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*) These antitheses have been requested by dear fellow believers and confessors in Germany, partly for orientation with regard to their opponents, partly because in many cases it is only from the antithesis that the punctum saliens [prominent point] and the implications of a thesis come to light. In accordance with the expressed wish of some readers of this journal, we are sharing here the collection of antitheses from writings published in Germany, which was initially made for Germany. For those who desire American antitheses, we refer in particular to the publications of the then Synod of Buffalo and its elective cousins. A striking collection already appeared in the 9th volume of Der Lutheraner under the title: "Excellent tabular survey of some of Pastor Grabau's obvious errors, presented in his own words and compared with the false Roman, as well as with the pure Lutheran." (See No. 10 to 26.) [11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 23, 25] [Original German pages: [10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 23, 25, 26]
"Walther's contention that Löhe held a less than quia view of the Lutheran Confessions and that our great and beloved co-founder of the Missouri Synod [Loehe] — despite his glorious strengths — specifically and knowingly rejected Luther's view of the Office of the Ministry at key points" [Church & Office, p. xiv],
Lehre und Wehre.
Volume 16. June 1870. No. 6.
Antitheses
to the theses on Church and Ministry contained in the writing: "The Voice of our Church on the Question of Church and Ministry". Erlangen, published by A. Deichert. 1852 and 1865. *)
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*) These antitheses have been requested by dear fellow believers and confessors in Germany, partly for orientation with regard to their opponents, partly because in many cases it is only from the antithesis that the punctum saliens [prominent point] and the implications of a thesis come to light. In accordance with the expressed wish of some readers of this journal, we are sharing here the collection of antitheses from writings published in Germany, which was initially made for Germany. For those who desire American antitheses, we refer in particular to the publications of the then Synod of Buffalo and its elective cousins. A striking collection already appeared in the 9th volume of Der Lutheraner under the title: "Excellent tabular survey of some of Pastor Grabau's obvious errors, presented in his own words and compared with the false Roman, as well as with the pure Lutheran." (See No. 10 to 26.) [11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 23, 25] [Original German pages: [10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 23, 25, 26]
Church: Thesis I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII A. B, C, IX
Ministry: Thesis I, II, III, IV, V, VI A, B, VII, VIII, IX A, B, C, X
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First part.
Of the church.
Thesis I.
The church in the proper sense of the word is the congregation of saints, i.e. the totality of all those who, called out of the lost, damned human race by the Holy Spirit through the Gospel, truly believe in Christ and are sanctified and incorporated into Christ through this faith.
Antitheses to Thesis I.
In the alleged refutation of the Augsburg Confession read out by the papists in 1530, called the "Confutation", it says: "The seventh article of the (Augsburg) Confession,
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in which it is said that the church is an assembly of saints, cannot be admitted without detriment to the faith, if thereby the wicked and sinners are completely excluded and separated from the church. For this article, condemned in the Concilio of Costnitz, is, among other errors of the condemned John Hus, entirely contrary to the Gospel." (See Luther's Works edited by Walch, XVI, 1227.)
The Jesuit Canisius answers the question: "What is the Church of Christ?" as follows: "It is the assembly of all who profess the faith and doctrine of Christ, who are governed under the One and, after Christ, supreme Head and Shepherd on earth." (Catechismus catholicus. Leodii, 1682. p. 26.)
Dr. Franz Delitzsch: "Whoever is baptized and partakes of the Lord's Supper is a member of the body of Christ. The body of Christ is the totality of all those who are baptized into one body and imbued with one Spirit. Whether Hengstenberg or Wislicenus — by virtue of the act of God, which faith does not produce and unbelief does not thwart, they are both members of one and the same body. Whether Protestant or Roman, whether Socinian or Unitarian, by virtue of baptism they are all one in Christ. Thus God Himself has given the Church, which He called into existence by the power of His grace, its boundaries recognizable to every simple eye." (Four Books of the Church. Dresden 1847. p. 33. f.)
Dr. Th. Kliefoth: "It is an error and a practically confusing error to take the whole congregation for the church; and in this error it makes no difference whether one thinks of all the called and believing, or only of all true believers; in the former case one gets only the concept of the mixed whole congregation, and in the latter case only the concept of the true whole congregation, but in neither case does one get beyond the concept of the congregation to that of the church. The parts, the great members of which the church consists, are not the individuals and the local congregations [Localgemeinden] and the whole congregation [Gesammtgemeinde], but the head Christ, and the means of grace, and the office of the means of grace, and the congregation and its diaconia; and the church is not the whole, which is made up of individuals, congregations and associations of congregations, which is rather the whole congregation; but the church is the whole, which is made up of the head Christ, and the means of grace with their ministry, and the congregation with its diaconia (the individuals, the congregations, the whole congregation)." (Eight Books of the Church. Schwerin and Rostock. 1854. Vol. 1, p. 348.)
The same: "It is just so that not one, but two polar opposites run through the church, the dualism of the docentes et audientes (teachers and listeners), which belongs to the church as a divine institution of salvation, and the dualism of the regentes et obedientes (rulers and obeyers), which belongs to the church as a structured and
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ordered organism, as a people and a city, which two opposites certainly interlock to form the whole of the church, but are not one and the same." (Ibid. p. 455.)
"The Evangelical-Lutheran Church in Prussia": "Accordingly, we reject, if it has been taught or is still being taught: a. that the outward, institutional side of the church is excluded from the nature and concept of the church proper; b. that the church according to its outward side, that is, as a visible institution, is a work of faith or of the believers, but not directly established by God; c. that the ungodly are in no sense members of the true church or of the body of Christ, ... e. that not only the uniformity of the constitutional and worship institutions made by the church, but also such constitution and order in general and plainly are to be excluded from what constitutes the essence of the church." (Public declaration on the disputed doctrines of the Church, etc. From the drafts and on behalf of this year's General Synod, communicated to all congregations by the High Church Council of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Prussia. Breslau by Dülfer. 1864. S. 21.)
Consistorialrath Dr. L. [Lorenz] Kraußold: "Only in contrast to the ministry does the fellowship become the congregation and in the unity of both becomes the church. A sine congregatio sanctorum (assembly of saints), even if it were possible without a ministry, would not be a church." (Ministry and congregation in the Evangelical Lutheran Church. Erlangen 1858. p. 9.)
Vilmar: "All who now take the doctrine of the church to heart must therefore advance from the concept of a fellowship [or community], which is always something subjective and only a consequence of the planting given by Christ, to the concept of an institution, as the objective that first produces the fellowship." (Theology of Facts. p. 47.)
Superintendent Münchmeyer: "It (the Church) is and remains only something on the basis of the real, visible Church, which forms one great body and consists of all the baptized." (The Dogma of the Visible and Invisible Church. Göttingen with Vandenhöck. 1854. S. 117.)
Pastor L. Räthjen in Neu-Ruppin: "We reject… that the church is the sum of believers scattered to and fro in the world and known only to God." (Luth. Dorfkirchenzeitung of 1858. p. 10.)
Thesis II.
No godless person, no hypocrite, no unborn person, no heretic belongs to the church in the true sense of the word.
Antitheses to Thesis II.
