# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1845 04 05_S62
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

that there be no knavish eye at work there too, that one not push oneself in of one's own accord to preach, whether for the belly's sake or for honor's sake; for that is dangerous, and it will never come to a good end. Are you learned, and do you understand God's Word well, and do you also mean to set it forth for others faithfully and profitably? Then wait; if God wants it so, He will surely find you. Dear friend, do not let this art tear open your belly. God has not forgotten you; if you are to preach His Word, He will in His own time call you forth well enough. Set Him no goal, no time, no place; for where you do not want to go, there He will drive you, and where you would gladly be, there you shall not come."

Whoever, then, sets himself up as a preacher from his own impulse is certainly not Christ's servant but the devil's apostle, and can by no means comfort himself with the divine blessing upon his undertaking; such a one Christians should not hear, but should flee him as they would the devil himself, lest they make themselves partakers of another's sins. If we wish to be Lutheran Christians, we must also hold Article 14 of the Augsburg Confession to be true and godly, wherein it is taught that no one should teach or preach publicly in the Church, or administer the Sacraments, without a regular call. It is plain, however, that this Article 14 does not abolish the exercise of the spiritual priesthood within its lawful bounds, nor the office of the Christian head of household; nor is it hereby forbidden to a Christian who lives among non-Christians and heathen, and otherwise has the necessary competence, to help them toward the knowledge of God through teaching and instruction — for here the general call of love suffices. Nor does this article intend to forbid the layman, in a case of necessity, to perform holy baptism, for necessity knows no law and sets the ordinance aside. It is different, however, with the administration of the Sacrament of the Altar; for since this is not the same necessity for the grown Christian that Holy Baptism is for children, and since Christians, in the absence of the Sacrament of the Altar, can still strengthen their faith through the Gospel — whereas for children Holy Baptism is the only means of salvation of which they can become partakers — therefore most orthodox theologians of our Church, Luther at their head, do not permit the ordinary Christian, not even the head of the household, to distribute the Holy Supper. Cf. Luther's Works, Altenburg edition, VI, 434.

Just as the preaching office itself is God's institution, so too it is God Himself who places competent persons into the preaching office. This God formerly did directly, as when He called the prophets in the Old Testament, and as Christ called the apostles directly in the New Testament. We are no longer to expect this manner of calling; for although we can set no measure or limit upon God's wisdom and power, we nevertheless have neither command nor promise for such an expectation, and we rightly leave it to fanatics to boast of an immediate call to preach through an inner impulse of the Holy Spirit. In the ordinary way, once the Church has been founded and spread abroad, God calls in no other way than mediately, that is, through human beings; and yet such a mediate call is no less divine than the immediate one. The human beings, however, through whom God calls, are the Christian Church; for she possesses the royal priesthood, and therefore also the mandate to ordain preachers who are to carry out the duties of this priesthood in the public congregation. To her Christ has given the keys of the kingdom of heaven (Matt. 18:18), and consequently also the power to call preachers who administer these keys, preach the Gospel, forgive and retain sins, and administer the Sacraments. Of how the apostolic Church carried out this mandate, we have several examples in the Acts of the Apostles. When the apostles, in accordance with their apostolic calling, could not remain with the congregations they had founded, they did not wait until God sent these congregations a teacher directly, but ordained elders here and there in the congregations — not, however, imposing them upon the congregations without or against their will, for they did not wish to be lords over the congregations, but rather let the congregations cast their vote, and then confirmed the one thus chosen by the laying on of hands (Acts 14:23; cf. 6:3-6).

Here, then, the apostolic Church goes before us with her example, and serves us as a pattern for how we are to carry out the business of calling in a godly manner. Now because the Christian Church is the body of Christ, consisting of many members, no member may be excluded when a preacher is called, and all should exercise their right, though in proper order. Here in the United States, where the civil authority is in principle no member of the Christian Church, and where the Church, as in the first three centuries, consists only of the teaching estate and the household estate, both estates must share in the business of calling; and it is an absolute principle to be maintained that in a congregation where preachers are already present, no new preacher — nor any schoolteacher or other church officer — may be chosen without the participation and consent of the preachers already there; for these may under no circumstances be excluded from it, but are rather the principal persons in the matter; see 2 Tim. 2:2; Titus 1:5.

We do not, indeed, hold the principle that the participation of officeholders is indispensably necessary for a lawful call, as though the persons standing in the preaching office were the exclusively privileged intermediaries through whom the preaching office is propagated and transmitted in an unbroken succession from the apostles to their successors — this principle we leave to the papists. We believe, rather, that if a little band of orthodox Christians (for we have nothing to do with heretics), in the midst of those of false belief, wholly cut off from other orthodox congregations, as can well happen in our present sorrowful times, sets up the preaching office among themselves, they do rightly and well, even if they must do so without the participation of other orthodox preachers; only let them see to it that they do so in the fear of God, with earnest calling upon God, with conscientious testing of the spirits, and that they do not load upon themselves any incompetent or even heterodox person, to their irreparable harm. For God has not bound the call exclusively to the teaching estate, but has given it to His Church, and where two or three agree together and ask for a thing, it shall be granted them. But if an isolated congregation knows of other orthodox preachers, then it is without doubt in keeping with the unity of the Spirit, as well as with Christian prudence, not to bypass their assistance in this exceedingly important matter, and either to have suitable persons proposed to them by these preachers, or to have the person the congregation has chosen examined by them, so that in this matter — since it concerns not money, goods, and life, but the eternal salvation of immortal souls — everything may be done to guard against ruinous blunders and deceptions. It is true that even upright preachers can be deceived in the testing of spirits, but that does not make their counsel superfluous; and if preachers, from whom one may fairly expect a sharper gift of discernment, can be deceived, how much more easily can such deception occur among lay Christians, from whom one cannot always presuppose the same sharpness in testing the spirits. Just as little, then, as preachers may claim infallibility or an exclusive right of examination for themselves, just as little may laymen claim it; but whoever thinks himself so clever as to stand on his own two feet should see to it that he does not become a fool through his own conceit.

Finally, for the business of calling to be carried out in a manner pleasing to God, it also belongs to this that the rules laid down in Holy Scripture be observed in doing so, and that no person be called other than one who has the qualities required in God's Word. If we ask, then, what qualities a preacher who is to be chosen should have according to 1 Timothy 3:1-8 and Titus 1:5-9, it depends chiefly on three things: 1. he must know and confess the pure, saving doctrine from God's Word; he may not be a person of false belief or unbelief. But what the pure doctrine is must already be a settled matter among Lutherans, namely none other than that which is contained in the precious apple of the eye of our dear Lutheran Church, the unaltered Augsburg Confession, and the other symbolical writings of the Lutheran Church. Whoever does not confess this doctrine with heart and mouth, and wishes here and there to make exceptions or reservations, is not to be dealt with; 2. he must not merely know and believe the pure, unadulterated doctrine, but must also understand how to set it forth clearly and forcefully, and how to