There are eighteen theses. They are as follows:
… …
§ 4. If the presence of the Holy Spirit working through the Word establishes, builds and sustains the Church, then it must first of all be determined what and where the Church is, and one must not allow oneself to be misled by a dangerous ambiguity of the word Church [Kirche; Harrison charges J. T. Mueller with this "ambiguity of the word Church", but is he, Harrison, the one who should be charged? ].
§ 7. …but the real existence of the true Church also remains an article of faith,
§ 10. This presentation of the Word in faithful confession, of the Word with its binding and redeeming power, is originally and fundamentally a vocation of all Christians, of the whole holy Christian people.
§ 11. The special vocation of the ministry [Amts] in the congregation can only be properly defined if a clear distinction is made between the priestly and the ministerial vocation, and if, on the other hand, the essence of the ministry of the Word is sought in nothing other than that which also belongs to every believing Christian by virtue of his priestly vocation. [Harless teaches against sacerdotalism, causing Pres. Harrison to lump him with the error of Hoefling.]
§ 12. …individuals may not take it upon themselves to do this [ministry] arbitrarily in public before the congregation, but must wait for a special election or calling, just as the faithful congregation [Gemeinde] already properly considers it its duty to provide for such an election or calling. [Harrison charges Harless with an infraction of this.]
§ 14. While the believing church [Gemeinde], the Christian people, awaits the order and appoints the offices established by Christ, in doing so it is not rooted in a law of order or a rule of separation, but in a Word of promise, by virtue of which the Lord promises at all times to give His church [Gemeinde] the special gifts needed to fulfill the special offices; and the heir of this promise is not a special, legally established class, but the whole believing church [Gemeinde], which the Lord separates through the fulfillment of His promise.
§ 15. Therefore one can speak of a special authority [Vollmacht], also of a special gift of the office [Amtsbegabung], but not of a special power and grace inherent in the office itself; but where the office has and brings power and grace, it is rooted in the Word, which the office has to provide, and all the power and grace of the Word is rooted in the living Christ, who is the giver of the Word and Spirit and the founder of the office. [Harless against the sacerdotalism of Kliefoth and Loehe]
§ 17. These are the main features of the doctrine of Church and Ministry as it applies in the congregation [Gemeinde] of believers and presupposes a believing congregation or church [Gemeinde oder Kirche], a holy Christian people.
§ 18. According to the model of the order of the believing congregation, "external Christendom", the community of ecclesiastical signs or the visible church, rightly establishes its order; only that in doing so, much weakness and error, sin and shame, rioting and trouble can also occur (see thesis 8). This sorrow must not cause the faithful to separate from a church that still has a pure Word and Sacrament, but must remain there, fighting and contending until the Lord gives victory to the church.
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These are Harless's theses. It may be that these theses give rise to some unanswered questions. We must therefore refer again to the enclosed testimonies from Luther's writings, in which further elaboration is to be found, and after attentive comparison of which the reader will hardly be left without an answer to a question which directly concerns the matter.
President Matthew Harrison is not actually in agreement with Walther.
In connection with the Missouri Synod centennial five years ago [1947; now 77 years ago] there was a trace of hero-worship in some quarters in speaking of Johannes Konrad Wilhelm Loehe (1808-1872). One heard the complaint that he had previously been “the forgotten man” in Missouri Synod history, but must now come into his own as the great sponsor of confessional Lutheranism in America.
Now we are by no means unaware of the historical significance of this great man for the confessional Lutheran awakening in Nineteenth Century Germany, nor do we minimize the great services in the early history of the Missouri Synod rendered by many of those whom he was instrumental in sending to America; neither do we find any lack of an objective evaluation of these factors on the part of our spiritual fathers in earlier generations of the old Missouri Synod. But his decidedly hierarchical view of the ministerial office (cf. a very competent treatment of this point in the current December Confessional Lutheran [1952 p. 137]) and his later weakening of the obligation of confessional subscription and chiliastic aberrations also belong to an objective evaluation of his significance. In the matters at issue between Wilhelm Loehe and Dr. Walther we consciously stand with Dr. Walther and against Pastor Loehe, as Walther and not Loehe was standing with Scripture.
It is striking how McLaughlin's description of the free-falling LC-MS of 77 years ago matches the situation of the LC–MS today — Loehe over Walther.
There are eighteen theses. They are as follows:
§ 1. In the dispute about the doctrine of Church [Kirche] and Ministry [Amt], we must not begin with Church, Ministry, spiritual priesthood, etc., but with Christ and the way in which the Holy Spirit, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, has His work on earth and establishes and builds Christ's kingdom. This leads first to the relationship of the Holy Spirit, not to the Church, Ministry, spiritual priesthood and the like, but to the Word of the Gospel.
§ 2. It is certain what Luther says: "the Word is the only bridge and pathway through which the Holy Spirit comes to us."
§ 3. This is the "physical [leibliche] or written Word, put into letters," regardless of whether it is preached and heard, or read and contemplated. Where this Word is and works, there is and works the Holy Spirit, and where He is and works, there is the Church.
§ 4. If the presence of the Holy Spirit working through the Word establishes, builds and sustains the Church, then it must first of all be determined what and where the Church is, and one must not allow oneself to be misled by a dangerous ambiguity of the word Church.
