# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1852 08 17_S203
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

203

does the Tridentine Chapter make so great an uproar over this question? Answer: Because they place the completeness, truth and efficacy of the sacraments not simply and solely in the words of Christ, but partly also in the character which is supposed to be impressed upon the priests at ordination. So they would have it also that the comfort of absolution depend not so much upon the Word of the Gospel as upon the person of him who absolves." (p. 394, 95.) That the lawful call of the administrant belongs to the realization of the sacrament is a doctrine, down to this day, altogether unheard of in the Protestant Church, altogether unscriptural. Luther writes rather (and herein all orthodox teachers of the true Church follow him): "When it is asked: what parts are necessary to the essence of the sacrament? we answer: There are three things that belong to a sacrament. First is required the elementum, that is, a visible sign; thereafter the complete recital of the words must come; and thirdly, the lawful use according to Christ's institution must be added. For example, the element in baptism is water; the words which must be recited with it are these: "I baptize thee in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; finally the immersion or pouring of the child itself contains the lawful use commanded by Christ. So also must one say of the Lord's Supper. First the complete elements, bread and wine, must be present; thereafter the words of the Testament must be recited entire; finally the lawful use must be added, that is, the eating and drinking." (XIX, 1589.) Mr. P. G., however, now reckons yet a 4th thing besides, that he who functions as minister at the sacrament must formerly have been called in due order and therefore also been ordained in lawful manner!!

Now since Pastor Grabau, on sending us his Pastoral Letter, had himself requested us to let him know our Christian conviction concerning its contents, we could of course not refrain from bearing witness, among other things, also against the doctrine laid down therein, the one indicated above, concerning the power of the holy ministry. We felt ourselves the more called upon to do so, since shortly before we had made the most distressing experiences of the dangerousness and ruinousness of such error. We Saxon preachers had namely let ourselves be befooled by Stephan to lay down our pastoral charges in Germany and to emigrate to America with several hundreds of laymen, because in Germany the true Church could no longer be maintained and therefore also a man could hardly be saved there. When we arrived here, however, Stephan, to the terror of us all, was revealed as a dishonest man, and since he had given the first impulse to our emigration and had directed everything in it according to his will, the lawfulness of our laying down of office in Germany and of the whole emigration enterprise soon became doubtful to all. Yes, at last it became clear to us that the affair had been a grievous deception of the devil, although we at the same time perceived that the affair had stood under divine forbearance and that God, in letting it succeed, must have had His holy and gracious purposes and would finally, as in the selling of Joseph into Egypt, turn the evil yet to good. Among many in our congregations, however, who had called us here, there now arose the doubt whether we preachers, who had left our offices in Germany unlawfully, could also have received here again a lawful call. With some it was soon settled that our present call was an unlawful one, in that these now asserted also that our congregations, which had separated themselves unlawfully from the Church in Germany and thereby made themselves guilty of so many sins and errors, were no parts of the true Church, but sects, and therefore none of them could have issued a lawful call, least of all to preachers who had gone out of their former offices against right and duty. But now they went further, particularly in the congregations dwelling in the country (in Perry County, Missouri); several separated themselves and declared that we preachers, since we had no right call, also could not validly and effectually administer the holy ministry, that therefore all our official acts, all our absolutions, all our Lord's Supper dispensations, yes, all our baptisms, were null and void and without all power and validity before God. There arose now in our congregations no small unrest and distress. Just our best Christians, who for the most part were sincerely attached to us preachers personally and would give no room to any doubt of our honesty, fell into no small distress of conscience: only with anxiety and unrest did most of them still make use of our office; with wounded conscience they went into our church, uncertain whether they might not perhaps thereby commit a sin, whether instead of blessing they were fetching a curse upon themselves, whether instead of a divine service they were thereby rendering a devil's service. Then we learned vividly what an important thing it is that doctrine be preserved pure and clear, plain and bright: that in the question concerning the validity of the divine institutions, of absolution, of baptism, of the holy Lord's Supper, regard must be had not only not to the worthiness, but also not to the lawfulness of the call of the officiant, but solely to this, whether the divine institutions have been administered in the manner in which Christ ordained them; that, to be sure, he who administers the office without regular call thereby sins grievously, and likewise those who knowingly acknowledge such a preacher and make use of his service, but that this sin takes nothing from the validity and power of the divine ordinances, just as, on the other hand, the holiness and lawfulness of the call of the officiant add nothing to the power of the Word and of the sacraments. God, however, graciously helped us out of all distress at that time. When the troubling of consciences and raging of our Separatists grew ever greater, there was offered to them by us, the preachers at that time in Perry County, the late Pastor Löber, Pastor Gruber (at present still there), Pastor Keyl, and the writer of this, a public disputation on the articles and relations called in question. This disputation was accepted, and the result was that our congregations became certain and quiet in this matter, the Separatists in part returning, in part moving away.

Scarcely had this controversy been fought out among us, when the Pastoral Letter of Mr. P. Grabau appeared. It was therefore indeed something quite natural that we protested decidedly against some principles set up therein, the pursuit of which had inflicted on us such painful wounds as we still felt.

Mr. P. Grabau now indeed represents the matter as if we had attacked the power of the holy ministry against him and had held and still held Reformed doctrine on this point. But the dear man thereby does us crying injustice. He treats us in doing so as obdurate impenitent sinners, charges us with lying, slander, malice, etc., so that it would truly be no wonder if we let ourselves be provoked and seduced to take the field against him in the same manner. But we pray God that He would grant us the grace to bear all these injuries experienced with Christian patience and meekness, to set the matter forth calmly, and to commit it to God that He conduct our cause, of which we are indeed certain that it is properly not ours, but His, namely God's, cause. —

But let us go on. What, then, properly was the status controversiæ in the dispute of the Lutherans and the Reformed over the power of the holy ministry.?

It consisted first not in this, that the Lutherans ascribed a special power to the Word preached by a preacher, and that the Reformed denied him this special power. Rather the Lutherans have always put the written and preached, the read and heard Word on an equality with one another. Thus writes, among others, John Gerhard in his Refutation of the Errors of Schwenkfeld and of the Reformed concerning the Power of the Ministry: "The conversion and salvation of men is ascribed to the Word of God, not so far as the same stands upon paper or is spoken with the mouth outside its proper and lawful use ordained by God, but so far as it is proclaimed, preached, read, pondered in thought, that is, so far as it is in its proper, lawful and regular office and