# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Juni 1863_S171
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Dr. Hengstenberg's Position on the Questions of Office and Church Government. 171

...as often as Moses, Joshua, David, and all the prophets in the Old Testament called the people back from, and warned them against, false prophets, just so often did they cry out, command, proclaim, and confirm this same right: to judge and discern all the teachings of all people. And this they do in countless places. Does our Heinz here, or any shameful Thomist, still have anything to say against this? Have we not here stopped the mouth of those who speak wrongly? Let us come back again to the New Testament. When Christ says, John 10: My sheep hear my voice; but they do not hear the voice of strangers, but flee from them — does he not thereby make the sheep judges, and place the right to discern upon the hearers? ... So too what Christ now commands in Matth. 24 and everywhere concerning the false teachers, Peter and Paul concerning the false apostles and masters, and John concerning the testing of the spirits — it all comes down to this, that the people have power to judge, to test, to condemn; and that with full right. For just as each person believes rightly or wrongly at his own peril, so likewise it is fitting that each take care to believe rightly; for even common human understanding and the necessity of salvation itself show that the judgment concerning doctrine must necessarily rest with the hearer. Otherwise it is written in vain: Test all things and hold fast what is good. Likewise: The spiritual man judges all things, and is judged by no one. And every Christian is spiritual, from the Spirit of Christ. All things are yours, he says, whether Apollos, or Paul, or Cephas — that is, you have power to judge over the words and deeds of all. Now you may consider from what kind of spirit those wicked, abominable councils proceeded, which, against such weighty passages and thunderbolts, and against the plain sayings of Scripture, have dared to ascribe to the popes, altogether and in everything, the right to judge and to discern, and besides to command and to make laws! Without doubt these were thoughts of Satan, whereby he has flooded the world with the workings of error and set the abomination in the holy place; and whereby afterward, in the most assured tyranny, the power to judge was taken from the people — a power which false teachers would otherwise have had reason to fear; so that at last, through the foolish and superstitious obedience and patience of the people, the way was paved for all errors and abominations to break in everywhere. And that I here call to mind my Heinzes and the sophists, who base everything on length of time" (that is what is now called: historical right) "and on the numbers of people, together with their believing — it is indeed not to be denied that the tyranny of this usurped right has by now lasted well over a thousand years. For already at the Nicene Council, which was nevertheless still the best one, they already began to make laws and to arrogate such a right to themselves. And from that time it has become so entrenched that nothing is more current or more firmly fixed, since it can be proven by the multitude of people and by long custom, than this right — so that nowadays scarcely anyone is easily found who does not hold it to be wholesome, just, and divine. But here you see that it is nothing but