# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Juli 1863_S195
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Theological Axioms.    195

15. Huc pertinent sententiae Christi, quae testantur, claves ecclesiae datas esse, non tantum certis personis: "Ubicumque erunt duo vel tres congregati in nomine meo" etc. (Art. Schmalc.)

"Hereunto belong the sayings of Christ, which testify that the keys are given to the whole Church, and not to a few persons, as the text says: Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them." (Smalcald Articles.)

16. Totum ministerium est ecclesiae. (Menzerus.)

The whole ministry belongs to the Church.

17. When the preachers do not perform their office as they are obligated to, or when none are to be found, the office reverts again to the churches, to whom it belongs to confer it; just as when a vassal holding a fief dies, or the fief is forfeited, the fief-estate falls back again to the feudal lord. (Heshusius.)

18. Whoever, then, is a rightly believing Christian and a living member of Christ has his part and right to the holy preaching office and to everything that belongs to churchly service. (Heshusius.)

19. We all, as many of us as are Christians, hold this power of the keys in common. (Luther.)

20. (The Papists say:) The Church indeed has the right and power of the keys, but the use of them belongs to the bishops. This is said thoughtlessly, and collapses of its own accord. Christ here gives to every Christian the power and use of the keys, when he says: Let him be to thee as a heathen. (Luther.)

21. Christus, dominus domus suae, quae est ecclesia, dedit claves suae sponsae, quae committit eos ministris suis. (Balduinus.)

Christ, the Lord of his house, which is the Church, has given the keys to her, his Bride, who transfers them to her servants.

22. Since all things are to be common among all Christians, .. it does not therefore befit any one person, who would push himself forward on his own, to appropriate to himself alone what belongs to us all. Take up this right for yourself, and also put it into practice, so far as no other is present who has likewise received such a right. But the right of the community requires this: that one, or as many as please the congregation, be chosen and received, who, in the place and in the name of all those who have this same right, carry out these offices publicly, so that no shameful disorder may occur among the people of God, and the Church become a Babylon, in which all things ought to proceed honorably and in order, as the Apostle has taught. It is one thing for someone to carry out a common right by the congregation's command, and another for someone to make use of this same right in a case of necessity. In a congregation, where the right stands free to each one, no one should take it upon himself, without the will and election of the whole congregation; but in a case of necessity, let each and every one who will make use of it. (Luther.)