# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_November 1864_S352
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

352 Church and Contemporary Affairs.

bath. And while we would with our whole heart reject any part of a confession that taught doctrines standing in conflict with this our testimony, we declare no less before God and his Church that, in our judgment, the Augsburg Confession, rightly interpreted, stands in complete agreement with this testimony and with Holy Scripture as regards the specified errors." — One sees from this what is to be made of it when a body like the General Synod, driven to it by circumstances, finally brings itself to confess the church's symbols by means of a better formula than before. By the adoption of such a formula no synod of false belief, such as the one named, becomes orthodox overnight; rather it must first have become so through searching God's Word and earnest struggle of conscience, and only then may the stricter formula follow. Otherwise all such "amendments" are nothing but a wretched comedy that loads the synod with all the more sin, namely with hypocrisy, and makes it an abomination to God.

The Emigrant Mission in New York. We read the following in the "Lutheran Journal" of October 15th: The Lutheran Synod of Pennsylvania and that of New York have jointly, and in all brotherly love, just appointed a highly respected Lutheran pastor as emigrant missionary at Castle Garden, New York, where most immigrants land, in order to greet them in the name of the Church upon their arrival in this country, to render them all kinds of loving service, and especially to bring the Word of God close to them. For carrying out this good undertaking, funds are of course also needed. — All friends of missions and all friends of humanity will surely contribute to it willingly and gladly. Gifts may be sent either to Pastor H. Rägener, No. 138, 2nd Street, New York, or to the editor of this paper.

Independent Congregations. We too are convinced that congregations which do not here enter into connection with an orthodox synod sin against love and against the kingdom of God, whatever motives may have given rise to their independent position — motives which may make that position more or less excusable. But we cannot agree with it; we must rather declare it a violation of the doctrine of the ministry and of the power of the means of grace when, as the "Lutheran" of October 20th reports, the conference of the 3rd District has, among other things, adopted the following resolutions: "That we declare to our congregations that, when a congregation or a number of Lutheran church members separates itself from the Church of Christ (petitio principii!) "and from its regular connection, the synod, such a congregation or such members cut themselves off from Christ himself. That all so-called independent congregations, which have no connection with a Lutheran synod, possess no right to call themselves Lutheran congregations. The ministry loses all power and authority as soon as the synod excludes from its fellowship the one who holds it, or the preacher himself separates from the fellowship of a regular synod, thereby cutting himself off from the holy fellowship of the Church." This is nothing other than an inverted independentism, which declares synodical connection and common government for several congregations to be anti-evangelical. We recall here the words of Johann Gerhard: "Ministers of the church who, lacking a lawful call, dare to thrust themselves into the office on their own authority, are neither sent nor ordained by God, Jeremiah 23:21; nevertheless the office itself does not thereby cease to be a divine ordinance." (Loc. th. de magistratu, § 34.)