# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Februar 1864_S41
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Some Remarks on the Teaching of the Supreme Church Council of the Ev.-Luth. Church in Prussia, etc. 41

... outwardly, for the glorification of His gospel. The Lord has subjected His church solely to the preaching of His will revealed therein, in order to govern by it, and has therefore commanded that the office pertaining to this be conferred upon persons fit for it, in a public, particular call of the congregation. This is a function of divine order and divine right, given to all believers. For the other offices, only the gifts are bestowed, but there exists no definite command also to erect them separately. Just as the church itself is preserved through the office of the Word, so also are those other offices, its branches rooted in it. For the sake of the Word the gifts for these are given, and the offices themselves erected; they are to serve the office of the Word, helping to carry out its purpose, without being necessary to it; through the power of the Word not only their existence but also their service and its performance are conditioned; the office of the Word also has to stand for them and to watch over them, so that everything, here as in general, be done decently and in order. They are parts of the preaching office insofar as they follow from it, depend on it, are built upon it as their foundation, because they can be exercised only through, in and with the Word, and themselves in turn build upon this Word — where they are rightly administered — that with which they wish to benefit the church, and help to build it up further. Because the office of the means of grace is at the same time a spiritual government, only for this reason can a governing office be set apart from it — not merely in congregational matters, but also over several churches — which, as a helper to each individual pastorate within its sphere, thus serves, with its care and oversight over the whole, all offices (within that sphere) and people as a servant; although it is set over everything, and is superordinate even to a local pastoral office which after all administers the means of grace, it can nevertheless be derived solely from the office of the means of grace or the office of the keys in general, which is given to the church and is carried out in particular in the pastoral office, and, being subordinate to that office, it may not impair the independent examination of those to whom it originally remains. Within a local congregation, the gift of prophecy, or the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven in the Word — the wonders in God's law — enables a publicly instituted teaching (that is, pastoral) office to be carried out as the concentration of all the offices of the congregation; together with it these branch and auxiliary offices are handed over, namely — thus besides pure doctrine, that is, what belongs to faith, and admonition — the care, contained in it at the same time, for works of love, good morals and life therein (also especially with regard to almsgiving to those to whom Christ sends it, the poor), for discipline and order, and in general, officially, for all who are bodily and spiritually needy, the sick, the wretched and the dying, cf. Rom. 12:7–8; for the Word governs everything, rules over everything; consequently there also remains to its office the oversight of all the individual services, insofar as they proceed from it, together with their entire responsibility.
Let us, however, look, as regards the particulars, chiefly at the division