# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Mai 1861_S149
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

From the Proceedings of the Rhenish Conference of Lutheran Pastors, etc. 149

always only to individuals." — And let one finally consider the ground to which the Symbols trace everything back, namely 1 Peter 2, "ye are the royal priesthood"; let one note how definitely it says: "this saying applies to the true church, that is, the assembly of believers, which, because it alone has the priesthood, must also have the authority to call ministers of the church." What other sense can these words have than this: because the keys belong to the assembly that has the priesthood — because they are therefore a piece and part of this priesthood — for that reason this assembly must also have the right to appoint servants for itself, in order to carry out the functions that belong to it, the assembly; for understand: to you, the assembly of believers, to you belongs the priesthood; yours therefore are all the priestly functions, preaching, absolving, etc.; it has these its functions carried out by its servants. Who then may forbid the mistress, who has the business of the house to look after, from calling and ordaining servants to that end?

In sum: if the Symbols trace the keys back to the general priesthood of all Christians — if they ground upon this the conclusion and say that in an emergency one plain layman may absolve another — then beyond all doubt all this can be said and meant in no other sense than the one in which Luther and all the fathers constantly and unceasingly ground the keys upon the general priesthood and say that every ordinary Christian may absolve his neighbor, etc.

The most complete and best-grounded case that can be made for the doctrine of the preaching office combated in the foregoing is probably to be found in Kraussold's treatise "Amt und Gemeinde" [Office and Congregation]. The opposing principles appear in it clearly and fully; in order to characterize them briefly, I should like to adduce the following here:

1. As the cardinal point of his whole argument, as the actual thesis of the Lutheran doctrine of the ministry, Kraussold sets up the proposition: the office is an immediately divine institution; consequently the call and the command to exercise the claves lie in it alone (the church, however, has the claves only insofar as the office has been divinely instituted in it). As proof of this thesis Kraussold appeals to all the innumerable passages from the Symbols and from Luther that treat of the divine institution of the office. — But it would be quite simple to reply here: certainly and without doubt the office is an immediately divine institution; that shall not be touched with a finger. But the question is precisely, for what purpose was the office instituted? Answer: only for the public and orderly, but not for the sole and absolute exercise of the claves. Kraussold, however, would first have to bring proof from Luther and the Symbols, in order to substantiate his view, that the office is ordained by God not merely for the public and orderly, but for the sole and absolute exercise of the claves. But how one-sided it is to adduce passages from Luther about the divine institution of the office and not to mention with a single word how these are to be brought into harmo-