# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_M rz 1864_S71
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Something on the Doctrine of the Oberkirchencollegium of the Ev.-Luth. Church in Prussia, etc. 71

...could arise from Luther's writings (to which a member of the Oberkirchencollegium himself refers, see Verhandlungen p. 187) — that they accept only a single public office of the Word, that is, of the administration of the means of grace, from which the aspect of order only then follows, which indeed has to direct and oversee the affairs of the congregation as such, “whose governing, however, is nothing other than to carry on God's Word, so that it may lead Christians and overcome heresy, whose divine matters, in which it stands over everyone, are the preaching, teaching, and administering of the sacraments instituted for the church” (Luther) — and this without admitting so much as an approximation of a governmental relation of this world — this results for the unbiased reader, who is not accustomed to importing his favorite opinions and erroneous notions, clearer than sunlight, from the statements of the Augsburg Confession, the Apology, and the Smalcald Articles, partly already cited or explaining these, according to their own words and their context; the opposite of all this would strike their basic view of the article on justification and on the church directly in the face, and the analogy of the

There is no salvation possible outside the totality of those who believe through and in the Gospel brought from heaven, without belonging to it. Among such believers, wherever they may be, even if they are scattered among corrupted congregations, there will be retained, as the mark of their presence, at least the fundamental doctrine of Matt. 16:16–19; for the purity of the confession of the Word has its degrees; and insofar as, among heretical groups, the chief parts of it are present — the holy Scripture for use in worship, and the essential element of the sacraments, or at least of baptism — all this is a possession belonging to the church hidden there, while the corruptions and the erroneous leaven are the property of the sect. The purer the outward signs are administered, the less can the church suffer under corruption; this is the necessary consequence of her very existence on earth. The public, pure preaching office therefore proceeds from the true faith of the saints of God, where they prevail; and it teaches and governs with the word of pure doctrine. But because, in and alongside this, everything is to proceed honestly and in order, such a Christian congregation, by virtue of its spiritual priesthood, sets up, alongside the order of the public preaching office established by the Lord, certain external ordinances as well, which are left to its own discretion in the Holy Spirit. This it does again in a manner determined by itself. If, in doing so, it sets individual persons from among itself into a special church office, distinct from the service which the whole body of grown male members of the fellowship renders as representatives of the rest, then this can only be a part of the pastoral office, contained within it and a consequence of its existence, since the pastoral or public teaching office, by virtue of its divine institution, has the care of discipline and order; only that the congregation itself retains the right to carry out these latter matters, in their particular manner of execution, in individual cases; only excommunication, and the steps of brotherly admonition leading up to it, are, like the acts concerning the administration of the holy means of grace, regulated by natural law. Now, since, when partial offices are filled with several persons, this is bound to no commandment, those holding office are likewise not themselves commanded by the Lord in the way that His public servants of the Word are — (this holds even in false churches, because and insofar as they do not overthrow the essence of the Christian religion, but rather still adorn themselves with it, whatever their intention) — that is, they are set into office not by the Holy Spirit specially and objectively, but only according to a human order nevertheless borne by Him; yet in the same way they are otherwise given as a gift to the church, and, if they are believers, are also inwardly consecrated. See more on this further below.