# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_September 1861_S279
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Excerpts as Contributions to Pastoral Casuistry. 279

"The great people have not done it; we have the holy prophet Isaiah, and when God wanted to call him to the preaching office, he said: Lord, I am of unclean lips. Moses says to the Lord: I have a heavy tongue, I cannot speak; one must pull it by the hairs to make it speak. But nowadays, if a man is spoiled at every trade, he is thought good enough to be a parson. He is good enough for the peasants, to whom one need not preach anything special — just as if the peasants were not people too, and did not have a soul just as well as the emperor. God cares as much for the soul of a peasant and of the poorest beggar as for that of a great lord. That counts for nothing. Things go so badly that one ought to see to it that churches are provided with upright men."

(Beste: "Pulpit Orator.")

————◆————

Excerpts as Contributions to Pastoral Casuistry.

Whether Jewish children, at an age of 12—14 years, are, at
their own request, to be instructed and baptized even against
their parents' will.

On this the theological faculty at Wittenberg writes, in an opinion required of it in the year 1623, among other things, as follows:

Since neither the Jewish parents themselves nor their children are in the power of Christians, no Christian should take their children from them by force, and instruct and baptize them, for we have no command or example of this in the first apostolic church. And the promise of God does indeed extend also to those who are far off; but to those whom the Lord shall call unto him. Acts 2:19. But if the children themselves come and desire instruction in the Christian faith, although this is against their parents' will, we should nevertheless receive them, instruct them, and do everything to further their being brought to holy baptism. For that they betake themselves thus of their own free will to instruction among Christians is to be reckoned in place of a call, whereby our Lord God has brought them to us, and they themselves have gone out from their parents, not otherwise than as Abraham went out from his father's house. Therefore we too are bound to receive them as our own and to further them toward Christianity. This we hold to be in accordance with God's Word. (Consil. theol. Witebergens. II, p. 115.)

Whether the holy Lord's Supper should be given to a
dying person who no longer hears or understands what
is being done to him.

On this the said faculty gives the following instruction:

To such a person, whose soul is departing, the holy Lord's Supper ought not to be given. For to its wholesome use belongs a right faith, which rightly distinguishes the body of Christ from other common food, which lays hold of the merit of Christ, and proclaims the death of Christ;