# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Juni 1862_S171
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Essay on the Right Mean of the Lutheran Liturgy.    171

Augsburg Confession, Conclusion: "We have related only those articles which we thought needful to bring forward and to mention, so that it might the better be understood therefrom that nothing has been received among us, either in doctrine or in ceremonies, that is contrary either to Holy Scripture or to the common Christian church."

Luther, The Manner of Celebrating the Christian Mass (Formula Missae): "We confess that we never intended to abolish all outward worship, but rather to purge that which has hitherto been in use — though corrupted by many additions — and to show what the true Christian usage is."

The same, Order of Divine Service in the Congregation, 1528: "The divine service that now goes on everywhere has a fine Christian origin, just as does the preaching office. But just as the preaching office has been corrupted by the spiritual tyrants, so has divine service also been corrupted by the hypocrites. As we do not abolish the preaching office, but desire rather to bring it back into its proper state, so it is likewise not our intention to abolish divine service, but rather to bring it back into proper practice." (Erl. A. 22, 153.)

§ 8.
The Place of the Word and the Sacrament.

The Word and the Sacrament must above all take the place that is due to them in divine service.

a. The Word, from which faith comes and draws its daily nourishment, is to sound and ring out at all times in the liturgy, and indeed in such a way that it is not merely read, but also proclaimed and expounded.

Luth., Order of Divine Service in the Congregation, 1523: "Now, to do away with this abuse (mentioned above), one must first know that the Christian congregation should never come together unless God's Word be preached and prayer be made there, even if it be in the very briefest form, as Ps. 102 (23): When the kings and the people come together to serve God, they shall proclaim God's name and praise. And Paul, 1 Cor. 14 (31), says: that in the congregation there should be prophesying, teaching, and exhorting. Therefore, where God's Word is not preached, it is better that one neither sing, nor read, nor come together at all.

Now this is how it went among the Christians in the time of the apostles, and it ought still to go so today, that daily, in the morning, at an hour — early, at four or five — they would come together and have reading done there, be it by pupils or priests, or whoever it might be, just as one still reads the lesson now at Matins. This one or two should do, or one after another, as seems best.

Afterward the preacher, or whoever is charged with it, should come forward and expound a portion of that same lesson, so that all the others understand it, learn, and are exhorted. The first work Paul calls, 1 Cor. 14 (26), speaking with tongues; the other