The Roman Catechism: "In the Church Militant there are two kinds of men, good and bad, and indeed the bad are partakers of the same
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sacraments and profess the same faith as the good, but are dissimilar in life and morals; but the good are those in the Church who are united and bound together not only by the profession of faith and by the communion of the sacraments, but also by the Spirit of grace and by the bond of charity." .... The Church therefore contains good and bad within itself. (Cat. Rom. I, 10, 7. 8.)
Dr. F. Delitzsch: "Even dead members — still members of the body of Christ. But how, I hear you ask in astonishment, dead members of the body of Christ, dead and yet belonging to Him? Our older teachers of the Church already ask this question. The baptized, who lead a life unworthy of baptism, belong (?) in their view to the visible church, but not to the church in the proper sense, to the invisible or catholic church. They may be parts, even organs, of the visible Church, but they are not members of the Church, which is the body of Christ. We cannot recognize the legitimacy of these distinctions. The body of a baptized person is a member of Christ through the act of God; if a person in whom such an act of God has taken place commits fornication, then his body is a "member of Christ made fornicator" (not merely a former, but still a real one!). Whoever is once baptized is a member of Christ, that cannot be changed." (Four Books of the Church. p. 42. 43. 44.) Cf. Delitzsch's Antithesis to Thesis I.
Thesis III.
The church in the true sense of the word is invisible.
Antithesis to Thesis III.
The Roman Catechism: "The Church is visible and includes in its bosom both good and evil." (I, 10, 7.)
The Jesuit and Cardinal Bellarmin writes: "The difference between our opinion and all other opinions is that all other opinions require inward virtues for someone to belong to the Church, and that they therefore make the true Church an invisible one; but we also believe that all virtues, faith, hope, charity, etc., are found in the Church. We believe, however, that in order for someone to be said to be a member of the true Church, of which Holy Scripture speaks, no inward virtue is required, but only the outward profession of faith and the communion of the sacraments, which are perceived by the senses. For the Church is as visible and tangible a coetus of men as the coetus of the Roman people, or the empire of Gaul, or the Venetian republic." (Eccles. milit. c. 2.)
Dr. F. Delitzsch: "The New Testament Scriptures know of no visible and invisible church, which relate to each other like shell and core, like body and soul, not of a church of the called and a pure church of the elect, not of a church of the born again
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and a church of the unregenerate — they know only of a single unified Church *), and this is the One Body, which clings to Christ as its One Head and is animated by His One Spirit. It is not at all scriptural to make a distinction between the body of Christ and the members of the visible church.... Invisible is its foundation of life with the divine roots of its unity and holiness, invisible is the Spirit that governs it, invisible is the life begotten by it with Christ hidden in God, invisible and only God can be known unmistakably, in what innumerable manifold mixtures and gradations down to the zero point it pulsates in the individual members — but visible is the church itself as the totality of the baptized and partakers at the table of the Lord: all these are members of the church in the proper sense and not merely in an inauthentic (aequivoce) sense, both with their visible bodies (1 Cor. 6, 15.), as well as with their invisible souls; and this Church and no other, because there is no other in this world, is the una sancta catholica apostolica ecclesia (the one, holy, universal, apostolic Church), which we believe and confess." (Four Books of the Church. p. 34. 35. 36.)
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*) Of course, there is only one church; when we speak of the visible and invisible church, we are not speaking of two churches, but always of the one, which, however, when it is considered, as hypocrites are also mixed with it in this world, is called the visible, but as it is in itself in its real members, the invisible. (Thesis writer.)
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Thesis IV.
It is this true church of believers and saints to which Christ has given the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and it is therefore the actual and sole holder and bearer of the spiritual, divine and heavenly goods, rights, powers, offices, etc., which Christ has acquired and which exist in His Church.
Antitheses to Thesis IV.
Pope Pius VI. wrote the following in his Bull of Condemnation against the Bishop of Pistoja and against the Synod held there in 1794, under the heading: "Of the power invested in the Church's community, so that it may be communicated through it (the Church) to the pastors": "The proposition which determines that the power of the church is given by God, so that it may be communicated to the pastors, who are its ministers for the salvation of souls — understood in such a way that the power of the church office and regulations is derived from the fellowship of believers, and thus passes to the pastors: is condemned and rejected as heretical." (Concil. Trid. ed. Smets, p. 285.)
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Superintendent Münchmeyer: "It is Christian doctrine that the Lord has given the ministry [Amt] to certain persons, His apostles, not to the whole church." (Rudelbach-Guericke's Zeitschrift vom Jahr 1852. p. 105.) Elsewhere he writes: "Yes, the ministry is given to the whole church according to Scripture, but it is given to it in full concrete reality, borne by certain living persons." (S. 53.)
Pastor W. Löhe: "The ministry stands in the midst of the congregations like a fruitful tree that has its own seed; it completes itself, — a sentence that remains true even with the participation of the congregations in the election and appointment of the elders conceded above." (Aphorisms on the New Testament offices and their relationship to the church. Nuremberg 1849. p. 71. f.)
The Immanuel Synod in Prussia: "What the Synod positively rejected is expressed in the following sentences: 1. The ministry of preaching is given by God to the church; the church confers it to one of its members to administer it in its place and in its name. 2. Because the church has the ministry of the keys, it has the outflow of the same and therefore also the outward power of the church." (Synodal Report of 1865, Church Gazette of August 15 of this year)
Consistorial Councilor Dr. L. Kraußold: "The common view, as if Matt. 18:18 the Keys were given to the congregation [Gemeinde], is to be decisively rejected on the basis of the text (!)." (Ministry and congregation in the Evangelical Lutheran Church. Erlangen 1858. p. 84. f.)
Dr. A. W. Dieckhoff: "Incidentally, we have the Confessio Augustana for ourselves (!) if we call it an error when Luther overlooked the fact that the words John 20:22 f. and Matthew 16:18 f. are addressed to the apostles as such, and thus thought he could say that in Peter the keys were given to everyone who believes like Peter.... Matthew 18:17 ff, to which passage Luther rightly ascribes the decisive weight in this question, in which Lutheran dogmatics has followed him, shows that the keys by no means belong to the ordo (the spiritual state) to the exclusion of the rest of the church, that even in the exercise of the power of the keys the rest of the church is not without share apart from the spiritual office. Luther is not so easily in the right in the way in which he positively proves the church to be the holder of the power of the keys on the basis of Matthew 16:18 f. By completely ignoring the fact that Peter personally, as an apostle, receives the keys for administration on the basis of his faith (cf. John 20:21 ff.), he one-sidedly considers Peter alone as a believer and substitutes him as the recipient of the keys for every believer without further ado. Thus it is not only principally made the individual right of the believer, which is the right of the church *) ....
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*) If not every believer has the keys, then neither does the whole church have them principaliter et immediate, originally and immediately, as our confession says. The whole body has the ring on the finger, but the whole body not originally and immediately, but the finger. (Thesis writer.)
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Nor is this justified by Matthew 18:17 ff. For what is there ascribed to the church cannot remove the significance of the fact that the keys are given to the apostles as such, i.e. in a different way than to the church in general, and moreover the concept of the church in Matthew 18:17 ff. does not exclude the spiritual office in the congregation with its special rights, but undoubtedly includes it." (Luther's doctrine of ecclesiastical authority. Berlin with Schlawitz. 1865. p. 58-60.)
