# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Februar 1864_S33
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Doctrine and Defense.

Volume X.    February 1864.    No. 2.

(By Pastor Fürbringer.)

Some Remarks on the Teaching of the Supreme Church Council
of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Prussia Concerning Church,
Church Government, and Church Order.
(Continued.)

If one were to understand Article 7 of the Augsburg Confession as speaking of the church which Melanchthon himself declares — finding himself moved to this by the weightiest reasons, Apol. fol. 68b, 62b, and following — that is here and there over the circle of the earth, from the rising of the sun to its setting, sanctified in all manner of kingdoms, lands, islands and cities through the Word and true faith, and that therefore alone possesses the outward signs, the preaching office or gospel and the sacraments, and possesses them purely so far as lies in it, only that it often lies hidden under spiritual and worldly tyrants, is hunted by persecutors, troubled by heretics (the wretched sigh and the poor are destroyed) — then one would never have arrived at the distinction in the concept of the church that serves as the foundation of the theses. The detrimental consequences show themselves quite necessarily in the 10th (and 11th) thesis.

Thesis 10: "(B. The church as constituted, or according to the side of church order.) This is rooted in the church as a fellowship of salvation (just as, in the order of nature, states are rooted in humanity), and is thus, before all else, to be determined again as an assembly of believers through and unto God's Word and sacrament. It is distinguished, however, from other Christian fellowships by the public confession of the true doctrine (consentire de vera doctrina) (No. 7), and this is what makes it the true church — not any particular fixed arrangements, such as certain ceremonies, offices and the like, which may differ (provided only that they do not themselves contradict the true doctrine), without thereby excluding it from the fellowship of the true church. C. Aug. art. 7."

[Thesis 11: "The church, from its origin onward,* is likewise at the same time also an ordered, constituted fellowship, an organism which Scripture characterizes as body, house, people, kingdom, and with various similar expressions —