§ 5. If the Church is essentially the fellowship brought to faith in the Gospel by the activity of the Holy Spirit through the Word, and in this faith a Christian, holy people, it follows that in this its essential and real existence it is invisible, and that the Church, the existence of a holy, Christian people (congregatio sanctorum et vere credentium) in this its essential reality, is not an article of sight, but an article of faith. [Marquart credits Harless, along with Loehe, with this “visible/invisible” distinction (p. 35)]
§ 6. But since Christ the Lord, by the power of the Holy Spirit, founds, builds and sustains his holy Christian people, the "inward Christendom," first of all through the Word and then through the sacraments as visible means, the Church consequently also has its visible signs by virtue of the divinely ordained means of its foundation and preservation.
§ 7. This connection between the invisible Church and the visible signs, or rather means of grace, which it offers and is to offer, or the God-ordained interrelationship between the "spiritual, inward Christendom" and the "physical, external Christendom" (externa societas signorum ecclesiae) is not like the inseparable unity of soul and body in the natural man, so that where the body is, there must also be the soul, or where the visible signs of the true Church are, there must also be a truly Christian holy people by natural necessity; but the real existence of the true Church also remains an article of faith, by virtue of the faith that where Word and Sacrament are pure, God does not leave Himself unattested. From the mere demonstration of the outward possession of the visible means of grace does not yet follow a visible proof of the existence of a truly believing, Christian, holy people.
§ 8. Since where there is the outward communion of the true signs of the Church, the Word and the Sacraments, it does not follow by natural necessity that the Holy Spirit is received everywhere without resistance and that he has his work, thus also there the real existence of a true Christianity remains an article of faith, but the only visible and unmistakable sign remains only the existence of the pure preaching and the administration of the Sacraments, so also a visible unity and purity may not be made the sign of the true Church.
§ 9. Thus the Church, despite all its sins and infirmities, is the true Church according to its outward profession and signs, if it has and administers the Word and Sacrament purely and clearly; while according to the persons, or according to the Church's inner nature and existence, the Church is the true Christianity only when and where its members rightly recognize and confess Christ in the unity of faith according to the Scriptures.
§ 10. This presentation of the Word in faithful confession, of the Word with its binding and redeeming power, is originally and fundamentally a vocation of all Christians, of the whole holy Christian people.
§ 11. The special vocation of the ministry in the congregation can only be properly defined if a clear distinction is made between the priestly and the ministerial vocation, and if, on the other hand, the essence of the ministry of the Word is sought in nothing other than that which also belongs to every believing Christian by virtue of his priestly vocation.
§ 12. From this, however, it does not in the least follow that what is by its nature the vocation of all faithful Christians is practiced uniformly by all. On the contrary, precisely because all have the vocation to preach Christ and the virtues of Him who has saved us from darkness, individuals may not take it upon themselves to do this arbitrarily in public before the congregation, but must wait for a special election or calling, just as the faithful congregation [Gemeinde] already properly considers it its duty to provide for such an election or calling.
§13. Just as little does it follow from the proper election or appointment by the church to the office of preaching reconciliation that such an office is a mere church ministry, a church order, a church authority; but precisely because the believing church recognizes in such a ministry the foundation, order and authority of Christ, who through His Word and the ministry of His Word founds, builds and sustains His Christendom, it calls to such an office.
§ 14. While the believing church [Gemeinde], the Christian people, awaits the order and appoints the offices established by Christ, in doing so it is not rooted in a law of order or a rule of separation, but in a Word of promise, by virtue of which the Lord promises at all times to give His church [Gemeinde] the special gifts needed to fulfill the special offices; and the heir of this promise is not a special, legally established class, but the whole believing church [Gemeinde], which the Lord separates through the fulfillment of His promise.
§ 15. Therefore one can speak of a special authority [Vollmacht], also of a special gift of the office [Amtsbegabung], but not of a special power and grace inherent in the office itself; but where the office has and brings power and grace, it is rooted in the Word, which the office has to provide, and all the power and grace of the Word is rooted in the living Christ, who is the giver of the Word and Spirit and the founder of the office.
§ 16. Because the Word on which the <Page 172> believing church [Gemeinde] is founded and in the faith of which it fulfills the offices is not the word of commandment and law, but the word of grace and promise, the church does not set the order in which it presents what is the office, whatever it may be, as a legal compulsion and commandment, but as an presentation to the free and unconstrained faith of the church [Gemeinde].
§ 17. These are the main features of the doctrine of Church and Ministry as it applies in the congregation [Gemeinde] of believers and presupposes a believing congregation or church [Gemeinde oder Kirche], a holy Christian people.
§ 18. According to the model of the order of the believing congregation, "external Christendom", the community of ecclesiastical signs or the visible church, rightly establishes its order; only that in doing so, much weakness and error, sin and shame, rioting and trouble can also occur (see thesis 8). This sorrow must not cause the faithful to separate from a church that still has a pure Word and Sacrament, but must remain there, fighting and contending until the Lord gives victory to the church.
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These are Harless's theses. It may be that these theses give rise to some unanswered questions. We must therefore refer again to the enclosed testimonies from Luther's writings, in which the further elaboration is to be found, and after attentive comparison of which the reader will hardly be left without an answer to a question which directly concerns the matter. [Part CM2]
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