Thesis V.
Although the true church in the proper sense of the word is invisible by nature, its existence is (definitely) recognizable, and its characteristics are the pure preaching of the Word of God and the administration of the holy sacraments in accordance with the institution of Christ.
Antitheses to Thesis V.
The Jesuit Peter Canisius: "In what way can the true Church be recognized and distinguished from the false sects? From the characteristics and marks by which the divine Scriptures designate it. What are these marks? The first is unity in faith and in the Christian religion. — What is the second mark of the true church? Holiness, both of doctrine and of those who follow its teaching. — What is the third characteristic of the Church? It is its universal extension over the whole earth and all the centuries, for the sake of which it is called the Catholic Church. — What is the fourth characteristic of the Church? In this, that, founded by the Apostles, she perseveres in the doctrine of the same, and, from those times onwards, proves the uninterrupted succession of bishops. — What is the fifth characteristic of the true Church? The highest head of it after Christ and visible on earth. — What is the sixth characteristic of the true Church? It is the power to perform true miracles. - What is the seventh characteristic of the true Church? The seventh is the conversion of unbelievers to Christ. — What is left of the marks of the true church? The eighth may be called the apostasy of heretics who separate themselves from her." (Catechismus catholicus. Cap. I, § 4. p. 27. sqq.)
The Socinian Catechism: "Since the essence of the Church of Christ consists in having the salutary doctrine, the same, when actually spoken, cannot be the distinguishing mark of that, since the distinguishing mark must be different from the thing of which it is the distinguishing mark." (Cateches. Racoviens. ed. G. L. Oederus. 1739. Q. 489. p. 1018. 8.)
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The Reformed Belgian Confession: "The marks by which the true church is recognized are these: when the church has the pure preaching of the gospel, when it has the unadulterated administration of the sacraments according to Christ's command in use, when it practices church discipline in order to control sins." (Conf. Belg., prout in Synodo Dordrechtana fuit recognita et approbata. Art. 29.)
Dr. F. Delitzsch: "Pure Word and Sacrament are recognizable, but whether, where these are to be found, believers are also gathered, only the heart-communicator has an unerring judgment." (Four Books of the Church. p. 4.)
Thesis VI.
In a non-essential sense, according to Holy Scripture, the visible totality of all those called, i.e. all who profess and hold to the preached Word of God and use the holy Sacraments, which consists of good and bad, is also called the Church [Kirche] (the universal (catholic) Church), and the individual divisions of it, i.e. the individual divisions of these, i.e. the congregations [Gemeinden] found from time to time in which God's Word is preached and the holy sacraments administered, are called churches [Kirchen] (particular churches [Particularkirchen]); namely, because the invisible, true, actually so-called church [Kirche] of the believers, saints and children of God is hidden in these visible groups and no elect are to be sought apart from the group of those who are called.
Antitheses to Thesis VI.
The Jesuit Vitus Ebermann writes: "From the time of the apostles down to the present day, all baptized persons who do not adhere to any sect or innovation have been called and regarded as believers and members of the Catholic Church, regardless of their life and customs, and the assembly composed of them all has been called and regarded as the true and proper Catholic Church". (Parallela ecclesiae verae et falsae. p. 25.) [These “Antitheses” show that this Thesis is not about whether the Particular Church is a congregational or “supra-congregational” / ”trans-congregational”.]
Dr. Th. Kliefoth: "Our church has always taught correctly that the visible mixed church and congregation is a church and congregation of God, not because and if there are at least two or three believers in it, but because and if there is in them the right Word and Sacrament. *) and thus the place of God's presence and grace." (Eight Books of the Church. p. 316.)
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*) Our Church does not teach that an assembly is the Church because and when there is "right Word and Sacrament" in it, but that the Church is where there is right Word and Sacrament. Our church declares Word and Sacrament to be marks of the church, not, as Dr. Kliefoth and others do, constituent parts of it. Compare the antithesis of the same to Thesis I. (Thesis writer.)
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In the following, therefore, he declares the doctrine to be a
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pietistic error: "That the mixed church of reality is called the church of Christ only because some believers are found in it; for it is for the sake of this believing part that the mixed church of believers and those who are merely called is synecdochically, by taking pars pro toto (the part for the whole), called the church of Christ and treated as such." (p. 340)
Thesis VII.
Just as the visible communities [or fellowships], in which Word and Sacrament are still essential, bear the name Church because of the true invisible Church of true believers in them according to God's Word: so also, for the sake of the true invisible Church hidden within them, even if these were only two or three, they have the authority which Christ has given to his whole Church.
Antitheses to Thesis VII.
The Tridentine Conciliar: "If anyone says... those who are neither lawfully ordained nor sent by ecclesiastical and canonical authority *), but come from elsewhere, are lawful administrators of the word and the sacraments: let him be accursed." (Session 23. Cap. 4. Can. 7.)
The Benedictine Virvesius calls out to the Lutherans: "Since you cannot have the (true) church without us, how can you have the right calling and ordination of church ministers?" (Menzeri Exeges. A. C. p. 637.)
The Jesuit Vitus Ebermann: "A community whose public confession is tainted with even one heresy is not a group of uncleaned wheat, but nothing but chaff that has flown rashly from the threshing floor of the Church and is kept for the unquenchable fire. Her confession is not gold mixed with copper, but a mass thoroughly corrupted by infernal leaven, or at least a poisoned nectar that brings the most certain death to all who drink it." (Parallela ecclesiae verae et falsae, p. 57.)
In 1861, Pastor Könnemann wrote the book "Word and Sacraments, the Means of Grace of the Church" (Neu-Ruppin by Oehmigke), of which Dr. Münkel and others reported the following: "Könnemann presents here the doctrine, which to my knowledge is also shared by Diedrich, Pistorius and others, that the church is only there where the Word of God is taught loudly and purely. So there is no church apart from the Lutheran Church." (Neues Zeitblatt of Sept. 13, 1861. p. 191.)
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*) By ecclesiastical and canonical authority, the Council of Trent naturally understands only the authority of the papal Roman Church, as the allegedly only true Church of Jesus Christ. (Thesis writer.)
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Thesis VIII. A.
Even in unbelieving, heretical congregations there are children of God; even there the true Church is revealed in the pure Word and Sacrament that still remains.
Antitheses to Thesis VIII. A.
The Jesuit Vitus Ebermann writes: "Who, if he is not insane, may believe the (Lutheran theologian) Musäus and his comrades when they cry out with Luther: even where the Antichrist and the swarming spirits reign, there also remains, as long as baptism with the Bible remains, a seed proper to the true church and consequently secret saints, because the Word never returns empty, Isaiah 55:11? Woe to the wretched Saxons who are in such a dark night that they cannot see through these revealed depths of Satan." (Parallela ecclesiae verae et falsae, p. 57.)
The papal theologian Augustine Gibbon: "It is impossible that a heretical or doctrinally corrupt church should be a mother of true believers and the just *), unless it be admitted that it is lawful for true believers to have communion with heretics." (De Luthero-Calvinismo schismatico. Erfurt. 1663. Disp. I, § 3.)
