# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_April 1862_S105
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Dr. Hengstenberg on the Slavery Question. 105

he has according to Augsburg Confession 5, he has not from you, but out of his own priesthood, and he holds it in common with every God-fearing and believing Christian; but what he has from you through your calling him according to Augsburg Confession 14 is not worth any pride or great boasting, for to that clings your own entire wretchedness." That indeed sounds different from the addresses of the apostles to the Christian congregations, who likewise had no publicly regulated relations with those who held legislation and so forth in their hands in the Roman Empire. The pastor, then, according to God's will and command, is nothing other than a teacher of the people, who through his calling governs the political, legal, and social standing and the culture-historical stage of development of the congregation. For "everything that pursues and teaches learning," says Pastor Crome, "is, according to God's will and the true nature of the matter, an estate and order, whose summit and crown, however, are supposed to be the teachers and shepherds of the church." Here indeed even Luther spoke like a blind man about color, when, for example, concerning the pastor's relation to matrimonial matters, he expresses himself warningly thus: "I dread also the example of the Pope, who was himself the first to meddle in this game and to seize such worldly matters to himself, until at length he became a very lord of the world over emperor and kings. So I fear here too, lest the dog learn to eat leather from the little straps, and be led astray with good intentions, until at last we too fall out of the Gospel into mere worldly quarrels. For where we begin to be judges in matrimonial matters, the cog-wheel has already caught us by the sleeve, and will drag us on, so that we must judge concerning punishment. If we are to judge concerning punishment, we must also judge concerning body and goods; and there we are, then, drawn down under the wheel, and drowned in the waters of worldly business — whereas worldly and spiritual government are far distinguished and separated from one another." In that case, of course, the pastor is not exercising Christ's office, for he would grievously sin against his office were he to use as the rule of his conduct the word which the Lord spoke when one of the people addressed him: Master, tell my brother that he divide the inheritance with me.

Let us turn now to the grounds which are supposed to give this doctrine support, and we find, remarkably, nothing but confusions of concepts and paralogisms. (To be concluded.) L.

Dr. Hengstenberg on the Slavery Question.

In the preface to this year's volume of the "Evangelische Kirchenzeitung," Dr. Hengstenberg also touches upon our sad conditions here

says: "A call is rite [duly performed] when it is performed with proper regard to the political, legal, and social standing and the culture-historical stage of development of the congregation."