# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Juli 1863_S212
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

212 The Riddle of the Breslauers.

therefore studying, too, is "of divine right, just as much as preaching and administering the sacraments." But studying does not proceed if there are no books; so that studying may now get under way and remain under way, the book trade is then in turn necessarily required. But how can the book trade get under way if there is no paper, and where is the paper to come from if the women sell no rags? Then the rag trade too would be "of divine right." For who can deny that paper manufacture is not at least as necessary a function for keeping preaching under way as "visiting and judging"? As with preaching, so it is also with the sacrament. The partaking of the Holy Supper is commanded, is of divine right; but to this there also belongs, quite necessarily, another function, so that the Holy Supper may get under way, namely the procuring of bread and wine — by Latzel's logic, then, baking and the wine trade too would be "of divine right." —

No: the Church of God tolerates no mingling of divine and human things and functions, which hodgepodge is then supposed to be foisted upon her, of all things, under the pretentious and false heading "of divine right." Through such mixtures she is made sick. A healthy Christian will just as unconditionally be submissive and bound in everything that is of divine right, as he insists, in everything that is of human right, on his freedom and independence. But a Christian who is wholly the servant of Jesus Christ is by no means the servant of any human being — that is the shape of a true Christian, of a genuine Lutheran. Therefore a Lutheran likewise wants to know just as little of freedom where the Word of God binds; that is why union is to him such an abomination, just as he lets nothing be bound upon his conscience as being "of divine right" which God has not commanded, for he hates all spiritual tyranny. And that is the reason why Ehlers wants nothing more to do with the Breslau Supreme Church Collegium, and "the actual point at issue in this dispute."

The whole church office, in all its concrete forms and orders, from the sexton, the bellows-treader, and the organist up to the supreme church supreme-consistorial councillor and the prince-bishop, is of divine and human right. So far and so much as this church office exercises the actual preaching office — the preaching of the Word and the administration of the sacraments — it is, because that is commanded by God, of divine right; but so far as, in the orders and offices of the church office, only human functions are carried out, it is of human right. The office of teacher, for example, is, so far as it comprises the religious instruction of children and the teacher teaches the Word of God, "of divine right," and the word applies to the schoolteacher: "he that heareth you heareth me." But if he teaches geography, history, or arithmetic, then this part of his office comes not from divine but from human right, for God has nowhere commanded the teaching of geography or arithmetic, but he has indeed commanded the teaching of the Word of God. Where the church government