist and gloss over the matter. Such conduct, forbidden by Christ and all the Apostles, which our Symbols accordingly also decisively condemn, Ehlers finds useful, indeed indispensable to us, and even well-pleasing to God. We say the very opposite of all this. A "certain fullness of power" was what Satan offered the Lord Christ in the wilderness, and He said: Get thee hence! Over the distribution of this "certain fullness of power" the disciples deliberated (that is, quarreled) on that evening, namely how it was to be organized in the messianic kingdom which they dreamed was at hand. And Jesus said: Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat. Ye shall not be so! In My kingdom all fullness of power lies in serving with the Word, and that is also the very greatest; the one who is highest with Me is no commander who might demand obedience without conviction, but he serves the most. A kingdom of the cross is My kingdom of grace; and to maintain that you will indeed have to arm yourselves with purse, wallet and sword, for it will meet with hard resistance — yes, even now again in Breslau, as formerly in Jerusalem and Rome. And Peter exhorts the sole leaders given by God to the congregations: to feed the congregations — not as lording it over the people, but be ye examples to the flock. And are we supposed to obey without conviction, at the command of a few men elected by a majority, who do not even have the semblance of power (that a power can also be created by men never occurs to Räthjen), let alone a fullness of it for themselves? They have no preaching office, they have no sword as civil authority. And the preachers too, we maintain against Ehlers, are not to rule in this way, but to teach." On the passage of the Breslau Theses concerning church government: "The "acknowledging" of those who are set over the church in the Lord (1 Thessalonians 5:12) also includes an obeying, which has its measure and extent in this, that church government is a service to the Word of God and a function (activity) of love toward the body of many members," Räthjen remarks: "Is this thesis supposed to set up any other obedience than the obedience of faith?