# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_August 1863_S230
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

230 Theological Axioms.

68. Secundum evangelium seu, ut loquuntur, de jure divino nulla
jurisdictio competit episcopis, ut episcopis, h. e. his, quibus est commissum
ministerium verbi et sacramentorum, nisi remittere peccata, item cognos-
cere doctrinam et doctrinam ab evangelio dissentientem rejicere et impios,
quorum nota est impietas, excludere a communione ecclesiae, sine vi hu-
mana, sed verbo. (August. Conf.)

"Therefore the episcopal office is, by divine right: to preach the Gospel, to forgive sin, to judge doctrine, and to reject the doctrine that runs counter to the Gospel, and to exclude from the Christian congregation the ungodly whose ungodly nature is manifest — without human force, but solely through God's Word." (Augsb. Conf.)

69. Non igitur commiscendae sunt potestates ecclesiastica et civilis.
(August. Conf.)

"Therefore the two governments, the spiritual and the temporal, are not to be mingled and confused with one another." (Augsb. Conf.) *)

70. Das geistliche Regiment ist allein auf die Sünde gestellet. — The spiritual government is founded on sin alone. Where sin comes into play, there this government too is to come into play, and nowhere else. But here we speak of sins that are true and genuine sins, which no man has invented, but in which we are born; which are against God's commandment, and against which God's commandment itself testifies, not merely the commandment of men. (Luther.)

70. 1 Cor. 3. Paulus exaequat ministros, et docet, ecclesiam esse
supra ministros. (Art. Schmalc.)

"1 Cor. 3. Paul makes all ministers of the church equal, and teaches that the church is more than the ministers." (Schmalk. Art.)

71. Sic ait (Paulus): Omnia vestra sunt, sive Paulus, sive Apollo,
sive Cephas, id est, nec coeteri ministri, nec Petrus sibi sumat dominatio-
nem aut superioritatem supra ecclesiam, non onerent ecclesiam traditioni-
bus. (Art. Schmalc.)

"So he says: All things are yours, whether Paul, or Apollo, or Cephas — that is, neither Peter nor the other ministers of the Word may claim for themselves any power or lordship over the churches; no one shall burden the churches with his own ordinances." (Schmalk. Art.)

72. Neither the pope, nor a bishop, nor any man has power to impose a single syllable upon a Christian, unless it happen with that person's own will; and whatever else happens, happens out of a tyrannical spirit. (Luther.)

73. A bishop, as bishop, has no power to impose upon his church any ordinance or ceremony without the church's consent, given either in plain words or tacitly. For the church is free and a ruling

*) Here we recall Luther's complaint, still valid to this day, from the year 1543: "Satan remains, now as ever, the Adversary. Under the pope he mixed the church into the temporal government; in our time he wants to mix the temporal government into the church." (Opp. Hal. XXI, 1326.)