# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Juli 1863_S198
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

198 Materialism, or the So-Called Results of Modern Natural Science.

appointed parish or cure, which St. Peter therefore also calls kleros, that is, a portion — since to each one his portion of the people is committed, as St. Paul likewise writes to Titus; wherein no other or stranger, without that man's knowledge and will, shall presume to teach his parish's children, either secretly or openly; nor shall anyone, on pain of body and soul, give him a hearing, but shall instead report and inform his pastor or the authorities. And this one should hold firmly to, that no preacher, however pious or upright he may be, shall presume to preach or secretly teach among the people of a papist or heretical pastor, without that same pastor's knowledge and will. For it is not committed to him. But what is not committed, that one should let alone; we have enough to do if we would carry out what is committed to us. Nor does it help them that they claim: All Christians are priests. It is true, all Christians are priests, but they are not all pastors. For besides his being a Christian and a priest, he must also have his office and an entrusted parish. The call and the charge make pastors and preachers. (Luther.)

33. In casu necessitatis absolvit etiam laicus et fit minister ac pastor alterius, sicut narrat Augustinus historiam de duobus christianis in navi, quorum alter baptizaverit κατεχούμενον et is baptizatus deinde absolverit alterum. (Art. Schmalc.)

"For as in a case of necessity even a plain layman can absolve another and become a pastor — as St. Augustine tells the story that two Christians were once together in a ship, one of whom baptized the other, who afterward was absolved by him." (Smalcald Articles.)

Materialism, or the So-Called Results of
Modern Natural Science.
(Continued.)

II. The Immortality of Matter.

As we prepare to bring the second chapter of the materialistic doctrine before the judgment-seat of reason, we look back for a moment beforehand — for the sake of connection and coherence — once more to the first chapter, to see how this chapter stands in relation to it. Its purpose and content was the attempted proof of the impossibility of the world's having been created, on the ground of the impossibility of a creative power. If we disentangle the thread of this proof from the manifold entanglements of nonsense and self-contradiction in which we found it there, the following emerges in brief as the sequence of reasoning thoughts. To create requires power. This power can be none other than the power still now present in matter, because we know none other than this one. Concerning its existence nothing else gives us any information except the sensibly perceptible change of matter itself, which comes to light only as an altered property of matter