# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1852 12 07_S1020
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

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Sacrament rightly and purely and believe, pray aright, keep God's commandments, etc. etc., as, God be praised, we have among us, that one can say with certainty: Where the true Church were not here, there would be none of it here; therefore there must also be among us true members of the Church and saints.

How should the office of preaching and of the keys not belong to the Church first and immediately, since it is she who brings forth the preachers from her womb, since she is the housewife, in whose fellowship and through whom the Bridegroom trains and appoints the future laborers, as indeed it is before one's eyes in fact that the Church has power to ordain servants of the church (that is, in the language of the Symbolical Books, “to install,” for which there is indeed a divine command!) Articc. Smalc. p. 345.—The known and preached Christ is the Rock upon which she is built; He, the essential Word, preached Himself first to the forefathers in Paradise and to His disciples with human mouth; His word thus proclaimed orally could not be preserved on earth otherwise than through faith alone; 2 or 3 such believers in fellowship are already the Church; if, now, it is she who is built upon the Rock of Christ, upon His preaching of Himself and His office of preaching, upon the office which from Christ leads the confession, Articc. Sm. l. c., and she yet has the power to set up this office further among herself as a public service of the Word, (cf. Gen. 4, 26 fin.:) then with faith, with the believers, with the Church—nothing else remains—the office of the confession, of the power of the keys, is established—how should and could the Church carry on something which she herself did not have!—which therefore, in case of need, so long as it is not administered according to its proper realization through a fit person, can be performed by any layman whatever, which indeed could not possibly take place if the office did not belong principaliter to the Church, Articc. Sm. l. c., The opponent may twist and turn as he will; here he is caught. If the office, according to its institution, is forever present in the Gospel of the mouth of Christ, in every congregation which is truly assembled in the name of Jesus, as Grabau quite rightly says Inform. Vol. 1. p. 75: then it is certainly not present dead and unfruitful, but it is indeed laid by Christ and according to His command through regular call of the congregation into the mouth of a teacher, but everywhere where such an office does not reach, members of the Church can and should, so far as they are fitted for it and it does not run contrary to the unity and order willed by God, for the sake of the love of Christ take over the vices of a preacher. Grabau himself makes a distinction at the place cited between the office in abstracto and that in concreto, which he formerly derided against the blessed Pastor Löber in another connection, see the 2nd Synodalbrief of the former p. 103., and which, already adopted by our old theologians, see Chr. Loeberi theologia positiva a. 1711. pag. 973, could mediate the whole controversy between him and us, at least in part, if his opinionated and embittered temper would allow it. The office in abstracto, that is, insofar as abstraction is made from its administration by a fit person, is given to the Church; but she has God's command to set it up in concreto, and this is now administered not merely nomine Dei, which indeed is the formal element here, but also at the same time nomine ecclesiae. Cf. Chemnitii harmon. p. 1748. Hence the Augustana artic. 5. and the Pomeranian Catechism together with the Saxon stand in fairest agreement with God's Word and Luther's doctrine. —The Apostles, firstfruits of the Church of the New Testament out of the Old Testament, were at the same time, chosen immediately by Christ, the firstfruits of the New Testament office; in the mediate call this office likewise comes forth through the working of the Spirit of Christ as the innermost circle out of the bosom of the whole congregation, which is indeed the continuation of the activity of her Master, invisibly present with her, upon earth, just as He was born and grew up bodily in her, and without her the Apostles also would not have been given. Cf. the two closing verses of Luther's incomparable hymn: Nun freut euch, liebe Christengemein etc. etc.

With the divine giving of the means of grace, the office of their administration and use was also divinely instituted, and the same is present and in operation wherever an administration and use of them takes place. The God who wills that a holy order adorn His congregations wills therefore also that this office, through which Christ is spiritually received, wherever such a congregation is, be concentrated in an honorable presbytery, not according to years but according to aptness to teach, to no other end than that the saints may become a perfect man, who may be in the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ; which bishops are set apart, designated, and installed by the Holy Ghost through the Church, entrusted with the government through the Word and the household of the heavenly family, Articc. Sm. p. 346. init., so that for the sake of their calling they are there not for their own person for the Church, but as Christ and in Christ's stead, Apol. p. 150. The same subject, the Church which calls them, is now also the object of their activity, especially the flock which is committed to them, and only when God's Word ordains and commands it may they be removed from office or dismissed.

Nothing is farther from the true Church than to give out an unbridled arbitrariness and independence of the individual congregations in church government, ordination, liturgy, discipline, and the like forms, for the liberty which the Gospel teaches, if only grace and salvation are not thereby at the same time to be obtained. No, she recognizes the commandment of love and of unity in the spirit of faith through the bond of order and peace as the royal law, according to which also her outward entrance into the world is to take place; it is the idea which lay at the foundation of the form of appearance of the first centuries, as Jerome and others loudly testify, whereby the invisible essence of the Church revealed itself in time, seeking to represent the unity given her inwardly in the Spirit also outwardly, and to give it practical effect, according to the pattern of the doctrine, in a Christian-evangelical constitution. But to assert the Church, according to her essence and origin, as a visible institution, and the office accordingly as an estate given to the Church by Christ immediately merely for her benefit and standing above her, directly in opposition to God's Word and Luther's doctrine, must necessarily lead to contempt of the true spiritual kingdom of Christ and set up another, merely outward and legal, in its place under the appearance of spiritual power, Articc. Sm. p. 346. The fundamental concept of the Gospel is consequently undermined thereby, that not first of all the Church, the office, but faith, which lays hold of Christ, makes blessed; for if faith comes solely from the office of preaching in concreto, as Grabau is not ashamed to set forth apparently, Inform. Vol. 1. p. 73. ff. 76. (cf. against it the Form. Conc. p. 805. § 29:) then salvation is bound not first of all to the faith of the Word, but to the office of its active realization, which from the Apostles on can propagate itself in no other way than per successionem ordinatium, that is, episcopalem, and for its nearest effect has first the visible Church, then the invisible — (which is indeed an absurdity, for only the invisible can become visible —), for the former forms the latter, as is taught before all the world by the Papists and Grabauites, quite contrary to Apol. p. 148 sq. Articc. Sm. p. 352 sq, which set faith and the confession of the saints above such office, as even a Chrysostom already testified, hom. 6. in Matth.: Where the true faith is, there is also the Church; but where that is not, there neither is this. With the Church the confession, the office of the Spirit, is established, (Form. Conc. l. c.,) with the confession of the Law and Gospel the power of the keys, with this and for the purpose of it the power to order and to appoint the public service of the Word, which the Holy Ghost does through the Church to which He is given.

(To be continued.)