# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_October 1862_S289
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Lehre und Wehre.

Volume VIII.    October 1862.    No. 10.

Report for the Sessions of the Synod of Missouri,
Ohio and Other States, Western District,
at Crete, Will Co., Ill., on May 15 and the following days, 1862.

The Right Form of a Local Congregation, Evangelical Lutheran and Independent of the State.

Preliminary Remarks.

§ 1. An evangelical Lutheran local congregation is an assembly of believing
Christians in a particular place, among whom God's Word is preached purely, in accordance
with the confession of the evangelical Lutheran Church, and the holy Sacraments are
administered according to Christ's institution, as the Gospel prescribes — among whom,
however, false Christians and hypocrites, and at times even open sinners, are always
also intermingled.

§ 2. A congregation is independent of the state when the state leaves it
to govern itself in everything.

§ 3. In order to recognize when an evangelical Lutheran local congregation
independent of the state is rightly constituted, it is necessary to investigate two things
from God's Word in particular: first, wherein its rights and duties consist, and second,
wherein the right exercise of these its rights and duties consists.

Chapter I. On the Rights of a Local Congregation, Evangelical Lutheran and Independent
of the State.

§ 4. The whole of the rights belonging to an evangelical Lutheran local congregation
are comprehended in the keys of the kingdom of heaven, which the
Lord originally and immediately gave to His whole Church, and indeed in such
a way that they belong to every congregation, the smallest as well as the greatest, in equal
measure. Matthew 16:15–19; 18:17–20; John 20:22–23.

§ 5. That with the keys of the kingdom of heaven every evangelical Lutheran local
congregation has the whole church power necessary for it — that is, the power
and authority to do everything required for its governance — this is further
confirmed by the fact that in Holy Scripture the true members of such a congregation,
namely the believing Christians within it, are called priests and kings before God, or the holy,
royal priesthood