# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_April 1864_S104
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

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

VI.

Nor does the majority of its members or the pastor
acquire, by the mere fact that Christians come together
into a congregation, any divine power to prescribe to the
minority or to a single member anything that God has
not already prescribed.

On this Calov writes: "In the administration of the church office there
are indeed degrees with respect to order, but not with respect to
jurisdiction; in which, however, a difference is found between the Old and
New Testament. For there a certain ecclesiastical jurisdiction did exist —
for example Aaron's over the priests, Levites, and gatekeepers — but that
in the New Testament there should be an ecclesiastical jurisdiction that is
of divine right, we do not grant, except the general one, that everything be
done in the church in an orderly and honest manner. By human and
positive right, however, the lord of the territory exercises a jurisdiction,
either alone through consistories, or also through superintendents — of
which sort Titus in Crete was perhaps one — or in whatever other way this
may be found agreeable, provided only that the propriety of order is not
violated."*) Further, Carpzov: "It is to be noted, when the Augsburg
Confession at this point grants to bishops the right to order ceremonies,
that this happens 1) according to the character of that time, when it also
belonged to them by human right, as it had recalled in the section: 'but
that the bishops otherwise have power and the exercise of jurisdiction';
2) that thereby nothing be taken away from the right of the whole church,
as the Augsburg Confession itself not obscurely indicates."**)

VII.

Nor does the whole church on earth have any power to
give to one Christian, or to several, a law binding upon
them.

On this Luther writes: "We know that it has been so ordained in
Christendom, that all churches are equal, and there is no more than one
single church

*) Gradus in officio sacro sunt ordinis quidem, non vero jurisdictionis respectu;
in quo tamen differentia deprehenditur in Veteri et Novo Testamento. Nam ibi
fuerat jurisdictio quaedam ecclesiastica, v. g. Aaronis in sacerdotes et levitas et
janitores, sed in N. T. ecclesiasticam, quae juris divini sit, nullam admittimus,
nisi generalem, ut omnia ordine et decenter fiant in ecclesia. Jure tamen humano
et positivo dominus territorii sive per consistoria sola, sive etiam per superinten-
dentes, qualis forte in Creta Titus fuerat, jurisdictionem exercet, aut quacunque
alia ratione libuerit, modo ordinis decentia non violetur. Syst. Locc. th. Tom.
VIII, p. 288.

**) Advertendum est, quando episcopis hoc in loco Augustana Conf. concedit
jus ordinandi ceremonias, id fieri 1) pro istius temporis ratione, ubi ex jure
humano ipsis id quoque competebat, prout § 'Si quam habent' p. 40. memoraverat.
2) Totius ecclesiae juri nihil inde detrahi, prout non obscure istud simul A. C.
indicat. — Isagog. in libb. symb. p. 750.