# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Mai 1862_S135
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

On the Doctrine of the Transfer of the Rights and Duties of the Spiritual Priesthood.    135

weapons and instruments with which the Savior has overcome our enemies — sin, world, and devil — and triumphed over them, and which offer us the most effective remedy against the assaults of all enemies.

51. Non datur nobis caro Christi in coena, ut prosit ad essentialem immutationem carnis nostrae in carnem Christi, sed porrigitur ori nostro, ut inde at animam delata et firma fide apprehensa totus noster homo certificetur de ζωοποιήσει; quod, quemadmodum nunc per hoc κοινωνίας μέσον de morte spirituali in vitam gratiae est restitutus, sic in novissimo die ejusdem beneficio ex morte corporali resuscitandus et in vitam gloriae sit restituendus.    (Koenig.)

The flesh of Christ is not given to us in the Supper so that it might serve toward an essential transformation of our flesh into the flesh of Christ, but it is presented to our mouth so that from there it may pass to the soul and, grasped by firm faith, our whole man may be assured of the resurrection; namely, that as he has now, through this means of fellowship, been renewed again from spiritual death into the life of grace, so on the last day, by the same benefit, he shall be raised from bodily death and renewed into the life of glory.

52. Crede, et manducasti.    (Augustine.)

Believe, and thou hast eaten.

——

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

(Conclusion.)

Concerning the supposedly correct relationship between the spiritual priesthood and the pastoral office, we receive the following clarifications. The spiritual priesthood, and in particular the part of it with which we are here concerned, the power of the keys, is only a potentia, a capacity for that which is to be done. The pastor has this in exactly the same way as the spiritual priest in general. If nothing else were added to bring this potentia to actus, to actual exercise, the office of the keys could never be administered in a manner pleasing to God. This other thing is the call [Beruf]; this brings the potentia of the preaching office to actual exercise, both in the pastor and in the spiritual priest. The difference between the two now consists in this, that the pastor's call has a congregation as the object of its action, while the layman's call has only individuals.

In the first place, it is a gross confusion of concepts to represent the power of the keys — "the preaching office, which all Christians have" — as a mere capacity; for whoever possesses a power, an office, is thereby not only authorized to the corresponding acts, possessing the legal permission to perform them, but is also commissioned to exercise them; whereas in a mere capacity there is as yet no right present to allow it to emerge into activity. To this error Pastor Crome gives a