# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Juni 1863_S167
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Dr. Hengstenberg's Position on the Questions of Ministry and Church Government. 167

faith laid hold of; before that the old serpent flees, and before nothing else. Rightly does Luther — well-tested in such struggles — say: "The Word they shall let stand!" But among the broken reeds and other "wretched expedients" we count not only Presbyterial and synodal constitutions, but also consistorial and episcopal constitutions — indeed every kind of human church government, every church constitution, whatever name it may bear. For nothing human avails anything against Satan and his kingdom; only Jesus Christ takes his spoil from the strong man armed; only faith is the victory that overcomes the world. And here a great danger seems to us to lie, one that threatens the German church in the coming storms: that one does not entirely free oneself from the dangerous delusion that mistakes flesh for its own arm, in that help is hoped for the church — not, indeed, from the arm of the people, but rather from the strengthened arm of the ecclesiastical higher authorities. Yet flesh is flesh; the flesh of the rabble is corrupt and powerless, but the flesh of a pope, or a king, or a supreme-church or consistorial councillor is not one hair nobler or more powerful. We therefore cannot agree with Dr. Hengstenberg either when he says: "It is the task of the future to raise the standing of our general superintendents and our superintendents, so that they present themselves as true chief shepherds." And it is more than a broken reed — it is, in fact, a genuine "wretched expedient" — for instance, in the dispute among the separated Lutherans, to see and recommend a remedy in purely and wholly external obedience to the ordinances of the supreme church council; that one may well expect of parties in the state, but the actions of Christians must proceed from faith, otherwise it is sin. Dr. H. reports: "A conference of pastors, which met in October at Angermünde and consisted half of men wholly committed to the supreme church council, and half of others who stood in a more or less strained relation to it, has produced a gratifying result. It has not been able entirely to heal the wound, nor to bring back those who withdrew, but it has succeeded in setting a limit to further withdrawals. Agreement was reached, in a very sensible resolution, that obedience should be given to the ordinances of the supreme church council, but that it should be left to each individual how he construes its authority to himself, whether he derives it from divine or from human right. One can only wonder that this was not self-evident, that it first had to be resolved. We wish our brothers peace, and hope that this union will bear fruit, and that men like Ehlers, too, will step out of their untenable separate position." In such clever compromises the General Synod here tends to be rather fruitful. — It is, further, expecting too much of the authorities, and leaning too much on this reed, when H. says: "The matter concerns whether the authorities are in a position to redress the great evils which the free right of election prevailing in most congregations of the western provinces