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*) Gibbon, of course, knew quite well that we Lutherans do not regard an unbelieving church as such for a mother of true believers, but insofar as it still essentially retains God's Word and administers holy baptism according to Christ's institution. (Thesis writer.)
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Pastor Räthjen in Neu-Ruppin reported on the teachings of the former Prussian-Lutheran church councillor Pistorius and his party in his Dorfkrchenzeitung of 1860: "In addition, this party denies the word 'church' in every way to all false churches, i.e. the Roman, Reformed and unchurched, because it was not baptism or other parts of apostolic doctrine that made the church, but the pure doctrine and the organization around it. The baptized children together with their baptizers, for example, in the Roman Church were not yet to be regarded as parts of the Church, even if they both believed in Christ from the heart." (p. 9.)
Pastor Räthjen: "We also say, like Pistorius: Only the Lutheran Church is to be called the Church of Christ; but we understand by this the congregations that really have pure doctrine, and say: This is how far we see Christ's Church; but it goes further before God than we can see and name it in time." (The same.)
The same: "We believe, teach and confess: a. That before God only those belong to the church who believe from the heart and confess the pure gospel with their mouths, that is, who stand in the congregation of all believers according to their whole person, among
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whom the gospel is taught pure and the sacraments are administered according to the Gospel.... b. That also those do not yet belong to the church on earth before God and man, who believe from the heart, but do not yet profess either the pure gospel or the church of all believers, among whom the gospel is taught pure and clear.... We uphold the excommunication which the church (!) has pronounced upon them or their fathers before us by denying the sacrament to the Roman, Reformed, unchurched.... 6. we believe, teach and confess that in our time we have recognized as the church of all believers, in which the gospel is taught pure and pure, and the sacraments are administered according to the gospel, the church which has inherited the name of the Evangelical-Lutheran church since the 16th century, and we pray for the confession of the gospel. These are: the three ecumenical symbols, the Unaltered Augsburg Confession, its Apology, the Smalcald Articles, Luther's Small and Large Catechism and the Formula of Concord. Note: Those churches (parts of churches) which have not accepted one or the other of these confessions from the time of the fathers, not out of opposition to the pure doctrine, but for other reasons, and have remained with the originally accepted symbols, we count as the Protestant church of our time. 8. We believe, teach and confess that the Evangelical (Lutheran) Church is entitled to all the figurative designations which the Holy Spirit has given to the Church in God's Word, and that it is therefore to be called, for example, the Body of Christ in our time. Note: Since (!) this designation of the Church (e.g. in the Apology) occurs only of the true believers, i.e. of the living members of the body of Christ, (!) it is not thereby excluded that the Church, to which the hypocrites and the wicked also belong, is likewise so designated. We therefore reject... 7. That confessors of the Lutheran faith who have not given up or do not want to give up their outward fellowship with an unbelieving group are already to be counted as belonging to the church for the sake of their confession. Note: That is why we do not want to speak among ourselves: All believers in erring religious fellowships are Lutherans *) or church members or actually belong to the church." (Luth. Dorfkirchenzeitung of the year 1858. p. 10.)
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*) And yet the Lutheran church is to be the congregation of all believers and the body of Christ! (Thesis writer.)
Thesis VIII. B.
Everyone is bound by his salvation to flee all false prophets and to avoid fellowship with unbelieving churches or sects.
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Antithesis to Thesis VIII. B.
Dr. F. Delitzsch: "In every Reformed person you have to see a brother and with you a member of one body, for, like you, he has partaken of the bath of regeneration and has been grafted into Christ. All special churches are only parts of the One Church of Christ, and even if their community is held together by different confessions, they all form one circle, in the center of which stands the Lord, and are all united by the holy Sacraments. This mysterious, divine union is unbreakable, but the state-like human unions are flimsy bonds." (Four Books of the Church. p. 157. f.)
Thesis VIII. C.
Every Christian, for his own salvation, is obliged to confess and adhere to orthodox churches and their orthodox preachers wherever he finds them.
Antitheses to Thesis VIII. C.
The Socinian Catechism: "He who has the salutary doctrine is in the true Church itself, therefore it is not necessary for him to ask for the marks by which the Church is recognized." (Catechesis Racov. Ed. Oederus. Q. 490. p. 1020.)
Dr. F. Delitzsch: "Sin is the ultimate cause of all discord in us and outside of us, including the discord of the Church. But we also have the consolation that this discord of confessions will be fought through to the victory of triumphant unity by the power of the Spirit who reigns in the church as a whole.... But let us wait patiently for this glorification without covering up the wounds that it wants to heal. Let the church of the German Reformation hold fast to its confession, as long as it knows itself to be the mouth of the church of Christ, and let the church of the Swiss Reformation hold fast to its own, as long as it does not recognize it as the will of God to sweep out the leaven of error that has penetrated it. As long as it does not understand itself to do so, we will be content with the unions of God." (Four Books of the Church. p. 157.)
Thesis IX.
The only thing absolutely necessary for the attainment of salvation is communion with the invisible Church, to which alone all those glorious promises concerning the Church are originally given.
Antitheses to Thesis IX.
The Roman-Tridentine Catechism: "It" (the Roman Church) "is also called general because all who desire to attain eternal
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salvation must hold fast and accept it, no differently than those who have entered the ark in order not to perish in the flood." (I, 10, 16.)
Cf. the antitheses to Thesis VIII. A.
Second part.
From the sacred office of preacher or pastor.
Thesis I.
The sacred ministry of preaching or parish ministry is a different ministry from the priesthood, which all believers have.
Antitheses to Thesis I.
The Socinian Catechism: "Do not those who teach in the Church and watch over the maintenance and preservation of order need to be sent in a special way? Not at all. For they do not now bring new and previously unheard teaching." (Catechesis Racoviensis. Ed. G. L. Oederus. Q. 505. p. 1031.)
The Socinian Ch. Ostorod: "Is it therefore not necessary to think as if one were doing wrong when he takes upon himself, i.e., the magisterium without a mission; for such a work comes from true Christian love.... If, then, the Adversaries would say that the present teachers of the churches not only preach, but also baptize and administer the Lord's Supper, which cannot be done without special vocation and mission: we answer that this cannot be proved, namely, that no one can do the thing unless he is called and sent to do it; for since Christ instituted his Supper, he said nothing about it, but commanded his own alone to do it afterward, which, since it concerns all believers in general and not only the apostles, can be clearly seen from 1 Cor. 11." (Instruction on the main points of the Christian-Socinian religion. Cracow 1625. cap. 42. S. 437.)
Thesis II.
The ministry of preaching or parish ministry is not a human order, but an office established by God himself.
Antitheses to Thesis II.
The Socinian J. Volkel writes: "The ministers may administer the Lord's Supper and baptism in the established churches, as Paul and others may have done, to preserve order and decency, but not because they are necessarily and solely obliged to do so." (Resp. ad. van. refut. dissolut. nodi Gordii. c. 21, p. 169.)
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Dr. J. W. S. Höfling: "The difference between clergy and laity, therefore, which our Church also has and must assert, is... merely only one belonging, albeit with inner necessity, to the human church and worship order." (Principles of the Lutheran Church Constitution. 3rd edition. Erlangen bu Bläsing. 1853. S. 76.)
