# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_April 1864_S112
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

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

for by that alone he denies everything that God is, teaches, and does,
together with his Christ... Therefore listen, my brother: you know that in
the matter of Christian liberty, as with any article of faith, we should give
up body and life, and do everything that is forbidden against it, and leave
undone everything that is commanded against it, as St. Paul teaches, Gal.
5... Not that it is necessary for your own conscience's sake, but that it is
necessary to confess Christian liberty, and not to tolerate or permit that
the devil should make a command, a prohibition, a sin, or a matter of
conscience there where God wants none. But if you allow such sin to be
made, then there is no longer a Christ to take it away. For with such a
conscience one denies the true Christ, who takes away all sin. Therefore
you see how, in these small matters, no small danger stands, when one
wants to press upon the conscience with them... Where one wants to make
a command, a prohibition, a sin, a good work, a matter of conscience, and
a danger, where God wants freedom and commands nor forbids nothing,
you must hold fast to such freedom and always do the opposite, until you
obtain freedom. Gal. 2:5; compare Acts 16:3." Ibidem, p. 278ff. The
same: "So, in all manner of outward ordinances of things which are in
themselves free and not against faith and love, one should make the
distinction that one keeps them out of love and freedom, for the sake of
the others among whom one lives, so that one accommodates and adapts
oneself to them. But if they insist that one must and should keep it as a
matter of obedience, as necessary to salvation, then one should abandon
everything and do the opposite, to prove that nothing is necessary to a
Christian except faith and love alone, everything else being left free to
love, according to what the community requires. For to keep such things
out of love and freedom does no harm; but to keep them out of necessity
and obedience is damnable. The same is to be understood also of the
ceremonies, singing, prayers, and all other church ordinances, so long as
one does these things out of love and freedom. One should keep them
only in service to and for the will of the community that is present, where
it is otherwise not in itself an evil work. But when one insists that it must
be so, one should at once desist and act to the contrary, in order to
preserve the freedom of faith." Church Postil on the Epistle for the Fourth
Sunday in Advent. Erlangen ed., vol. 7, 114. — Augsburg Confession:
"Some so dispute about the Sunday that they hold it must be kept,
although not by divine right (yet almost as much as if by divine right),
and lay down the form and the measure of how far one may work on a
holiday. But what are such disputations other than snares of the
conscience? For although they undertake to soften and to explain human
regulations, yet one can achieve no epieikeia [equity] or mitigation so long
as the opinion stands and remains that they are necessary; and that very
opinion must remain, when one knows nothing of the righteousness of
faith and of Christian liberty." Article 28. —