# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_April 1862_S103
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

On the Doctrine of the Transfer of the Rights and Duties of the Spiritual Priesthood. 103

offices, received from their Lord, for a glorious, worthy right; but never for an oppressive ceremonial law, for "a barren law, from which no green leaf sprouts." And instead of regarding the Lord, on account of the ordering of the pastoral office, as "a new lawgiver for a poor earthly kingdom," they have rather besought him to send very many laborers into his vineyard. If Pastor Crome holds a different view of this matter than does the church, we can only beg him to return to the spirit of the church, to that Holy Spirit who, being no servant and standing under no lawgiver, nevertheless takes only of what is Christ's and declares it to the church.

"And into whatever of these abysses you go, you nonetheless arrive here: with your alleged command of Christ, you bind the forgiveness of sins to the commanded estate, thus ascribing to it, though in the most mechanical way possible, sacramental significance, and so renewing the condemned Roman error." This reproach would have some justification in part, if we had ever taught that, through the establishment of the pastoral office, the Christian within a congregation lost his spiritual priesthood, all power and authority of the keys, every use of the Gospel. But since we teach the very opposite in the most definite terms, this reproach is nothing but a cavillatio. Nor are we the ones who speak of the pastoral office as of a privileged estate; rather, it is precisely those among our opponents who, like Crome and Ebert, make the pastoral office into a worldly office, in whose rights the layman has just as little share as the layman in the Roman church has in the rights of the mass-priest.

"Understand, dear Brunn," Pastor Crome continues, "your so-called New Testament church order is law, as barren a law as can possibly be set up, from which no green leaf sprouts. And if you want to have, in this matter, a New Testament church order commanded by the Lord, then you are the very last who should be entitled to oppose our opponents, who with exactly the same right include the civil authority as well within the commanded New Testament church order." It seems almost as though whoever climbs "the height of the scientific culture of our age" must leave the old logic standing at the foot of the mountain. Does it then follow, from the Apostle's word — "Ye are bought with a price," that they have become servants of the Lord and keep his ordinances — that they thereby become servants of men? No; precisely because the church has the Lord alone as her head, who rules her through his Word, she shall recognize no human churchly authority as such.

The assertion that neither Luther nor the symbolical books know anything of our doctrine may stand unchallenged so long as at least no attempt is made to support it with any ground.

Although these attacks give us, in our conscience, not the slightest occasion to fall into doubt or misgiving concerning our doctrine,