# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1852 01 20_S86
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

86

who aimed only at the destruction and devastation of the congregation, since in that case they would never have taken the regular way, or at least would not have remained in it. But the matter, moreover, is not at all as Winkler has represented it; rather it is certain, from two letters of the people to the undersigned, of the 4th and 20th of August of last year, that from the very first they did not acknowledge the Buffalo ecclesiastical court at all, as indeed they could not acknowledge it. For it says therein that they had been summoned singly, but had appeared in corpore and had declared that such an investigation was contrary to their constitution, wherefore they could not recognize the gentlemen as an investigating committee. — When now Winkler further says in his report that Crämer and Pastor Hattstädt of Monroe straightway supplied these people, wallowing in sins, with preaching, and without further ado gave the impenitent the holy Supper, the former, before his departure, since the formal renunciation had not yet taken place, steadfastly refused to baptize a child, although he was begged to do so with tears; but Pastor Hattstädt has served with Word and Sacrament, not impenitent factionists, but, with good right and title, Christians who had gone out from a wolf that had been exposed, whereof, by the way, we shall speak once more further below. What Winkler relates of a later public break-in into church and school, with sheriff, constables, lawyers and the like, does indeed really not concern the undersigned, since he was not concerned in it and knew nothing of it; yet it is remarkable, and must not be left unrebuked, that Winkler is able to speak of an evidently judicial act as of the break-in of a band of robbers. — Finally, when Winkler further says in his report: all the excommunicated called to themselves a faction-priest, by the name of Schaller, who gloriously carries on the work and is himself carried further on, but the Synod of Missouri approves, promotes, praises and rewards with money all this ungodly doings, and imagines that it is thereby spreading Christ's kingdom: this ought, in accordance with the truth, as it has been set forth above with conscientious fidelity, to read thus: the poor, tormented people, who for so long had languished under Winkler's tyranny and priestly domination, but at last, setting forth their weighty and convincing reasons, went out from him, thereupon called the faithful Lutheran Pastor Schaller as their regular preacher, who works among them with blessing. And the Synod of Missouri, which examined the whole matter with care, and after many proven documents weighed it again and again, could indeed only approve it, and felt itself constrained by the love of Christ to let a support flow to the congregation robbed of its church property, and believes that it has really contributed something to the extension of the kingdom of God on earth, since now in Detroit also the Word of God is preached purely and clearly and the Sacraments are administered according to God's institution. Finally, we should like to know how one can maintain that a soul has departed without reconciliation with the church, because, faithful to the command of its Lord, it avoided a false prophet. —

A worthy counterpart to Winkler's first report is furnished by his second contribution, in which he has published a correspondence with Pastor Hattstädt and furnished the same with an introduction, with marginal glosses and a concluding remark. Therein it is said, among other things, in the introduction: after Mr. Crämer in May and June 1850 had carried on his factious doings in Detroit, and thereupon our ecclesiastical court had been assembled until the 31st of July, Pastor Hattstädt of Monroe hastened hither already in August, to aid the factious spirits and by no means to let the kindled fire go out again. What sort of factious doings Crämer carried on in Detroit has been sufficiently treated above, and this vile railing needs no further refutation. With that, however, the accusation against Pastor Hattstätt also collapses into its wretched nothingness. What he did, that he did in Christian order, and the evil report, as though he had given the Supper without preceding confession and absolution, he will easily be able to bear. But as to the eight points which Winkler has put together in his second letter to Pastor Hattstädt, let this serve in reply:

ad 1. False doctrine has been laid to the charge of the Missourian Synod also by Pst. Winkler; he too is therefore bound to furnish the proof, all the more since the Buffalo Synod has led it neither out of God's Word nor out of the Symbolical Books and believing teachers of the church, but has asserted its accusation only boldly, sophistically and lyingly.

ad 2. Had Winkler, according to his constitution, not the right to bring a matter which had become disputed before the congregation belonged to any synod, before such a synod, to which he first joined himself in the course of the investigation already begun; besides, the committee failed to come into being solely through his fault.

ad 3. The respective fellow-ministers of Pst. Hattstädt are not merely so-called credible, but of good repute, so that it would be hard for Mr. Pst. Winkler to cast suspicion upon them by his lies. To be sure, they were unable to investigate anything, but precisely through Winkler's fault, and just because he thwarted the investigation and shrank from coming to the light, it is only too certain that the excluded were banned by him wrongfully.

ad 4. The wrongfully excluded, and those who went out from Winkler with good right and title, have indeed united into a rightly believing Lutheran congregation, were therefore by no means partisan factionists, but a congregation without a preacher, and could accordingly very well bear witness in churchly matters. Moreover, the Missourians by no means teach that every crowd is a congregation of Christ, but Christ Himself says: Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.

ad 5. Pst. Hattstädt has therefore by no means furthered false doctrine, and certainly he had from God a calling and commission to serve the congregation in Detroit, since he was called by it in regular manner.

ad 6. Pst. Hattstädt did not go to Detroit upon the hearsay of strangers, of interested, partisan people, but upon the report of credible fellow-ministers entrusted with the matter, and by no means broke into Winkler's congregation there.

ad 7. So neither the factionists nor their helpers told Pst. Hattstädt any falsehood; but Mr. Pst. Winkler could not be questioned further, because he had already withdrawn from the regular investigation.

ad 8. So Pst. Hattstädt had no need to be alarmed at the transgression of a rule which he has not transgressed, and accordingly what has been said about the „Lutheraner“ and in the notes proves here wholly untenable; as indeed all this will be sufficiently clear from our above report to every one who is willing only to examine and judge impartially.

As to the concluding remark, finally, of the whole abusive and lying article of Mr. Pst. Winkler, neither Walther nor Crämer is aware of making young, weak preachers sin against the Church of the LORD. They have also committed in this matter no injustice to their knowledge, but rather have faithfully taken up the cause of those who suffered vile injustice, and thereby have furnished the speaking proof that they have indeed no pleasure in those who do wrong. —

And so thou wouldst now, my dear reader, have been led through the labyrinth of distortions, lies, railings and blasphemies of the Winklerian article, in which thy patience will often have been put to the test, as indeed it has often cost the writer of this an effort of self-conquest to have to uncover so much dishonesty and so spiteful, slanderous a disposition in a pastor who calls himself Lutheran. But consider, it concerns the honor of God, whose name has more than once been invoked and thereby wantonly misused over so much falsehood and untruth by Winkler; it concerns the salvation of immortal souls, who perhaps still lie captive in the chains of hierarchical tyranny and need correction and encouragement to withdraw also from such; it concerns the truth, which fears nothing except to remain hidden; it concerns the weak, who, if it went unpunished, might be led astray by Winkler's bold lying talk. Therefore let not the labor of reading, comparing and examining weary thee; but let also these lines not be in vain to thee