# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Juni 1862_S169
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Essay on the Right Mean of the Lutheran Liturgy.    169

you are nonetheless not free, so far as love reckons, to carry out such freedom, but are bound to take care how it may be tolerable and edifying for the poor people; as St. Paul says, 1 Cor. 14: Let all things be done among you unto edifying. And 1 Cor. 6: All things are lawful for me, but not all things edify. And 1 Cor. 8: Knowledge puffs up, but love edifies. And as he speaks there of those who have the knowledge of faith and of freedom, and yet do not know how they ought to use that knowledge, because they use it not for the edifying of the people but for the glory of their own understanding.

Now where your people take offense that you observe so many differing and disunited practices and become confused over it, it does not help you to want to plead: The outward thing is free, I will do as I please in my own place — rather you are bound to consider what matters to others, and to hold such freedom of faith before God in conscience, while nevertheless, alongside it, giving yourself into service as a captive, for your neighbor's good and edification. As also in Rom. 15 Paul says: Let every one of us please his neighbor for his good, to edification. For we ought not to please ourselves, since Christ also pleased not himself, but pleased us all.

Yet besides this a preacher must be truly watchful, and press upon the people, and instruct them diligently, that they do not take up such a uniform practice as a necessary commandment, as though it must be so and God would have it no other way, but rather that one tell them how this is done only so that they may be edified and preserved thereby, so that the unity of the Christian people may also be confirmed through such outward things (which in themselves are otherwise not necessary). For since ceremonies or practices are not necessary to conscience or to salvation, and yet are useful and needful for governing the people outwardly, one should not press or allow them to be taken up any further than that they serve to preserve unity and peace among the people. For between God and man it is faith that makes peace and unity." (p. 318, 319.) Compare with this also Luther's letter "To Georg Buchholzer, Dec. 4, 1539," printed as a citation in the Report of the Middle District, A.D. 1859, p. 30 and 31.

§ 6.
The General Apostolic Rule for the Liturgy.

On the ground of the freedom governed by love, St. Paul sums up his directions for worship for the congregation at Corinth, 1 Cor. 14, at the close, in the words of v. 40: "Let all things be done decently (i.e., becomingly) and in order." With this he has laid down a general and comprehensive rule for all orders of worship of the times that followed, within which freedom and love govern and can, with a sure sense of proportion, order everything in particular to the glory of God and the edification of the church. This rule has therefore rightly become the motto for many of the church's liturgies, which thereby simply attest their origin, their purpose, and their