# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1852 08 17_S202
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

202

stus confesses Himself to His divine unshakable order, not to our caprice and disorder."

The dear reader sees here: Mr. P. Grabau 1. does not regard him who is not regularly called, even when he pronounces absolution or administers the holy Lord's Supper, as a man who thereby administers the office. Mr. P. Grabau teaches 2. not that the administration of the office is effectual on account of the Word, but conversely, that "the words of institution are effectual on account of the office." Mr. P. Grabau teaches further 3. not that an absolving and administering of sacraments without regular call takes place only unlawfully (illegitimum) — that would indeed be quite correct, Scriptural, Lutheran —, but that this is also ineffectual, invalid (non ratum). Mr. P. Grabau teaches finally 4. not that we can be certain that the LORD will make real and impart absolution and sacraments through His Word, provided only that these holy acts are administered according to Christ's institution; but rather only then, when also he who administers these ordinances of God is called thereto in right order.

Everyone sees that this is false, unlutheran doctrine. As regards the 1st point, Luther writes: "And that I may for once answer the question which I put above, namely, how one should conduct oneself toward the parish priests in the Papacy, since they one and all are consecrated by none other than corner-bishops to the corner-mass; here thou shalt do thus: his chrism and corner-consecration thou shalt esteem as nothing, nor regard, as that which is certainly nothing, and profits and serves neither the Church nor thee; but look to this, that he holds the pastoral office, which is not his, but Christ's office. Let it not trouble thee, whether he be regularly called, or have bought or forced his way in, however he came in, over head or over foot, be he Judas or St. Peter, let nothing concern thee therein; separate thou the office from the person, and the sanctuary from the abomination." (XIX, 1555.)

As regards the 2nd point, Luther writes: "The baptizer makes no baptism, but Christ has made it beforehand; the baptizer only reaches and gives it. For there stands Christ's order, which is, as St. Augustine says: Accedit verbum ad elementum, et fit sacramentum (When the Word comes to the element, it becomes a sacrament): when one takes water, and adds His Word thereto, then it is a baptism, as He commands, Matt. at the last chapter, v. 19: "Go ye, teach all," etc. This command and institution, it does it; they make water and Word to be a baptism; our work or doing ex opere operato does it not. For it is not called a baptism because I baptize, or do the work, even if I were holier than St. John or an angel. But for this reason my baptizing is called a baptism, that Christ's Word, command and institution has so ordained it, that water and His Word shall be a baptism. . . . So also, that bread and wine become Christ's body and blood, is not the fault of our doing, speaking or work, much less of the chrism or consecration, but it is the fault of Christ's ordinance, command and institution; He has commanded (as St. Paul says, 1 Cor. 11, 23): When we come together, and speak His words over bread and wine, it shall be His body and blood; so that we here also do no more than reach, and give bread and wine with His words according to His command and institution. And such His command and institution avails and brings it about, that we reach and receive not mere bread and wine, but His body and blood." (Writing on the Corner-Mass and Priest-Consecration, of the year 1533. XIX, 1548, 49.) As regards the 3rd point, Luther writes in the same place: "I will not say, as the Papists, that no angel nor Mary could transubstantiate, etc.*), but I say thus: Though the devil himself should come (if he were so pious that he would or could do it) — or I suppose that I learned afterward that the devil had thus crept into the office**), or had even let himself be called, in the form of a man, to the pastoral office and publicly in the church had preached the Gospel, baptized, held Mass, absolved, and exercised and administered such office and sacrament as a pastor, according to the command and ordinance of Christ: yet we must confess that the sacraments were right, that we had received right baptism, heard the right Gospel, obtained right absolution, taken the right sacrament of the body and blood of Christ. For our faith and sacrament must not rest upon the person, be he pious or wicked, consecrated or unconsecrated, called or crept in, the devil or his mother; but upon Christ, upon His Word, upon His office, upon His command and ordinance. Where these go †), there it must go and stand aright, let the person be who and what he will or can." (XXI, 1551.) — As regards finally the 4th point, Luther writes in this same writing: "When a rogue, whoreson, or thief comes into a strange inheritance, then all the property is worth just as much as if the rightful heir had it. So it goes here also with the sacraments. We put water and Word together, as He bids us; but such our doing does not make it a baptism, but Christ's command and ordinance. We put, according to His command, bread and wine to the Word of Christ; but such our doing does not change it, but Christ's Word and ordinance. If now here the devil or his member should keep the ordinance of Christ and act accordingly, it would nevertheless be the right baptism and sacrament. For Christ, for the devil's sake or for the sake of wicked people, becomes no liar nor deceiver of His Church, but baptizes her and gives her His body and blood, be the hand through which He does it whose and who it will. Even the Papists confess that baptism given in jest or in play is a right baptism; as it is written in the Historia Ecclesiastica of St. Athanasius, that he with his companions and children played by the sea, and baptized them, as he had seen it done in the church by the bishop, and Bishop Alexander held it to be a right baptism, and did not baptize the same children again." (XXI, 1553, 54.)

*) That is, to change bread and wine by consecration into the body and blood of Christ, as the Papists teach.
The Editor.

**) Luther therefore supposes, first, the case that the devil also had not been regularly called.
The Editor.

†) The reader sees from this that, according to Luther's doctrine, the office "goes just where" God's Word is rightly preached, or where baptism, or the holy Lord's Supper is rightly administered, or absolution is spoken according to the tenor of the Gospel, even if he who handles these parts of the office has no regular call. Were this not the case, no one could seize upon the ministry as upon a strange office. Hence in the symbolical books the Word itself is directly called the office of the Spirit, and thereby it is shown that where the Word resounds, whoever may proclaim it, there the office also goes, and that therefore the pastoral office is indeed bound to the Word, but not the Word to the pastoral office, which Pastor Grabau confuses. Compare Concordienbuch p. 805.

We therefore certainly do Mr. P. Grabau no injustice when we assert that his view of the ministry has at bottom the Roman conception of a spiritual estate. Thus Carpzov writes in his Introduction to the Symbolical Books: "The word Ordo signifies among the Papists, taken materialiter (that is, not as the act whereby the Ordo arises, but as the spiritual estate itself), a prominent degree in the Church, which gives the capacity for the lawful and valid exercise of a sacramental act." (p. 413.) Of this Gerhard also speaks in his Locis. There it says namely: "This general capacity Luther opposes to the priestly character, concerning which the Scholastics and Papalists dispute, that through the sacrament of ordination a certain spiritual power is wrought and caused in the soul of its recipient, by which the priest becomes able to make the sacrament of the altar, so that without that (power) it can in no way be made real, and because they say that, as a sign of this power, a character is impressed upon the soul." (L. de sacr. § 29.) Finally Chemnitz writes, on the words of the Council of Trent: "If any one say that not the priests alone are the administrators of absolution, but that to all believers of Christ it is said: Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth, etc., by virtue of which words every one can absolve, let him be accursed!" among other things the following: "There is no doubt that God is effectual through the proclaimed voice of the Gospel, by whomsoever the same may be proclaimed. Why does