The same: "But, let us ask, ... do we not see from the Acts of the Apostles and the Pastoral Epistles that the apostles and their delegates partly appointed presbyters and deacons themselves, partly ordained those elected by the congregations to their office by prayer and the laying on of hands? ... To this question we can only answer that we know the real facts as well as the opponents, and, far from denying or even wanting to ignore them, rather only deny a false conception of them and false conclusions which are built upon them. We deny that the apostles did what they did in this matter in consequence of a special commandment of the Lord." (op. cit. p. 274.)
The same: "According to our correct, confessional Protestant view, the holiness of the Sunday celebration must renounce an external ceremonial-legal necessity and be content with the reason for its inner necessity.... Should not everything that applies to the ecclesiastical Sunday celebration, whose holiness we do not want to diminish, but rather conserve in a Protestant manner, also apply to the church-orderly appointment of ministers? Should the latter be able to claim a different right of existence than the former?" (op. cit. p. 278.)
The same: "Only our Lutheran Church maintains itself rightly on the standpoint of evangelical freedom and equality, in that it makes a clear distinction between the spiritual office in and of itself and the same as an ordinarily and constitutionally appointed communal office... and, of both the most decisive assertion of the divine appointment of the former, does not at the same time also claim for the latter a special divine appointment and a special divino jure (by divine right) in the sense of a special divine institution of salvation." (op. cit. p. 75.)
Pastor Crome (in Rade vorm Walde): "You (Missourians) violate this truth because you want to explain the existing reality of the public ministry by a supposed command of Christ…, instead of recognizing the natural order in the world based on God's creative arrangement, from which God does not lift his church out, but rather in which he seeks us through the gospel." (Lutheran Synodal Journal, edited by R. Lohmann. 1861. May issue.)
The same: "The teaching community under its teacher forms a righteous moral relationship, and the teaching office in it is one founded in God's (i.e. natural) order, just like the
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political community and the magisterial office, that is enough. ... I do not shy away from the confession that everything that science does and teaches, according to God's will and the true nature of the matter, should be a state and order, but its summit and crown should be the teachers and shepherds of the church." (op. cit.)
Pastor Ebert (then in Danzig) states in an article in the above-mentioned Synod paper: "That the pastor who has been ordained according to Augsb. Conf. 14. rite vocirte Pastor in his difference from the bearer of Augsb. Conf. 5." (i.e. that all Christians have) "is nothing but a product of natural circumstances." (op. cit.)
Thesis III.
The ministry of preaching is not an arbitrary office, but one which the church is commanded to establish and to which the church is duly bound until the end of time.
Antithesis to Thesis III.
The Socinian Andr. Radeck writes: "We concede that ministers could not only be called in the past, indeed were called, but that they can still be called now. But whether what once happened and can happen today is necessary for the establishment of an ecclesiastical office, that is and remains the question."- (Not. ad refut. dissolut. nodi Gordii, p. 3.)
Thesis IV.
The ministry of preaching is not a special, sacred state in contrast to the common Christian state, like the Levitical priesthood, but an office of service.
Antitheses to Thesis IV.
The Council of Trent: "If anyone says that in the New Testament there is only an office and a mere ministry of preaching the Gospel, or that those who do not preach are not priests at all, let him be accursed! If anyone says that in the New Testament there is no visible and outward priesthood, let him be accursed!" (Sess. 23. Can. 1.)
The same: "If anyone asserts that all Christians without distinction are priests of the New Testament, and that all are endowed among themselves with equal spiritual power, he seems to do nothing else than to confuse the ecclesiastical hierarchy, which is like an army standing in battle array, just as if, contrary to Paul's teaching, all were apostles, all prophets, all evangelists, all pastors, all teachers." (Sess. 23, c. 4.)
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Löhe: "The ministry stands in the midst of the congregations like a fruitful tree that has its seed with itself; it completes itself." *) (Aphorisms etc. from 1849. p. 71.)
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*) Here Löhe obviously makes the preachers into a class like the Levitical priesthood. At the Leipzig Pastoral Conference in 1851, [Georg Philipp Eduard] Huschke [DE] quite rightly explained: "The estate is a. a class of people of the same professional activity, lasting as long as the activity of the profession; b. a community inherent only to certain persons, regenerating itself. In the latter sense, the Catholic Church takes the spiritual estate. The symbolic books speak against this. The office is an activity, not a personal quality." (Rudelbach-Guericke Zeitschr. XIII, 109.) Löhe's view is therefore the Roman error. (Thesis writer.)
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The same: "Whoever is ordained to the ministry is no longer a layman. It follows that there cannot be 'lay elders, lay presbyters'. Either they are laymen, in which case they are not presbyters; or they are presbyters, in which case they are not laymen. Ordination makes the difference between them and the congregation (the people == the laity)." (op. cit. p. 79.)
The same: "Either ordination is an induction ceremony into special ministerial circles, then it can be repeated; or it cannot be repeated and then it is more, namely the conferral of the presbytery and its ministerial powers forever, separation and sanctification of the ordinands for the ministry, conferral of power and strength to do the ministry, wherever a special calling entails it. Consider and consider carefully what you choose." **) (Ibid. p. 111.)
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**) Since Löhe rejects the former [induction ceremony], he naturally opts for the latter [separation, “power and strength”]. (Thesis writer.)
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Vilmar: "Only from this certainty, from this certainty that the ministry is represented directly by Christ, ... flows for us ... the power to split the head of sin with a single word.... The church cannot do all this, not even the church of the saints, so it cannot give power, commission, mandate and strength for this either." (Erlanger Zeitschrift. September issue of 1859.)
Thesis V.
The ministry of preaching has the power to preach the gospel and administer the holy sacraments and the power of spiritual judgment.
Antitheses to Thesis V.
Zwingli writes: "Christ's words, when he says John 20:23: 'Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them') have by no means this sense, as if Christ, in speaking this, meant to give his disciples power to forgive sins, for no creature is so excellent
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and distinguished that it could forgive sins." (Resp. ad confess. Luth. Tom. II, p. 430.)
The Socinian J. L. Wolzogen: "The apostles have no successors in this power and authority to forgive sins, but this authority has returned to God and Christ with their departure from this world." (Comment, ad Matth. 16, 19. Dom. I, 513.)
Thesis VI. A.
The ministry of preaching is conferred by God through the congregation, as the holder of all church authority or the keys, and through their divinely prescribed profession.
Antitheses to Thesis VI. A.
The Council of Trent: "The Most Holy Synod teaches that in the ordination of bishops, priests and other ministers neither the consent, nor the appointment, nor the authority of the people, nor of any secular power or authority is so necessary that without it the ordination would be invalid." (Sess. 23. c. 4.)
