# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_M rz 1864_S66
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

66 Something on the Doctrine of the Oberkirchencollegium of the Ev.-Luth. Church in Prussia, etc.

Everything that God has, in order to be able to promise it to human beings created in His image, is given to faith; all is his — he is in possession of the world with everything in it, in a use ordained by God, be it life or death, the present or the future; all is his who believes in Jesus Christ and has thereby become God's child and heir. But the most excellent thing that belongs to the Christian on earth is the divine Word and Sacrament, for by these the Triune God pledges Himself and His blessedness. Now, just as the promise of the Gospel certainly and immediately belongs to the whole Church of the saints, so Christ has granted it the power of the keys, since this is nothing other than the office of the forgiveness of sins, whereby that forgiveness is imparted to everyone who desires it. From the bestowal of this heavenly good there follows incontrovertibly the grant of the power to establish, order, and judge all those matters in general — such as the outward affairs in the building up of a congregational life that has been born, in the several places, through the Holy Spirit — in particular, since on this depend, in part, the wider, fuller, less restricted efficacy of the Gospel, and the gathering, regulating, and stimulating of the powers produced by it, or richly permeated with its blessing, and, in part, also the continued existence of the fellowship that wishes to organize itself as such — for which purpose certain things are therefore not merely useful but necessary. The manner in which this is done constitutes the concept of a church constitution; the self-active cooperation and exercise of the rights granted to all, including baptized children, within the church can only be conceived of through persons qualified for this purpose, who at the same time represent the place of the rest; the counseling leadership in this matter — which forbids wrong in God's stead — belongs especially to those servants who are both watchmen and shepherds (bishops, pastors, who preside, feed, and oversee with doctrine, as the nature of the office, grounded in the divine Word, entails — cf. Smalcald Articles, p. 156b at the end, 141a; Formula of Concord, Art. 10, p. 316a at the end — who are not to do simple teaching alone, for herein lies the distinction of pastors from mere assistant teachers) — together also with, to a greater or lesser degree as necessity requires, associated helpers for the carrying out of the actions required for presiding; this is what is called church government. To wish to represent a church constitution as of divine authority means to make law and sin in Christ's stead; but well may all those rights which are rooted directly in the office of the keys, that is, of the Word and the holy sacraments, be regarded as of divine command to the whole body of Christians — namely the power: 1) to call and install ministers of the church; 2) to hold services of worship and to order the manifestations of common church life; 3) on the basis of the Word, the Gospel, and the Law, to open and to shut the kingdom of heaven and its blessing through prayer, and accordingly further to exercise the church discipline commanded by Christ; 4) to examine the doctrine that is set forth according to God's Word, and whatever falls within this