# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_October 1863_S316
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

316 Contemporary Church History.

we consider how arbitrarily, in the above, the spiritual and the worldly government are made wholly equal to one another; how utterly reckless the whole argumentation is, which in so weighty a matter proceeds almost entirely in bare unfounded assertions; how there it is not asked in the least what indeed the Word of God says about it, how the church is actually to be governed; what bearing the outward church government has on the matter; how this relates to Christian liberty, etc. — then we can already conclude in advance what sort of proof that will be. Ah, that such paltry church-governors would rather go straight to their father, the Pope! He outdoes them all by far, and understands the business better, having practiced it longer too. His godly authority has sat fast, through the centuries, in the consciences of many hundreds of thousands of poor, seduced, deceived, and enslaved Christian men. He indeed sits, that is, rules, in the temple of God — but — as the Anti-Christ. C.

Representation in the Methodist Church. Under this heading the "Lutheran and Missionary," in its number of the 6th of August of this year, contains a small counterpart to the above from the fellowship of the Episcopal Methodists. The brief report reads as follows:

„The last number of the "Methodist Quarterly" contains an article on „„Lay Representation and Episcopal Visitation““ by the Rev. Dr. Whedon, which appears to have the purpose of checking the current tending toward a more popular form of government in the Methodist Church. Dr. Whedon maintains that „„the granting of representation would contradict episcopal visitation,““ and then adds: „„Dismembered, stripped, robbed of its episcopacy, congregationalized, the Episcopal Methodist Church is dead.““—

Poor church, that does not live by the imperishable seed of the living Word of God, but stands and falls with its episcopal constitution! C.

A Curiosity. Such a one has recently come to us through the mail, a small printed pamphlet with the long title: "6666, that is, Thoughts on the Number 666 of the Revelation of John, or rather its extension into the number 6666, and an Attempt at an Explanation of all the Prophetic Passages of Holy Scripture from this Number." The anonymous author begins, to be sure, with the remark that it would be presumptuous of him to set forth before Christendom his opinion, formed since 1850, on the key to the Revelation of John, without at the same time directing his gaze upward to Him who perhaps allows that something better be offered here than has hitherto been the case; but seems, in his droll naivety, not to suspect in the least that it is already presumption enough to write into the world his "preconceived opinion," his "notions," his "assumptions," as the results of diligent scriptural research. Then indeed the punishment must follow close on its heels, and so the baseless writer, following the current of the times, falls not only into the quicksand of the thousand-year kingdom, but also lets the world, quite contrary to the clear Scripture of Gen. 9:11 and 15 and 2 Peter 3:7, 10, and 12, perish through a second flood — and that, according to his assumption, only in about 3000 years. Now indeed a second flood would, to be sure, not drown the human race, but it would drown the last remnant of sound human understanding — that already, ever higher rising, flood of such wretched products of self-appointed, rambling writers. But the gracious God and Father will, for the sake of this as for the sake of much other misery, look down in mercy with His dear Last Day the sooner, the sooner. C.

II. Abroad.

In the Canton of Vaud in Switzerland a new church law has been enacted, whereby the state church is relieved of its former disgraceful state tutelage. As is well known, this oppression of the church, now at last removed, occasioned years ago the withdrawal of very many preachers and congregations and the formation of the "Free Church" of Vaud. (Evangelist.)