Löhe: "The scope of the congregations is large or small depending on the circumstances; but the appointment" (of the preachers in the ministry) "itself, the last decisive vote should in the end belong to Timothy, Titus, Paul, for it is said of them that they appointed. After all, the congregation could be seriously mistaken, vote passionately, be deceived, or vote in favor of heretics. The final discretion and the final decision about the person to be elected lay with the one who had the task of 'setting'. After all, the work was his, and it was left to his love, wisdom and responsibility to decide the extent to which the congregations should be involved.... An unconditional right of the congregation to vote is not only unapostolic, but also highly dangerous, a way of driving Christ out of the congregations by a majority of the people and opening the door to the Baal of this world.... It is left to the presbyter (bishop) who appoints, recommended, indeed commanded, to heed the reasonable wishes of the congregations; the congregations are permitted and not forbidden to assert their 'testimony' of the person to be elected, to express their wishes, but they too may recognize that it is not their right to strive against the wise judgment of the presbyter (bishop) who appoints. The presider may be absent, and his proceedings may be brought before the synod. … Everywhere in the New Testament we see that the holy office generates the congregations, nowhere that the office — even in its specific version as the office of elder — is only a transfer of congregational rights and authority. The ministry stands in the midst of the congregations like a fruitful tree that has its seed within itself; it completes itself, — a sentence that
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remains true even with the participation of the congregations in the election and appointment of elders, as conceded above. As long as the presbytery retains the examination and ordination (and also the induction into office) of the presbyters called or to be called (and when should it lose this?), it is right and can be defended that it supplements and propagates itself from person to person, from generation to generation. Those who have it pass it on — and those to whom it is passed on by the owners also have it by God's will. ... Here we come to the truth of the idea of succession held by most of the Christian churches" (the Roman, Greek and Episcopal churches) "of the earth. It is not enough for an elder to be properly elected and appointed; those who were elders before him must recognize him as competent and approve his election, conferring their office on him with prayer and the laying on of hands. Only then is he what he should be *). The ministry is a stream of blessing which flows from the apostles to their disciples and from these disciples down into the ages....... Note how completely different the installation of deacons is from the installation of presbyters" (pastors)! The congregation is not consulted for this; it is entirely in the hands of the appointing apostles and evangelists, who call in the congregation and church members as they see fit and according to need. For the introduction of the diaconate, on the other hand, the crowd is called together, the plan is presented to them — although in the imperative, because (!) the apostles are the Lord's representatives — and they give and show their approval. And how do you raise the deacons? They are elected by the congregation, presented to the apostles and ordained by the apostles according to the standard set by the apostles. One could call the presbytery a holy aristocracy of the church, **) while there is something democratic in the election of deacons.
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*) Löhe, therefore, does not merely reckon the participating activity of the ministry, which is also outside the congregation, in the appointment of a pastor as part of the legality, but even as part of the validity of the assumption of office, making it not merely the conditio sine qua non, but the only actual factor of the office. (Thesis writer.)
**) Melanchthon and others also call the church an aristocracy, but in a completely different sense than Löhe, namely because in the church the votes are not counted but weighed and the actual government of the church is not determined by official powers but by a gift of evidence from Scripture based on clear and thorough knowledge from Scripture. To call the presbyterate a 'holy aristocracy' is a Roman error. (Thesis writer.)
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... Where the Lord's ministry is to be continued, the Lord's chosen servants,
the bearers of his ministry, rule according to their authority and divine power. Where the voluntary mercy of the congregation requires a ministry for the most sacred activity, the congregation may also participate in an elective capacity." (Aphorisms on the New Testament offices. pp. 58 ff. to 87.)
Dr. L. Kraußold: "As is well known, this passage" (from the Smalcald Articles, namely: "Just as the promise of the gospel belongs certainly and without means to the whole church, so the keys belong without means to the whole church, because the keys are nothing other than the ministry" etc.) "is the main support of the theory of transference [or conference]. ... Three things should be noted in addition to what has been said. First, namely, that nowhere in this passage is the 'potestas' (power) clavium (the key) mentioned, but only the 'claves', while the office is still specifically mentioned. *) Secondly, that not (!) the congregation [Gemeinde] is mentioned, but constantly the church, **) and indeed not nude" (without any addition) "'the church', but the whole church, i.e. (!) the church with the episcopis and pastoribus vis-à-vis the pope, thus the church in its totality, i.e. in its combination of congregation [Gemeinde] and ministry [Amt]." †) (Ministry and congregation etc. 35. 38. f.)
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*) The truth is rather that in the relevant passage of the Smalcald Articles the Claves or the keys are declared to be synonymous with office, thus also with potestas clavium power of the keys (Thesis writer.)
**) To distinguish between the congregation and the church is a mere invention! [reines Fündlein]. (Thesis writer.)
†) When the Smalcald.Articles speak of "the whole church", they mean, as the context teaches, not only this and that, but all members of it. (Thesis writer.)
Thesis VI. B.
The ordination of the called with the laying on of hands is not a divine appointment, but an apostolic ecclesiastical order, and only a public solemn confirmation of the call.
Antitheses to Thesis VI. B.
The Socinian Theophilus Nicolaides writes: "Since nowadays it can easily happen that, when this ceremony (ordination) is observed, the person who bestows it on others also believes that he is endowed with that power with which those who bestowed it on others were once endowed, it is certainly not necessary for this ceremony to be used, and it may even be useful for it to be omitted altogether. For superstition is apt to arise from such ceremonies, that plague of all true religion; in that people (according to their custom)
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attribute more to them than to true piety itself." (Defens. tract. de miss. ministr. c. 11. p. 176.)
The Council of Trent: "If anyone says that the ordo or holy ordination is a human device devised by men inexperienced in ecclesiastical matters, let him be accursed! If anyone says that the ordo or holy ordination is not truly and actually a sacrament instituted by the Lord, or that it is only a use to elect the ministers of God and of the sacraments, let him be accursed!" (Sess. 23. can. 3.)
Superintendent A. F. O. Münchmeyer: "With regard to ordination, we mean nothing less than to derive from it a character indelebilis of those who have received it, nor are we at all inclined to ascribe to it the conferral of a specific grace, apart from the fact that, because of our different basic views, we consider ordination to be more than a 'declarative act', namely, a character indelebilis of those who have received it, that, owing to the difference in our basic views, we regard ordination as more than an "ecclesiastical declarative act," namely, as an admission by the Lord, in the manner He has ordained, by means of the organized church into the state of special pastors which he has established, which of course does involve a specific capacity." (The Office of the N. T. Attempt at a Refutation of the Provisions on the Office given by Prof. Dr. Höfling. Guericke's Journal of the year 1852. p. 50).
Löhe: "One will have to admit that ordination is more and is more valid than one usually assumes, that it gives the ability and authority to administer ministries of a more general nature, that a charisma, a grace of ministry and gift comes through it, that the sentence: sine titulo ne quis ordinetur ('No one should be ordained without having found a specific sphere of activity') must be exploited in such a way: 'No one should receive the general authority and gift of ministry before he can use it anywhere.' *) Conversely, however, the installation to the particular sphere of activity will also present itself in such a way that it becomes a kind of development and outpouring of the ordination for the particular spheres of activity, a continuation of the stream of grace that arose in the ordination, - and hereby it would also cease to be a mere ceremony." (Aphorisms etc. p. 76.)
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*) This doctrine of an "ability to administer office", "grace of office" and "general authority and gift" brought about by ordination, irrefutably includes the Roman doctrine of a special privileged spiritual state. (Thesis writer.)
