# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Juli 1861_S223
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Churchly-Contemporary Notes. 223

journal for the month of May a short article which begins with the words: "Through
wide circles of the Lutheran church there is at present a terror of chiliasm, as
something that conflicts with the fundamental doctrine of our confession, with the doctrine
of justification by faith. But what if the apostle who wrote the epistles to the Romans and to the
Galatians was himself a chiliast?" Thereupon the writer performs the feat of
exegeting the most decided chiliasm out of passages such as 1 Corinthians 15:23-28, 52; 1 Thessalonians 4:17; 2 Thessalonians 1:10;
2 Timothy 2:12; Romans 11:25, 26.
The most important thing about the article seems to us, however, to be the testimony laid down in its first words, that "through wide circles of the Lutheran church there is at present a terror of chiliasm," "as something which, etc." God grant that it be so! And in fact it does
seem that an end has really already come to the quiet and undisturbed development and
spread of the chiliastic false doctrine within the Lutheran church that went on until recently. To God
be heartfelt praise and thanks for it!

Stuttgart. The chamber has rejected the concordat by 63 votes against 27.

Braunschweig. Things look sad here. The Braunschweiger Kirchenblatt
reports: "One is often filled with horror at the sight of many congregations, especially urban ones; out of a thousand souls often not a hundred communicants in the year, 40 to 50
attenders at the chief service, of the secondary services there is no question at all; the festival days
merely days of fleshly desire and sensual comfort. A great part, indeed perhaps
still the greater part of our clergy comes from the time of ordinary rationalism. Trained in Halle in the twenties and at the beginning of the thirties chiefly by Gesenius and Wegscheider, they rest upon the treasures gathered in that time. The territorial assembly, into which anyone may be elected, be he
Christian, Jew, heathen, or an outright denier of God, exercises an activity of church government.
For this reason Lutheran superintendents are employed as inspectors of Jewish schools."

Paris, April 8. The Protestants, some 1,500,000 souls in all, are
scattered over the whole of France, but they are by no means permitted to found schools and churches
where the need for them makes itself felt and they possess the means to do so, but only
where the prefect thinks fit. The bearing of the government toward the Protestants has
almost the character of a persecution, and since the feud with the Pope they stand under
still stricter supervision than ever, for the Tuileries fear nothing more than a development
of Protestantism, which would be greatly eased by a schism in the Catholic church.
M. Rouland has therefore had a new regulation drawn up for the Protestant church,
calculated to prevent every formation of new Protestant congregations, and
still more to restrict the autonomy of those that exist. Never will one find in the press of the
disciplined democracy a word of support for the Protestants; the
whole character of their world-view is deeply hostile to the imperial policy. It follows
from these circumstances that the breach between clergy and empire offers not
even the very slightest prospect that the government will now at last redress the so just
complaints of the Protestant population of France.

Göttingen. The hitherto archdeacon Dr. th. Wagemann has been appointed ordinary
professor in the theological faculty here.

Hesse. Pastor Hofmann writes: "A petition to our ministry of state
for state recognition and for all that goes with it has been answered thus,
that all public worship has been forbidden, indeed even the holding of household services,
at least the singing in the houses. This last prohibition might of course also arise from the
further-reaching zeal of the local authority in Gedern." — So in the land of Hesse too the attempt is made to suppress the Lutheran church that is rising again. If only
the authorities in Hesse would learn from the history of other lands, which lies open before them! But they are blind, because God wills that the Lutheran church, wherever it arises, shall
come up under suffering and struggle. Thereby she is to be honored and known as Christ's bride.
Therefore be of good cheer, you brethren in Hesse! The blows of your adversaries are
nothing but the kisses of love of your heavenly Bridegroom, whereby He sets you apart from the world
and confesses Himself to you. So acknowledge His grace, how He loves you, and prove your
love in return by confidently testifying of His truth and, like the holy apostles,
glorying when you are counted worthy to suffer shame for His name's sake.
(Ehler's Kirchenblatt of April 1.)

Concerning Hesse Münkel further writes in his Neues Zeitblatt of April 5: The
grand-ducal Hessian formula of ordination, upon which the clergy
are pledged at their installation, was already discussed last year soon after its promulgation
in the Zeitblatt, and its unionistic ambiguity was pointed out. The matter still stands where it stood then. A petition of the Lutheran
patrons in July of last year was refused in February of this year. The
church government therefore still maintains in the Hessian "territorial church" the following monstrosities, unheard of hitherto in
church history and without parallel in the German territorial churches