# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_October 1859_S318
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

318 Church and Contemporary History.

"The Antichrist will reign only three and a half years. But the pope has already reigned spiritually in the church for more than 1500 years; so no one else who has been supposed to be the Antichrist can be pointed out as having reigned exactly three and a half years. Therefore the pope is not the Antichrist, and he has not yet come."*)

"Of him (the Antichrist) it is also said that he will last three and a half years." Synod. Rep., p. 20.

"When the time of the Antichrist is fulfilled, Christ will put an end to him through the appearing of his coming. We expect a visible coming of Christ at the end of the antichristian kingdom." P. 22.

*) "Antichristus non regnabit nisi tres annos cum dimidio. At papa jam regnavit spiritualiter in ecclesia plus quam mille quingentis annis, nec potest assignari ullus, qui sit habitus pro Antichristo, qui praecise regnaverit tribus annis cum dimidio. Non igitur papa est Antichristus, proinde Antichristus nondum venit." ["The Antichrist will reign only three years and a half. But the pope has already reigned spiritually in the church for more than fifteen hundred years, nor can anyone be found who has been held to be the Antichrist and has reigned exactly three years and a half. The pope is therefore not the Antichrist; accordingly the Antichrist has not yet come."] Loc. cit., cap. 8.

Redenbacher once asked: "Does the way to Zion run through Rome?" One might similarly ask here: Does the way of the Symbols run through Rome? Oh, that the Lord would have mercy on his church, and thoroughly put to shame all the pride of our age. That is the medicine which our torn church needs precisely in our own days; for once her sons sit again at their fathers' feet and first learn their wisdom before airing their own, then it will soon resound ever further again: "We believe, teach, and confess with one accord." Therefore let all who have the welfare of the church at heart call upon him from the heart. Amen!

Church and Contemporary History.

I. America.

From the General Synod. In the theological department of the college at Springfield, Ohio, 58 ministers have studied to date. At the close of the last school year of this institution within the General Synod, a Methodist preacher was invited to deliver the commencement address for the graduates. So reports Pastor Brobst's "Zeitschrift."

Episcopalianism. As the Reformed Church Gazette reports from an episcopalian paper, an Episcopal minister in Chicago who preached in a Presbyterian church has been suspended on that account. Strange! Would to God that Lutheran ministers were permitted to preach in the churches of all sects — how gladly would they do it, and have the consent of all their brethren! — Or was the Episcopal minister perhaps otherwise suspected of unionism, so that for that reason his conduct carried a different meaning? —

II. Abroad.

The Union of Politics with the Church. At the last Saxon diet, Superintendent Lechler of Leipzig and Court Preacher Liebner of Dresden delivered patriotic speeches in favor of the war against Napoleon. — The Lutherans in Alsace have had to give up Wucherer's "Freimund," because it wishes to be a paper joining church and politics and has written sharply against Napoleon, in order to