# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1855 01 30_S90
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

90

tender conscientiousness; however precious also is the unity of the Spirit in which they, precisely as standing on the same ground of confession, stand with us; however noble and fine gifts to teach, to defend, to feed and to govern most of them also possess, yet they belong, with one single exception out of some thirty, up to now not chiefly among the teaching, counseling and leading forces of the Synod; and that comparatively "the importance" of an ecclesiastical body depends chiefly on these is beyond all doubt for every impartial and discerning person.

2. When Pastor Löhe asserts, "that the Saxon brethren, partly through the personal deception by Stephan, partly through the democratic current in which they live (and after them the whole Synod), have come to a conception of the spiritual office as a natural fruit of the universal spiritual priesthood;" this assertion also is again in several respects by no means in accordance with the truth.

First, namely, the historical truth is this: that after God had unmasked Pastor Stephan, the most zealous, most theologically educated and most gifted of the Saxon pastors and candidates then made thorough studies in the symbolical books, and in the writings of Luther and of the oldest dogmaticians, in order to gain a thorough and clear knowledge of the evangelical doctrine, especially of the nature of the Church and of the holy ministry of preaching, and of the connection of the two.

Since they were of upright heart, and had followed the doctrinal opinion of Stephan only in an erring conscience, he having shown them in his better days no small pastoral benefits, God granted them success, so that the scales fell more and more from their eyes, and the evangelical truth also in those two articles of doctrine shone ever more clearly before their eyes, set right the erring conscience, and at the same time made their heart joyful and sure; for it was to them not merely a matter of rational knowing, but a great, earnest matter of heart and conscience, moving and pervading their whole life, what the truth of the divine Word and the testimony and doctrine of the Church founded thereon in those articles might be?

But when the dear brethren, through the grace of the Holy Spirit, after hearty and painful repentance over their aberrations in doctrine and practice caused and occasioned by Stephan, and after great and heavy anguish and distress of conscience, had come to the knowledge of the truth in God's Word and Luther's doctrine, they had hardly gained an outward acquaintance with the civil conditions here, to say nothing of their having, even as future citizens of the free states, in any way taken party for the Whigs or Democrats; and the assertion of Pastor Löhe, that they, also in consequence of "the democratic current in which they lived," were as it were carried away to their new knowledge and pure doctrine of the Lutheran Church concerning the ministry of the church — which he, from his own departure from the Lutheran confession, indicates as sliding toward fanatical heresy — this assertion of the so-called "democratic current" is wholly groundless and exists nowhere but in the fancy of Pastor Löhe, in which — as will be shown later — still other things are found, which the, in the best case, self-deceived producer and possessor of such fancies beholds as certain and real facts.

Just as little, however, have we others, the non-Saxon members of our Synod, been seized by this "democratic current," and come, in blind faith in authority toward the Saxon brethren, to the Lutheran doctrine, well grounded in God's Word, of the two articles on Church and Ministry; but we have ourselves recognized, and believe, teach and confess with our orthodox fathers, teachers and champions, that this doctrine, as our churchly symbols attest it, is the firm, certain, infallible truth of the divine Word and as such shall remain to the end of the days against old and new craft and deceit of the ancient liar, who is now occupied with nothing less than to defile these doctrinal pieces, under the semblance of Scripture but altogether against the connection of the evangelical doctrine, quietly and gradually with papistic filth, and to marry the Lutheran Church by degrees to the Antichrist at Rome; also we are, as a Synod, firmly resolved, for the maintenance and defense of this jewel of doctrine also, to fight the good fight of faith, according to the ability which God supplies, unwearied, and in it to regard neither father, son, brother, friend or foe, human esteem or the heroes of the day; and however heartily it should grieve us, on account of many old benefits and brotherly helping hand, to fall into open conflict even with Pastor Löhe, yet we will not shun it, also out of true love to him himself.

3. As to the doctrine itself, which Pastor Löhe has imputed and invented for us, as if we derived the holy ministry of preaching in such a way that it is "a natural fruit of the universal spiritual priesthood," we must also quite decidedly disavow such assertion and reject it as erroneous and untrue. Pastor Löhe might indeed have been better informed, if he had taken a little more time from his multifarious business and had taken the trouble to look somewhat more thoroughly at our testimony on Church and Ministry that has gone out in print; for then he would have found nowhere in the theses on the office of preaching and of the pastorate that we derive it, like the fruit from the root, from the spiritual priesthood, but as given from divine institution and command, in and with the Gospel at the same time, yet not to an estate propagating itself spiritually from the apostles through ordination or consecration of priests, of office-bearers thereby preferred and by kind distinguished from the other Christians, who in the administration of the preaching of the Gospel and of the holy sacraments formed a sort of mediating estate between Christ and the congregation, which is the aberration of the Roman and of the episcopal Church of England from the evangelical truth, but immediately to the Church, as Christ's bride and house-mistress, that is, to the congregation of the believers and saints on earth, both to all together from the rising of the sun to the going down thereof, thus to Christendom among all manner of peoples, times, languages and tongues, and also to every two or three Christians who are anywhere locally gathered in the name of Jesus; for every congregation of Christians, however small, has the same spiritual and divine goods, rights, offices and powers which the whole Church possesses; each of them has, according to its evangelical fundamental rights, by virtue of holy Baptism the authority and plenitude of power to carry out the divine command and institution, namely to set up the holy ministry of preaching among itself, and according to Christ's word and rule in 1 Tim. 3 and Tit. 1 to appoint and ordain orthodox, apt-to-teach and blameless stewards and servants, who administer the common treasure for the common benefit in public service and office; this calling of the servants of the church therefore takes place by no means only for the sake of human order and by way of common consent, but first and chiefly in order to obey the divine order in the institution of the holy ministry of preaching and of the accompanying sacraments, well aware that God through them calls His servants and appoints them to the public service and office, and that it is by no means free to them to omit or to do such calling and appointing to the service of the congregation.

Nevertheless it is so true and certain that these servants of Christ and of His Church, thus called and appointed, in the discharge of their public service, office and calling do nothing else than administer the common treasure of Christendom, namely the holy Gospel and the sacraments, for which all Christians, therefore also every single one, as such, by virtue of his original spiritual priesthood from holy Baptism, has the same evangelical right and power, although he has, for the sake of an order made by God, renounced it and, with his brethren, transferred it to another fellow-priest; and only there may and shall he make use of his original right and power, where the rights of the preaching office or pastoral office, set up also through him, would not be violated.

This is in brief the sum of our doctrine, and every unprejudiced and intelligent reader will see from it sufficiently that it is not true what Pastor Löhe asserts, that we derive "the spiritual office, as a natural fruit, from the universal spiritual priesthood," and that he has either not read our defense thoroughly, or, for the sake of his deep-rooted favorite images and fancies of the visible church and spiritual office, has not understood it in its connection, and