# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Januar 1864_S2
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

2 Some Remarks on the Teaching of the Oberkirchencollegium of the Ev. Luth. Church in Prussia, etc.

As for its composition and its individual wording, these belong, indeed, only to one member — one, however, who is not merely a prominent one, but also stands at the head of the administration; yet they establish a theological view which the leaders of the Prussian Lutheran General Synod hold in common, just as it cannot be denied that the contested resolutions of the latter are, wherever it could not be avoided, permeated by it. And could it be considered a matter of indifference what the teaching of a superior in the so-called higher church government might be? Could a united efficacy of the same take place, if mutual disharmony were to tear it apart from within?

But even if the external moving cause were, with the passing of time, no longer present, the general duty of confessors of the truth would still require them to justify before the people the position which they have taken toward any churchly phenomenon — however little one might be inclined, in the struggle which many opponents have only further confused, to presuppose the right standpoint in those who likewise attack this teaching as impure.

God, who is love and the sole Almighty, restrain and resist all who delight in divisions and are opposed to His kingdom; may He heal the breaches and bind up the wounds that have been inflicted on the spiritual body of Jesus Christ, and bless the endeavors of His servants that are directed against them. Amen!

1st Thesis: "The distinction between the order of salvation and the order of the church is to be maintained, and accordingly a twofold aspect of the church is also to be distinguished within the concept of the church."

The distinction between the order of salvation and the order of the church is indeed to be maintained — but in order to exclude the aspect of the latter from the concept of the church altogether.

The concept of an object gives its essence, that is, it states what the object actually is; it indicates the inward, unchangeable nature of the object, for the human mind cannot content itself with mere outward existence, but seeks, penetrating through this, to know the actual being, the essence, and to deny the indifference or indistinguishability of the one from others that belong with it to one and the same kind. Thus the concept of the Christian Church gives its essence, its actual being. Now our Scriptural confession, Augsburg Confession Art. 7, 8, maintains that the Christian Church is properly nothing other than the assembly of all believers and saints. Here it is evident that the Christian Church, to speak with Luther, "is wholly in the spirit and altogether a spiritual thing" (Eph. 2:22; Luther's "Revelation of Antichrist," etc.) — that its life, essence, and nature, or that of Christendom, is not a bodily assembly, but an assembly of hearts in one faith, a spiritual congregation, which may no more be counted among worldly communities than the spirits may be counted among bodies, faith among