# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_August 1862_S247
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Literary Notices. 247

means of grace; it is not to pour vinegar into the sweet wine of the Gospel,
but to keep the wine free from vinegar. With Vollert the strictness is
rooted more in the Law. He has therefore thrown himself upon church
discipline, and, laudable as that is in itself, he nevertheless expects things
from it that are not to be expected. "Our territorial churches," he says,
"which truly languish in a sorry decline, could not be revived by a synod,
but indeed by a vigorous restoration of the power of the keys." The power
of the keys is meant to withhold life and forgiveness of sins from the
impenitent. How could this make the territorial churches more alive? At
most a few individuals could thereby be brought to repentance, while the
great masses would be cut off and the territorial church dissolved. Church
discipline can only be a blessing where the full preaching of the Word of
God has come to its power, has created life, and has bound the
consciences. Only in such congregations does one begin to exercise
discipline with measure and step by step. But how much discipline in and
of itself accomplishes is proven by Vollert himself. He stood 12 years in
office and was able to use the power of the keys unhindered. When he was
to be removed, he let everything depend on his congregation. If they
dismissed him, only then would he go. But not a soul stirred. Four weeks'
grace was granted the congregation to consider whether it wanted the new
preacher; but on the spot it declared itself quite content with the
exchange. Only a single poor old woman declared to Vollert: "No, I will not
depose my father confessor." A very sad result, which might well have
opened Vollert's eyes to the fact that he had until now taken hold of the
sword of God's Word by the blade and not by the hilt.

Vollert is an honorable, sincere man, and claims our respect and sympathy
all the more in that he is ready to sacrifice everything for what he has
recognized as right. "A man lays down his life for his cause," he says. "How
much more will I give up everything for God's cause." However, as is the
way of such legalistic natures, they are too idealistic, that is, they lose
themselves so utterly in their idea and their task that they take no
evangelical account of reality, of life with its demands and obstacles, of
human nature with its infirmities and limitations. Bend or break — that is
their motto. Such natures fit least of all into territorial churches,
especially when the territorial church is a Weimar one. That became
evident.

The church council demanded two things of Vollert. First, he was to
administer the sacrament only to his own parishioners; strangers, on the
other hand, would in every single case have to produce a certificate of
permission from their proper pastor. Vollert declared that this was
neither possible nor necessary. It was not possible, because the Greiz
people no longer had any pastor at all; and it was not necessary, since the
government had once and for all given the Greiz people permission. The
church council found itself somewhat in a bind here. Vollert demonstrated
to it