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The same: "They (the Lutheran teachers) are right when they attribute this gift not to the laying on of hands per se, but to prayer; but they will have to admit (!) that prayer is a prayer of ordination and very different from a prayer of the same content (as far as one can concede this by
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generalization), spoken on other occasions, as far as power and hearing are concerned." (op. cit. p. 106.) Löhe had already written above: "They (the Lutheran teachers) do not deny the grace of ministry, nor that it is given at ordination; they maintain that it is not given by the laying on of hands, but by the hearing of prayer. But the prayer is an ordination prayer, said by ordaining presbyters, and it is not claimed that ministerial grace is also given as the answer to other prayers offered outside of ordination." *) (p. 75.)
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*) Löhe herewith quite obviously ascribes a sacramental character to the act of ordination; for if the prayer spoken at the act of ordination is heard, but remains unheard if the rite of ordination is not connected with it, then ordination is a sign connected with the word of command and promise, thus — a kind of sacrament. (Thesis writer.)
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According to Vilmar, the laying on of hands is not a sacrament, "but still less an empty ceremony; in the New Testament it is supposed to be a bestowal of power which the Lord granted to the apostles, an exercise of power by means of which the Holy Spirit was dispensed with his charisms." And this bestowal of power was, according to Vilmar, propagated by the apostles. And he goes on to say that in order to carry out this exercise of power, we ourselves must possess the Holy Spirit: "In this case we are not ministers of the sacrament, on whose worthiness or unworthiness the efficacy of our action does not depend; the Holy Spirit is not this time, as in Holy Baptism, given to the element, to the word (of institution), or, if you like, bound, but is united with our spirit and passes through the organs of the spirit, the soul and the body, to the spirit of the other. This time our ego is involved in the most personal way in the communication of the Holy Spirit through the laying on of hands." (Erlanger Zeitschrift. September issue of 1859.)
Thesis VII.
The sacred ministry of preaching [Predigtamt] is the authority conferred by God through the congregation [Gemeinde] as the holder of the priesthood and all church authority to exercise the rights of the spiritual priesthood in public ministry on behalf of the congregation.
Antitheses to the Thesis VII.
Pastor J. Diedrich: "What about the transfer? The Missourians think that the priestly congregation delegates its preaching duty to the preacher as a priest below and beside them. It is difficult for me to hold back my ridicule
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of such a superficial and childish view." *) (Luth. Dorfkirchenzeitung of the year 1863. p. 40.)
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*) It must be assumed that Pastor Diedrich hereby rejects and mocks the doctrine of the transfer of priestly rights, which the congregation of the saints possesses, in the appointment of a preacher, as the Missourians really have (this doctrine) with Luther, although it would be bad enough, but not so bad, if he meant here a completely different theory, which he himself had invented, and only mocked this as the doctrine of the Missourians. (Thesis writer.)
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Pastor Crome: "This much-moved theory of transfer [or conferring theory] is a very fragile thing. First of all, who gives a man to whom God gives a ministry, such as the Christian the office of the keys, the right and authority to lay it aside and transfer it to another? I know how you will answer: the Lord himself has commanded this. But first this other thing: How can a Christian renounce his office of the keys and transfer it to another? He has it through baptism and faith. He would have to wash away his baptism, tear away his faith, then he would be rid of the keys, otherwise not. Look, dear brother, what a dead mechanical thing you make of the office of the keys with your theory of transference. And what a Christian does and practices daily, when he speaks the gospel with his mouth, is that not the office of the keys? How does he come to have it after all, if he has given it away? Did he divide it? According to what measure and proportion?" (Lutheran Synod Journal by R. Lohmann. Issue 5.) **)
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**) The solution to all the difficulties and contradictions mentioned here by Pastor Crome, into which the doctrine of transference is supposed to entangle, lies simply in the fact that the preachers are servants of the congregation. Just as a mistress of the house does not "relinquish" her authority when she hires servants to whom she delegates her authority, so neither does the church of the believers; only that, while it is at the discretion of the housewife to hire such servants, the church has a mandatum divinum to do so. The question "according to what measure and proportion" the Christian has and retains the office of minister to the preacher is answered by the 14th article of the Augsburg Confession. (Thesis writer.)
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Thesis VIII.
The preaching ministry [Predigtamt] is the highest ministry in the church, from which all other church ministries flow.
Antithesis to Thesis VIII.
The members of the Ober-Kirchen-Collegium in Breslau, Director Dr. Huschke, Kirchenrath Lasius and Pistorius, professed the following: "Furthermore, by recognizing in § 13 (of the Instruction for the Higher Church College, Syn. resolution p. 11) that the Higher Church College is an 'organic member of the church government', its existence is not based on the Synod, which has appointed it (or perhaps better: set it up from within itself), but it is set up as an organic member
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with the whole church, which is an organism, *) and indeed, like the church itself, by God. ... The fact that the church as a whole bears within itself a supervisory office that extends further than the ministry of a pastor, organically instituted by God **), is attested by the apostolate of the first and the episcopate †) of the following centuries of the church after the birth of Christ, as well as the entire older period of the existence of the Lutheran Church, which has always rejected Reformed independentism. We note this, however, only because you" (Ehlers) "seem to regard the Synod as nothing more than an 'accidental union of a number of congregations', a view which you yourself are certainly not inclined to hold in all its consequences." (Written statement by the aforementioned, submitted on October 3, 1861. See Die Verhandlungen der Kommission zur Erörterung der Principien der Kirchen-Verfassung, die in Berlin 1861 stattgefundengefunden, vom L. Feldner zum Druck übergeben. Halle by Petersen. 1862. p. 324.)
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*) It is already evident from the context of the quotation that the church is here declared to be an external organism. (Thesis writer.) [i.e. knot an invisible organism]
**) At the end, the signatories declare the term "instigated" to be a "misunderstanding" and lament the resulting "misunderstandings". (Thesis writer.)
†) The assertion that the alleged divine appointment of a supervisory office over several parishes is also attested by the episcopate of the earliest post-apostolic period shows that this error is contrary to the doctrine that God has appointed only one office in the Church, the office of the Word, and that this is therefore the highest. (Thesis writer.)
Thesis IX. A.
The preaching ministry deserves reverence and unconditional obedience when the preacher leads God's Word.
Antithesis to Thesis IX. A.
Valentin Weigel writes: "The apostle has a twofold ministry: the ministry of the Spirit, in which the minister, taught and sent by God, preaches the Spirit, power and life, and leads the walk, teaching and life of Christ; and the ministry of the letter, in which the minister, learned and taught by men, preaches only the mere, dead letter, without power and sap, without Spirit and life. Whoever therefore hears the divine teachers or messengers of God with a good heart will not return empty; here Paul's saying is true: Fides ex auditu (faith comes from the sermon or hearing), that is, from the inner hearing. But he who hears the minister of the letter will bring nothing of it, and faith cannot come from the hearing, for the outward testimony will not agree with the inward." (Discourse on Christianity. p. 27.)
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Thesis IX. B.
The preacher has no dominion in the church; he therefore has no right to make new laws and to arbitrarily arrange the intermediate things and ceremonies in the church.
Antitheses to Thesis IX. B.
