# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1849 12 11_S61
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

61

faith and conscience and belong to the realm of Christian liberty, e.g., what ceremonies of worship one wishes to introduce or alter or abolish? in what year the male confirmed persons shall become voting members of the congregation? whether one shall build a wooden or a stone church? etc. But here the case is entirely different. For God's Word gives clear and sufficient account how a faithful and capable servant of the Church must be constituted, and how an unfaithful and unfit workman is disposed and constituted; one therefore has only to hold the doctrine, the life, and the whole conduct of office of both, e.g., to the pertinent passages in the epistles of St. Paul to Timothy and Titus, and to compare them therewith, and it by no means lies within the so-called free choice and caprice of the congregation, e.g., to dismiss the faithful and capable teacher and to retain the persistently unfaithful one; and if it should do the latter, then might goes before right.

A third perversity in the unscriptural opinion of Mr. Suhr is this, that this pleasure or displeasure with the preacher should be brought to light annually. For if, e.g., Mr. N. N. teaches falsely already the first and second time he appears in public, or if after a few weeks he shows himself to be a man of permitted enjoyment of life, that is, a drunkard and carouser, who is more surely to be found in this or that grocery than in his study, then he ought properly to be given earnest admonition at once in the due manner; and if he does not accept it, or yet does not change and amend even after admonition repeated at last in the congregational meeting, it would be very foolish to wait for the end of the year, but he must then at once be deposed from his office by the congregation. For what incalculable harm can not, e.g., be done to many souls even by a single dangerous error publicly preached and apparently supported by the Holy Scriptures! —

But if the servant of the Church teaches and lives according to God's Word and accordingly faithfully and earnestly watches over his parishioners: then in this case also it is altogether perverse and contrary to the divine order, also of the mediate call, that a vote should be taken every year upon him, whether one will keep him or not?

God's Word says: "Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honour, especially they who labour in the word and doctrine." And with this there is quite naturally connected the fact that congregations have not the right to dismiss faithful and well-deserving preachers at their pleasure. But according to Mr. Suhr, the hireling preacher in Cincinnati, who by force transfers the accidental conditions of the civil commonwealth here to the conditions of the churchly commonwealth founded in God's Word, contrary to Holy Scripture — according to this fellow his hirers must say contrary to that saying: "By no means! we are the lords, and it rests altogether with us and depends solely upon our caprice whether we shall hire the preacher for another year or not."

But is that to count a faithful preacher and pastor worthy of double honour? Is there in it a trace of sound understanding that the almighty, majestic God, who could destroy in a moment all the democratlings, however puffed up, deals with men, and thus also with them, only through the preached Word and by means of the holy ministry, for the salvation of their souls? Is there in it anything else than a dishonouring of this office and of the servants of God, who indeed are also servants of the congregation, but for Jesus' sake (2 Cor. 4, 5.), not for the sake of a legal contract and of earthly wages.

There would now, to be sure, be other points to touch upon in that remarkable testimony of Mr. Suhr, in which he treads the Scriptural order of the holy ministry in the mire and also makes himself from a servant of Christ into a hired servant of men; but we let them go, because they are more idle chatter than compressed error.

May the impartial and truth-loving reader have found some instruction from the foregoing discussion of the relation, founded in God's Word, of the congregation to the holy ministry and conversely; and may he finally recognize therefrom how Holy Scripture, upon which the office and its order stand, leads safely through between two cliffs, namely between the folly of the Romanists and Episcopalians, that by divine right the church government belongs to the Pope or the bishops alone, and on the other hand the delusion of the monarchical or republican enthusiasts, that this government is due to the secular prince or to the mass of the people alone. —

A Testimony of Luther against the Setting Up of Divisions in the Church.

It is the greatest and most harmful offence of the churches to set up discord and division of doctrine; which also the devil drives to the utmost, and it comes commonly from certain haughty, self-willed, and ambitious heads, who want to be something special, strive for their honour and renown; cannot hold themselves equal with anyone, think it would be their shame if they should not be praised as more learned and of greater spirit (which they do not have at all) than others; grudge no one the honour, though they see that he has greater gifts. Likewise, out of envy, anger, hatred, or revenge against others, they seek to make factions, and to draw the people after themselves. Therefore the holy apostle earnestly admonished the Ephesians to the necessary works of love, that they exercise humility, patience, etc. toward one another, and that one should be able to bear with another, etc.

It is clear and manifest enough from experience what harm and corruption the offence of division and discord of doctrine brings in the churches: for besides that many people are led astray, and the crowd straightway falls in wherever it hears something new from the haughty, thirsty spirits, put forth with great show and fine words; so it follows also therefrom that many of the weak and otherwise good-hearted people fall into doubt, know not with which they should abide; from which then further comes, that the doctrine is despised and blasphemed by many, who seek occasion to contradict it. Likewise, that many become altogether godless and epicurean, and regard all religion, and what is said of God's Word, as nothing at all. Likewise, that even those who are called Christians become embittered against one another in such wrangling, bite and devour themselves with hatred, envy, and other vices, whereby both love grows cold and faith is extinguished.

Of such disorder in the churches, and of all the destruction of souls that happens thereby, such self-willed, factious heads are guilty, who do not abide by the harmonious doctrine, nor keep the unity of the Spirit, but for the sake of their own conceit, honour, and revenge seek and set up something new; and so draw upon themselves a far more terrible and intolerable damnation than others. Therefore Christians should here beware that they do not also give occasion to division or discord, and with all diligence and care (as St. Paul here admonishes) help to keep the unity. For it is also not so easily done that one preserve it; many and manifold causes also fall out among Christians, which easily move them to ill-will, anger, and hatred; so the devil also seeks causes, stirs up and blows the fire wherever he can; therefore they must take heed that they give no room to such provocation as the devil or their own flesh stirs up in them; but strive against it, and do and suffer all that they ought, whether it concern honour, goods, body, or life, that they, so far as lies in them, let not the unity of doctrine, faith, and spirit be broken. — See: Luther's Werke, Hall. Ausgabe, Tom. XII. Seite 1178—80.

The Evangelical Review.

Edited by Wm. M. Reynolds, Prof. in Pennsylvanian College.

Of this English quarterly, already announced earlier, the organ of those English Lutherans who regard a reparation of the American Lutheran Church as necessary and strive for it, two quarterly numbers have already appeared. Perhaps it may not be unwelcome to many a reader to receive a survey of the contents of these numbers. The first contains the following articles: 1. Introduction — the objects and position of the Ev. Review. 2. Theological education in the Luth. Church in the U. S. 3. The Gospel in the Old Testament, translated from the German of Dr. Umbreit. 4. Stier's discourses of the Lord Jesus.