# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_August 1861_S235
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Dr. Huschke against Pastor Diedrich. 235

matters. And in these matters, which reason grasps under
the supreme direction of the divine Word and with a view to the Christian
welfare of a congregation, it can hardly go otherwise. But precisely
in this way "the way of church-governmental ordinance"
(after the manner of the Buffalo Synod) is just as much avoided as "that of absolute surrender
to the arbitrary will of the congregations." Both ways, however, God
be thanked, are not found among us; the latter, though, does occur in such synods and individual congregations
as those in which the Word of God does not essentially and originally hold
the supervising and directing rule, also in the passages cited above and others like them,
but where — in good American but bad Lutheran fashion — this or that mass of people,
led and worked upon moreover by fanatical party leaders, presses in the matter concerned, without God-fearing,
impartial and careful weighing of the situation, at random
for as speedy a vote as possible, in the hope that their party
will have the majority.

Again, in other congregations the sovereignty of the divine
Word is denied in that the church council, here and there even with the exclusion
of the pastor, exercises the church government in aristocratic fashion
and binds the congregation to its resolutions.

In sum, with all such orders or disorders, which are one and all
contrary to the gospel, we have nothing to do. Among us,
mediately and immediately, the written Word of God, Holy Scripture alone,
is to rule and to hold good — as in matters of Christian liberty, so much the more in those of faith and doctrine —
but neither the
pastor, as an official person alongside and apart from this Word, nor in
a similar subordinate position the church council or congregational board, nor
finally the congregation itself. For only he rules who, for example, in particular congregational
meetings, in this or that matter, whether it concern doctrine or adiaphora,
rightly handles and applies God's Word — be he an old
pastor or a young member of the congregation.

That this rule of the divine Word may abide among us and
come into ever more thorough and comprehensive currency and practice — to this end
may the gracious and merciful God help us for Christ's sake. Amen.

(From Ehlers' Kirchenblatt.)
Dr. Huschke against Pastor Diedrich.

Provisional Defense from God's Word, the Confessions
and Luther against the new doctrine of Pastor Diedrich and his following.
Offered to all those who wish still to remain truly Lutheran and not to make themselves
accessory to the rending of the church, by Dr. E. Huschke,
Privy Councilor of Justice and Professor. Breslau 1861. Published by Carl
Dülfer. (30 pages. Price 3½ Sgr.)