# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Januar 1864_S15
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Theological Axioms. 15

believers, individually and collectively, are concerned — although this cannot be shown before one's eyes by picking out this or that individual. On account of God's infallible promise, Isa. 55:11, it must be the case that, in an assembly of hearers of the divine Word, some are believers, and indeed are visible as parts of the assembly, although no one can say, singling out one from another, "this one, that one is certainly and undoubtedly a believer" — and yet there is no doubt that, of those who are seen, some are such.' The same author, again, in his annotations on 2 Tim. 2:20, expounds the "great house," following the lead of Cyprian, Ambrose, and Augustine, as "the Church according to her wider concept," "insofar as she embraces all who confess the name of Christ, whether they be Catholics or heretics or schismatics — just as the heathen used to say that among the Christians there were numerous sects." (Cf. Apol. fol. 63; 1 Cor. 1:2; 11:19.) Johann Wilhelm Baier, Compendium Theologiae Positivae, p. 763 sq.: "The Church, together with the unholy who are intermingled in her, is called the Church of Christ without qualification, in and of herself (note e — though synecdochically), when the holy, both as regards doctrine and life, predominate; but when the unholy, especially with respect to doctrine and public confession, gain the upper hand in the Church, then that mixed company, consisting of the holy and the unholy, is not called the Church without qualification, but in a restricted sense (note f — because those who have the preponderance are, considered in themselves, rather a school of Satan than the Church of Christ, etc.), or by the added name: a corrupted Church." Cf. p. 770, §29: "It can happen, however, and has been foretold by God, that for a time the Church shall be altogether not visible at all — that is, that the visible Church shall entirely perish." On the other hand, p. 765: "True and false Church can be spoken of in a twofold sense; in the one, true and false Church are set in contradictory opposition to one another" (that is, so that the latter is no longer a church at all — namely, when it overthrows the very essence of Baptism and of the whole Christian religion itself). "In the other sense, true Church is the same as pure Church; false, in turn, is what is called unclean, falsified, corrupted." And p. 759, §19: "The Church of Christ (note a — the whole body of Christ) comprises several particular churches," etc. Likewise p. 769, §28: "For the rest, the properly so-called Church is indeed not visible in her precise individual members, but only with a fluid boundary," etc.

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Theological Axioms.
XXIII. On Civil Government.
(Continued.)

25. Ita dandum est caesari, quod est caesaris, ut tamen, quod Dei est, Deo relinquatur. (Gerhard.)

To Caesar is to be given what is Caesar's, in such a way that what is God's is left to God.