# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_April 1864_S101
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

101

Foundational Theses on the Question of Church Order and
Church Governance.

I.

Through faith in Jesus Christ every man is made free:
1. from the curse and constraint of the divine law; 2. from
the dominion of sin and of the devil; 3. from the obligation
of the Mosaic ceremonial and civil law, and finally 4. from
the duty of obedience toward humanly-instituted church
laws and ordinances.

On this Brochmand writes: "Christian liberty is the liberation from
spiritual bondage, acquired through Christ's blood, by which those who
believe in the only-begotten Son of God are free before God in conscience
from the curse of the law, from the bondage of sin, from the yoke of the
Mosaic ceremonies, and from the burden of human traditions. .. But we
have here undertaken to deal only with that Christian liberty which
concerns the traditions of men, or things indifferent [adiaphora]. Things
indifferent are sometimes taken in a wider and broader sense for any kind
of intermediate matters, whether profane or sacred, which, considered in
themselves, are neither good nor evil. Taken in the stricter sense, however,
the word "things indifferent" designates ecclesiastical ceremonies which are
by an express word of God neither commanded nor forbidden, but which
have been established by the church, partly for the sake of order and
propriety, partly for the sake of edification, in a lawful manner and freely,
and which one may use without scruple so long as the notion that they are
a divine service, the presumption of merit, absolute necessity, and the
violation of the love owed to one's neighbor remain far from them."*)
Further, Luther: "The third part of Christian liberty concerns human
church ordinances." Instruction of the Visitors, Walch X, 1956. Compare
Baier's Compendium theologiae positivae, Part III, ch. 14, §12.

*) Libertas christiana est e servitute spirituali liberatio, sanguine Christi
acquisita, qua in unigenitum Dei filium credentes a maledictione legis, a servitute
peccati, a jugo ceremoniarum mosaicarum et ab onere traditionum humanarum
coram Deo in conscientia liberi sunt. .. Nos autem hoc loco non nisi de libertate
christiana agere instituimus, quae circa traditiones hominum seu res adiaphoras
occupatur .. . Adiaphora aliquando lato et amplo significatu accipiuntur pro
quibusvis rebus mediis, tam profanis, quam sacris, quae ex se æstimatae nec bonæ
nec malae sunt. .. Strictius vero accepta adiaphororum vox significat ceremonias
ecclesiasticas, verbo Dei expresso nec mandatas, nec prohibitas, sed partim
ordinis et decori, partim vero ædificationis gratia legitimo modo et libere ab
ecclesia institutas, quibus, quamdiu abest opinio cultus, meriti persuasio, abso-
luta necessitas et caritatis proximo debitae violatio, tuto uti possumus.
(System. universae th. Tom. II. fol. 520 sq.)