# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Januar 1859_S32
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

32 Ecclesiastical-Contemporary Chronicle.

leads to faith in Christ, while the latter works and nourishes faith in Christ. Professor Dr. Lindner first meets the accusation that scholarship has lagged behind and has not made the attempt to determine more closely the relation between Word and Sacrament; had the old dogmaticians left a gap, he says, one would have to call it a "holy" one, for, sensing that something mysterious was at stake here, they had considered it neither advisable, nor indeed free of danger, to attempt to fill it — an attempt which, besides, could scarcely have led to the desired goal. But he must oppose the manner in which the speaker had striven to fill the gap, in that he had come too close to the Word, leaving it only the power to work faith in Christ while ascribing faith in Christ [in a person] to the Sacrament; in this way the Word is subordinated to the Sacrament, and the latter exalted into the main thing — here the Euen error repeats itself. (See "Lehre und Wehre," 4th year, p. 9.) The gap left by the old dogmaticians, he said, is the holy siste viator ("stand still, traveler!") which bids us be silent. Our readers will surely, along with us, feel heartfelt gratitude to Dr. Lindner for this fine counter-testimony. Justice demands, however, that we also note that Superintendent Otto, among other things, replied: "With Euen he knows himself to be in the fullest opposition; nothing separates him from him more, and nothing less, than what separates the Lutheran Church from the Roman."

Coburg. From this little land, which seems condemned to grant hard-pressed rationalism a reprieve from the gallows, a correspondent of the Saxon Church and School Gazette writes: "A new blow has been dealt to our churchly life. In place of the old formula of vocation, which expressly bound the clergy to all the confessional writings of the Lutheran Church, a new one was quietly introduced last year, in which the clergy are called upon "to set forth to their hearers the Word of God according to Holy Scripture and the prophetic and apostolic books contained therein, with conscientious regard for the public confessional writings of our evangelical Church, without the intermixture of false opinions, needless verbal disputes, and dangerous misconstructions, in a decent, intelligible, edifying manner conducive to real improvement of life, and to administer the venerable sacraments according to divine order," etc., etc. The purpose of this change is not hard to discern."

Consequences of Religious Freedom. From Denmark it is written to the Allgemeine Zeitung of September 30 of last year: This past summer, Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian emissaries made the utmost efforts in Copenhagen to spread the Baptist faith, but achieved very little by it. Precisely the religious freedom that has been introduced has been harmful to the sect's progress in Denmark, whereas formerly the prohibition attracted some. In Sweden, on the other hand, great numbers of the "Readers" are now going over to the Baptists. In doing so they separate themselves from the state church, which as Readers they had not yet done. These Swedish Baptists otherwise stand more on Lutheran ground than (like the rest) on Reformed ground. — A society for home missions currently exists in Zealand as well.

Prussia. The Prince Regent of Prussia, on November 8 of last year, delivered an address to the newly formed cabinet of state ministers, in which he also set forth his position toward the Church as Regent. The remarks in this connection allow much to be conjectured regarding the future of our fellow believers in Prussia, which claims our highest interest. We therefore let the relevant words of the address follow here:

"One of the most difficult and at the same time most delicate questions that must be kept in view is the ecclesiastical one, since much has gone amiss in this field in recent times. First of all, the fullest possible parity must prevail between the two Christian confessions. In both churches, however, all earnest resistance must be offered to efforts aimed at making religion a cloak for political designs. In the evangelical Church, we cannot deny it, an orthodoxy has taken hold that is incompatible with its fundamental outlook, and that has hypocrites in its train as a matter of course. This orthodoxy has stood as a hindrance in the way of the beneficial working of the evangelical Union, and we have come close to seeing it fall apart. To uphold it, and to further its advancement, is My firm will and resolve, with all due regard for the confessional standpoint, as the decrees bearing on this prescribe. In order to accomplish this task, the organs for carrying it out must be carefully chosen and, in part, changed. All hypocrisy, all sham piety, in short everything that uses churchliness as a means to selfish ends, is to be unmasked wherever possible. True religiosity shows itself in a person's whole conduct; this must always be kept in view and distinguished from outward bearing and display. Nevertheless I hope that the higher a man stands in the state, the more he too will set the example of church attendance. To the Catholic Church its rights are constitutionally secured. Encroachments beyond these are not to be tolerated."