# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1851 10 14_S26
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

26

mediately entrusted.—On the third and lowest step, finally, stands the congregation, the hearers, the laity, that is, "the people who knoweth not the law" (and according to consistent papistic interpretation, without the blessing mediation of the priesthood, "are cursed"). For this portion of the church of God has no other share in Christ and His merit than through the priestly order, through whose administration of office the divine means of grace, the Gospel together with the holy Sacraments, first prove truly efficacious unto salvation. Whoever, therefore, is outside the sphere of office of the priestly order is also not essentially in the church of Christ.

This ladder of degrees and human church-order, made after the Levitical-legal pattern out of episcopalistic-papistic pride and lust of power, is, however, on the second and third steps straight against the evangelical divine church-order set by the LORD Christ Himself.

For according to this, which is clearly shown in God's Word, the matter stands thus:

On the second step stands the Bride and Housewife of Christ, the congregation of the living God, the assembly of all true believers, the pillar and ground of the truth, the chosen generation, the holy people, the people of possession, through the Holy Ghost and faith in Christ all of them kings and priests before God, whether they be princes in coronation robes or beggars in rags, apostles among the heathen or silent virgins at home, renowned generals and statesmen or common soldiers and copyists, wise scholars and artists or simple and lowly people in the world's eyes, infants in the cradle or little mothers leaning on the staff, children or young men or fathers in Christ.

By one, that is, the Holy Ghost, they are all, through the same Gospel of Christ and through the same one Baptism, bound together into one spiritual body, of which Christ is the Head, in one faith, animated and impelled by one love from and to Christ and toward one another, borne and comforted by one hope of the future glory. They are all children of the same Father, brethren of the same Son, dwelling-places and workshops of the same Holy Ghost; they all have through faith the same access to their one High Priest and King in heaven, who in the same moment hears and answers the soft sighing as well as the fervent supplication of all the thousands upon thousands of His people in all kinds of languages and tongues. They all have the same anointing of the Holy Ghost and the same holy priestly calling, to offer spiritual gifts and to show forth the praises of Him who hath called them out of darkness into His marvellous light.

To this His Housewife, however, Christ, her Husband, before He ascended into heaven, to fill all things in all, to govern all things and to be near to all His own even unto the end of the world, entrusted the keys of the kingdom of heaven, that is, the holy Gospel together with the holy Sacraments, for faithful administration ordered by Himself, in order to open the kingdom of heaven again to spiritually poor sinners through believing acceptance of this Gospel, and to make them from the accursed into the blessed, from outcasts into fellow-citizens with the saints and of the household of God.

But in order that in such opening all may go on in unity and peace, the LORD Christ has commanded, as His own, and thus as a divine ordinance, that His Housewife, the holy Church, appoint stewards of His mysteries, that is, servants who are orthodox, apt to teach, and blameless in their walk, who shall be ambassadors in His stead, and publicly administer the Gospel and the holy Sacraments as well in His name as in the service and commission of this His Housewife.

And this, then, is the origin of the holy ministry of preaching, or of the service of the church, which therefore, in its essence, is not different from the spiritual priesthood and sacrificial service of all believing Christians, but only a particular performance of the same in public service and office at this and that place in Christendom. And only those have a regular call and a right to such administration to whom these and those little companies of their fellow-Christians and spiritual fellow-priests, scattered hither and thither in their several places, commit this service, that they may perform it, as in Christ's stead, so also in their name and commission; for originally and essentially every believing Christian of this or that locally assembled little company has, precisely as king and priest before God, the same, I might say, evangelical fundamental right and the same power. But in order that in the church of God everything may proceed decently and in order, and that there may not (since the children of God also still have flesh and blood about them) arise wild and disorderly conduct, each individual, to the injury of the same right in the others, wanting to baptize and preach and administer the Sacrament—for this reason it is necessary that the individual persons, as well as the individual congregations, renounce this their original right and transfer the divine ordinance of the public administration of the Gospel and of the holy Sacraments to such Christians, that is, spiritual fellow-priests, as have the dispositions and qualities required for it by God in 1 Tim. 3 and Tit. 1.

Accordingly, therefore, the servants of the church, between whom there is essentially no difference of rank, stand, precisely as servants (but not as visible lords) of the church, according to the evangelical church-order of the LORD Christ, not on the 2nd, but on the 3rd step; and as the pastoral office flows from the congregation, so also it exists only for the congregation's sake, and not the reverse; it is precisely only a means of service for the edification of the body of Christ, for the preservation and extension of the church, not by virtue of the office, but by virtue of the divine means of grace, the Gospel and the holy Sacraments, whose public administration is entrusted to the servants of the church. Nor does the congregation of God, the Bride of Christ, become essentially and originally a joyful mother of children by the fact that she has office-bearers and servants of the church, but by the fact that she is made fruitful by the Holy Ghost with the seed of the divine Word, for which spiritual begetting the servants of the church are indeed chiefly means and instruments, and are called helpers and fellow-laborers of the Holy Ghost.

Finally, however, this service of the pastoral office is only earthly and temporal, and lasts only until the last day, until all the children of God are born bodily and spiritually, and the measure of tribulations in Christ in the church militant is fulfilled.

But when, on the great day of resurrection and judgment, the perfecting of the church triumphant also begins, and this, which abideth forever, is revealed in its holy beauty;—when all the children of God see God more clearly, face to face, and are themselves fully in God, and God in them—then in this heavenly and eternal state, in this kingdom of glory, there will be no longer different teachers and hearers, but only glorified kings and priests. But although these will shine and be radiant in differing splendor, and although, to be sure, the pure and faithful teachers have a special promise that they shall shine as the sun in the kingdom of their Father, yet it might easily be that a simple Lutheran peasant, who lived, confessed, labored, struggled and suffered in justifying faith, and fell blessedly asleep in the same, will shine yonder in more glorious splendor than this or that renowned bishop of the Roman or English church, inasmuch as, if he was otherwise sincere, God through the fire of the hour of death has consumed the wood, hay and stubble of what was useless, yea, even the filth of the false and pernicious doctrine, so that the dignitary of the church has by the poor sinner's and child's faith barely escaped hell and come into heaven.

But now, to return at the close to the beginning, there is certainly for the Episcopal church of England no other thorough remedy against its relapse into popery than that it walk in the footsteps of the Lutheran church and purge itself thoroughly and fully also of the papistic false doctrine concerning the church, the ministry of preaching in its relation to the congregation and the reverse, ordination, etc. For not only is this little human sin and this legal handiwork in itself, as contrary to the evangelical doctrine, most harmful and pernicious, and takes the poor consciences of the people captive under the semblance of the divine Word, but also other highly important and most precious articles of the wholesome doctrine, which the Lutheran church alone confesses in complete purity, as