# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1851 09 30_S18
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

18

obedience in outward church matters; for that [obedience] does not belong to salvation! But to follow one's own wit and will and to reject the best, that belongs to the glorious liberty of the children of God! Why? because one thereby stands fast in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free. The Lord rebuke thee, Satan! We want no such Beelzebubish liberty."

ers, according to the office and calling of each, with pleasure and love, but [will find] neither lordly presumption of the teaching office and slavish dread of the ban on the part of the hearers, nor bold encroachment of the latter and belly-serving fear of men on the part of the former. Rather will he surely perceive, on the one side, an unfeigned humility and reverence of the church-children toward their spiritual father, as stewards of the mysteries of God, as ambassadors in Christ's stead, as fellow-workers and fellow-helpers of the Holy Spirit, yet at the same time coupled with modest frankness and brotherly confidence, as those who know that they are essentially and originally with him children of the same Father, brethren of the same Saviour, dwellings and workshops of the same Holy Ghost.

On the other side, however, he will just as surely discover true fatherly love of the shepherds toward their flocks, joined on the one hand with the recognition of the dignity and glory of their calling, which, as bearer and proclaimer of the divine Word in Law and Gospel, demands unconditional obedience, on the other hand with just as hearty humility and reverence toward the congregations, as those who know that these are not essentially and properly theirs, but the congregations of the living God, and that for the sake of their blessedness and eventual glorification the holy ministry is a service.

If now such unchristian, uncharitably censorious abusing and scolding already makes it clear enough to every unprejudiced and sensible Christian that Pastor Grabau is kindled and driven not by the holy love of the truth against error, but by the blind and spiteful party zeal of error against the truth, this sad result is also made plain in other respects from that synodical letter; for now as before he persists in his false doctrine, chiefly of the holy ministry in its relation to the congregation and conversely, and of ordination; from which, in turn, his erroneous conception of the nature of the Church also results; and in fact he seems to stand nearer to the legalistic, self-made papistic-episcopalistic standpoint than to the evangelical standpoint of the Lutheran Church, as she, according to God's Word, holds it fast in the symbolical books (and indeed especially in the Appendix to the Smalcald Articles, on the Power and Primacy of the Pope and on the Power and Jurisdiction of Bishops) and in the most important teachers of the 16th and 17th centuries. For Pastor G. too seems rather to derive the congregation essentially and originally from the pastorate or church-service than the reverse, and to place this, by its nature, above that, as if it were bound to a priestly order spiritually begotten through ordination and to especially sanctified office-bearers, whereas the matter in truth stands the other way about. For the Lord Christ has entrusted to His Church, that is, to every assembly of His believers, however small, as to His mistress of the house, the keys of the kingdom of heaven, that is, the Gospel together with the holy Sacraments, at the same time with the command to have these means of grace publicly administered by orthodox, apt-to-teach persons blameless in their walk, as His and their servants; and accordingly the pastorate or church-service flows, according to the truth of the evangelical church order of the Lord Christ, as indeed this latter expression especially shows, from the Church, that is, from every single congregation.

The sequence is therefore this:

1. Christ, 2. the congregation, 3. the pastorate; but not this:

1. Christ, 2. the pastorate, 3. the congregation.

We would, moreover, in conclusion, although we hate and flee from the false un-Lutheran doctrine of Pastor G. from the heart and warn other uninformed persons against it, nevertheless not be so bitterly and spitefully disposed toward his person as he is toward us; rather would we leave room for the hope that the practical consequences of his false doctrine, as for example his much unjust banning, spring from a lack of knowledge of the evangelical doctrine and its connection, thus from an erring conscience, joined with a natural obstinacy of will and character not yet thoroughly broken, and not yet from evil will and satanic pride and love of power, in the face of a clear knowledge of the pure doctrine.

Out of such hope we therefore wish, the sooner the better, for the poor unhappy man, who surely cannot inwardly have the peace of God and the God of peace, from the heart enlightened eyes of understanding, that he and his people held captive with him in the bonds of false doctrine may become free, [and that] the fearful consequences of such doctrine, as they are: hatred, bitterness, blind party zeal and heretic-hunting, loveless judging and persecuting, unjust banning and condemning, suspicion, distrust, spy-system and informing, etc., together with the evil conscience, may cease, and finally, out of the ground of a conscience purified by the renewal of faith, joyful and peaceful in God, the opposite Christian virtues may spring forth, and the congregation at Buffalo may press through to a healthy evangelical congregational life, wherein teachers and hearers, in true unity of the Spirit, edify one another upon our most holy faith and in mutual love and confidence promote God's works for the preservation and extension of His holy Church.

But we, who are servants of Christ and of His holy Church within our synodical union, will go on praying God that He may graciously preserve us in the good confession of our fathers, in the one and pure soul-saving doctrine of the divine Word, in blameless walk, in unfeigned love and in holy zeal, also to build up our dear congregations ever more upon the same foundation of salvation in all patience and doctrine, and with them, adorned with the fruits of righteousness, to grow on toward the perfect man in Christ.

Then we also — and may we be ever so much misjudged, despised and hated, as hitherto — in divine sincerity and with an unwounded conscience, toward God and toward men, shall be blessedly preserved and so kept that we fall neither into dead orthodoxism, nor into unionism contrary to the Confession, neither into dead office-work and hireling preaching, nor into pietistic-legalistic bustle and work-righteousness, to the great harm and danger of our souls.

May God grant it, Amen! —

Sermon

on 2 Peter 1, 19 — 21.

delivered before the Evang. Luth. Congregation at St. Louis in the month of August 1851, and, at request, given to the press

by A. B.

Devout hearers, to Christianity there has never been a lack of enemies, and these have assailed it, as occasion offered, now with deeds, now with words. Where the latter has been done, they have thought to inflict a sensitive wound upon the object of their hatred especially by the assertion that one must act contrary to reason if one would hold the doctrines of the Christian religion to be true and the Bible to be God's Word. This proposition the opponents of Christianity who live nowadays also have loudly and often in their mouths. How could, they say, One God and three Persons be; how could God concern Himself about men, and so love them that He should give His Son for them; how could God become man; how could One who has died rise again, and afterward even ascend into heaven, etc.; and again, how should God reveal His will and His counsels to men; how speak through men to other men; and — if He did it — how should men, through whom God spoke to others, speak plainly, like other men too? All this, and much else besides, they say further, is contrary to reason. But what is contrary to reason, that one need not, nay, may not accept as true. Therefore, they say, there is nothing in the doctrines of the Christian religion and of the Bible; and those who hold the former to be true and the latter to be God's Word are fools.

Now many a Christian, when he has had to listen to such things, has indeed remained quite calm, and has quite simply answered thereupon: Fool here, fool there. I know that in none other is salvation, neither is there any other name given among men whereby we must be saved, but the name of Jesus Christ. Must I be a fool, or be accounted so by the world, well then! I will gladly; small and temporal is my loss therein, exceeding