Superintendent Münchmeyer: "But as far as the ordinationes (ordinations) are concerned, ut res ordine in ecclesia gerantur" ("so that it may be done properly in the church" Augsb. Conf. Art. 28.), "so also here the bearers of church government jure divino" (by divine right) "have the permission to make them, only that they always properly distinguish them from what is commanded by God's Word and necessary for salvation, and that they guard against illaqueare conscientias" (entangling consciences). Certainly the common people are also bound to obey here, just as the apostle demands to be subject to all human order for the Lord's sake. 1 Pet. 2, 13. *) ... The writer of these lines believes that he has already ... given striking proof that the symbols of the potestas ecclesiastica, i.e. the God-given authority of the one church office, include five things, namely ... 5. the right "ordinationes facere, ut res ordine in ecclesia gerantur" (to make ordinances so that things may be orderly in the church, "ordinances about worship, etc.)." (The Office of the New Testament. S. Guericke's Ztschr. Jahrgang 1852. p. 66. f.)
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*) If, according to Sup. Münchmeyer's teaching, the congregations are "bound to obey, to be subjects for the Lord's sake", when the preacher makes external ordinances, then the consciences are already entangled. To understand "human order" (ανθρώπινη χτίσις = creation among men), of which God's Word 1 Pet. 2, 13. speaks, to mean an institution made by a preacher, is a confusion beyond all measure. (Thesis writer.)
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Pastor J. Diedrich: "God "acts through the preaching office, and in such a way that the preachers alone remain responsible to Him for what they do and do not do in this office; princes and rulers, individuals or large groups may say what they want. No one can relieve them of their responsibility for doctrine, church discipline, pastoral care and the administration of the sacraments, whether they are called princes, consistory or congregation. For this reason, the making of church orders is ascribed to the pastor alone." (Cited in Dr. Münkel's Neues Zeitblatt of 1860.)
The same: "The actual ecclesiastical action is all up to the pastor." (Luth. Dorfkirchenzeitung of 1860. p. 40.)
Dr. Kliefoth: "But perhaps the church government... belongs to the congregation? ... The question is often answered in the affirmative. ... Nothing seems clearer
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than this. If it is true that in the church there are only ... docentes et audientes (teachers and hearers), then one need only take as an aid ... that the office of government does not belong to the docentes as such, and one arrives at the concise conclusion that the office of government can belong to no one but the congregations, the laity, the audientes. ... The concept of audientes (listeners) as it is conceived here does not imply that they cannot be full of all Christian knowledge, power and wisdom. But on closer inspection this conclusion is based on the simple fact that the church is not merely an institution of salvation, but also an organism, and therefore does not consist merely of docentes et audientes, but also has within it the dualism of regentes et obedientes (rulers and obeyers), which is inappropriate to the church order, in which the pastors as well as the laity belong to the obedientes. From the fact, therefore, that church government does not belong to the office of the means of grace, it follows only that it must be found somewhere and somehow in those who do not bear the office of the means of grace, but it does not follow that it belongs to those who do not bear the office of the means of grace in toto (in their totality) and as such.... ... The result, therefore, is that the government of the church belongs as little to the church, as such, as to the office of the means of grace, as such." (Eight Books of the Church. p. 463 ff.) "It therefore only remains to simply recognize that the church government, with the power of government decided in it, is a separate and special office in the church, given by the Lord to the church, distinct both from the office of the means of grace and from the office of the church (the deaconry in all its forms)." (op. cit. p. 489.)
Thesis IX. C.
The preacher has no right to impose and exercise the ban on his own, without the prior judgment of the whole congregation.
Antitheses to Thesis IX. C.
Pastor Räthjen: "The preaching office alone is the actual and supreme church government and has the power of ordo and jurisdiction, i.e. the dispensing of the means of grace and church discipline. The preachers exercise it well or badly: it is entrusted to them by Christ; God will also demand it of them. They cannot do anything to anyone and should not do anything other than with words; and if they preach falsely, everyone should leave them.*)
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*) Someone commented on this: "That the church [Kirche] and the vicarage would be left to them alone!" (Thesis writer.)
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Secondly, de jure humano, because there must be order and a crowd of people cannot, as a crowd, make order for themselves, the preachers should make the necessary order... which all
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must follow for the sake of love and good morals. *) Such are the ways of the churches of Christ; so our symbol teaches. (!) But let us add: in this matter one can compare oneself fraternally with the authorities and insightful members of the church, because it concerns human things." (Luth. Dorfkirchenzeitung of the year 1860. January to April.)
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*) "If all have to follow for the sake of love and good morals" at all times, and if the preacher "can" only allow others to consult with him, then the egregious difference between a power de jure divino and de jure humanois is only a deceptive appearance. (Thesis writer.)
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The Roman Catechism: "Sometimes the name of the church is also used to designate its superiors and pastors. 'If he does not hear you,' says Christ, 'tell it to the Church'; in which place the superiors of the Church (the pastors) are indicated." (I, 10. Fr. 9.)
Thesis X.
According to divine law, the office of preaching also includes the office of judging doctrine, but the laity also have the right to do so; therefore they also have a seat and vote in the church courts and councils with the preachers.
Antitheses to the Thesis X.
Superintendent Münchmeyer: "The Christian people should also be heard in the acts of government at a higher level. I therefore call for synods. I would have nothing against it even if the number of laymen who appeared, led by their pastor, were greater. Only that these synods neither become constituent nor ever receive a right of decision. The actual decision-making must necessarily remain in the hands of the pastors, otherwise they are deprived of their office." (The Office of N. T. etc. Guericke's Zeitschr. of 1852. p. 68.)
Pastor Löhe: "As a result of what has already been said, I would like to recommend the following conclusions for application to the organization of our synod system: I. The core of a synod is the presbytery, i.e. all the presbyters or elders present. **)
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**) Pastor Löhe understands by presbyters or elders only pastors, not so-called lay elders, and by presbytery only the ministry, not, like our old teachers, the church council, to which lay elders also belong. (Thesis writer.)
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They are the ones to whom the questions are put — they are the ones who assemble (i.e. the Synod) and decide. II. The synods are public, i.e. no member of the congregation who wishes to be present can be turned away; also everyone, according to gift and zeal, must have the right — it is understood according to existing order — to make motions and have a say,
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as (?) was the case in Jerusalem. III. every Christian belonging to the synod district may be present, but the congregations as such, in their separation from and in relation to the presbyters, have no representatives. The shepherds represent the flock they feed, and the flock trusts them to do so. VI. The simple advice of the apostles or elders [i.e. pastors] is simply accepted, penetrates the crowd, is made into a finished conclusion by the apostles. ... VII. The synods are not merely advisory to the congregations [Gemeinen], but they decide [i.e. the pastors in Synod] in the name of the congregation [Gemeinde], and no individual congregation [Gemeinde] may withdraw from the decisions without resigning from the diocese." (Aphorisms etc. pp. 118-120.)
Cardinal Bellarmin: "To decide in councils what is to be believed and what is to be done is the proper office of pastors. For pasturing is actually teaching, and teaching in such a way that others are obliged to believe. Jer. 3, Ephes. 4, but the laity are not pastors." (Lib. I. de concil. c. 15.)
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