# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1852 08 17_S205
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

205

most renowned theologians of the Reformed Church.

Zwingli writes: "Seventhly, I believe and know that all sacraments do not so much as bestow grace, that they do not even convey or offer it. For grace is wrought and given by the Holy Ghost, and therefore this gift belongs to the Spirit alone. But the Spirit needs no escort or wagon, for He Himself is the power and the vehicle by which all things are carried, and needs not that He be carried. Neither do we ever read the like in Holy Scripture, that outward things, such as the sacraments are, certainly bring the Spirit with them. From this one draws the conclusion (which I gladly concede and allow in the sacramental controversy) that the sacraments are given as a public testimony of that grace which is already present beforehand in each individual person. Thus the Church receives through Baptism him who has first been received through grace. If, then, Baptism brings no grace, but only testifies to the Church that he to whom it is given has already received it. . . If one wishes to speak canonically or quite correctly, we see that the outward preaching of the apostles and evangelists or bishops has gone before faith among all peoples, which faith we nevertheless ascribe to the Holy Ghost alone. For we see, alas, very many who indeed hear the outward preaching of the Gospel, but yet do not believe, because the Spirit is lacking. Where, accordingly, prophets, that is, preachers of the Word, are sent, there it is a sign of the grace of God, because He wills to reveal the knowledge of Himself to His elect." (Confession of Faith of the year 1530.) Further Zwingli says: "It is an impudence that men have taught that man is made certain by the keys (of the kingdom of heaven, which are the Gospel) who is certain only inwardly through faith. In vain wilt thou say: Thou art free" (from the condemnation of sin) "for thou canst no more make him certain by thy word than thou makest an elephant out of a fly when thou sayest: Thou art an elephant." (Book on the True and False Religion.)

Calvin writes: "Although we do not deny that God Himself is present with the fully present power of His Spirit at its institution, so that the administration of the sacraments, which He ordained, may not be unfruitful and empty, yet we maintain that the inward grace of the Spirit, as it is distinct from the outward office, is also to be regarded and thought of as separate." (Institut. B. 4, Cap. 14, § 17.

Beza writes: "He errs very greatly and does God wrong who thinks that God ascribes even the very least of that His divine power, to renew men and to preserve them in Christ unto eternal life, either to the men through whose mouth He speaks, or to the outward Word of God itself, or to the sacramental signs." (Resp. ad Acta Coll. II, 218.) The same Beza writes further: "It is a palpable error, drawn from the stinking pools of the Scholastics (the papistical theologians), when, as men say, the original causing power of the imparting of grace is ascribed to God, but the mediating power (instrumentalis) to the sacraments." (Ib.)

Grynäus: "Let the pious consider that the effect of the inward office is ascribed to the outward office by this saying of Paul, 2 Cor. 3, 6., and other similar ones, in a sacramental manner of speaking*), in order to honor it." (Disput. de euchar. th. 17)

*) The Reformed commit a Petitio principii, that is, they prove something by that which is yet to be proved. For they say that the body of Christ is not really present in the Lord's Supper, because it is only sacramentally present. But that is precisely what is to be proved, that a sacramental presence is not a true, real, essential one. Grynäus now goes so far as to assert that even the whole outward office has divine power, if one wishes to speak after the sacramental manner, that is, in his sense, when one indeed says something, but it is not so, when one ascribes to the sign of a thing the thing itself.

The Reformed stand, 1., as one sees from this, upon one ground with the enthusiasts, in that they not only lower the outward order of the ministry, but altogether deny the divine working and imparting power of the Word, and actually believe in an immediate illumination.

But this doctrine we condemn as a shameful and godless doctrine. How can Pastor Grabau now dare to impose it upon us? He has made the power of the Word of God dependent upon the office of the preachers, and that we have denied, precisely because thereby the true Lutheran doctrine of the power of the ministry or of the Word is denied. But we have not, as Pastor Grabau incomprehensibly alleges, "separated the Word of God from the ministry," but rather have sought, precisely against himself, to defend and to rescue this: that without the Word of God the ministry is a mere office, powerless, void, as water without God's Word is mere water and no Baptism, but that the holy ministry has its power solely through the Word of God, and not through I know not what character (delebilis or indelebilis) not indwelling in the laity; which power the holy ministry, however, also exerts in one not lawfully called to it, because God's Word and Sacrament is and remains God's Word and Sacrament, and has and retains its divine heavenly power, let the means of service be, to speak with Pastor Grabau, what it will; but that Pastor Grabau has denied.

God grant that he may weigh the matter impartially and take back his groundless accusation, which concerns not our persons alone, but the confession of the orthodox Church held by us.

(Communicated.)

Appraisal of the Conflict between Pastor Grabau and the Synod of Missouri, Ohio and Other States. *)

*) This essay also was sent in by the undersigned brethren before Pastor Grabau's declaration, that he does not wish to enter upon any oral negotiations, had been received. Ed.

Pastor Grabau regards the whole controversy with the Synod of Missouri as a controversy with its prominent leaders. The Synod itself he regards only as an instrument of these men, and does not credit it with so much independence as to represent and defend the truth, even if it should see that it was more or less injured by these its spokesmen. That this is a very grievous reproach for our Synod, everyone sees. If it really stood so, it would truly be sad; for then there would in fact exist among us a papacy, a dominion over consciences in contradiction to the doctrine which has been manifoldly defended by our Synod since its beginning, namely the doctrine of the spiritual priesthood of all Christians. Then our Synod would indeed have sold the glorious liberty which it has in Christ, and, to the disgrace of the one Head of the Church, Jesus Christ, have betaken itself into human bondage, which is dreadful even to think, to say nothing of asserting.

Since this reproach has now been raised by Pastor Grabau, the members of our Synod must indeed bestir themselves, if they would not by silence justify Grabau's judgment.

And this is the cause which urges the undersigned, as members of the Synod, to protest against such a reproach and to defend the innocence of the Synod. And although the hope is very slight that Pastor Grabau will thereby be convinced of the injustice of his reproach and publicly retract it, yet self-defense remains a duty, when the reproach made against us impairs the honor of God and the truth itself, and can offend many innocent souls, whether they be acknowledged by the opposing party or not.

Pastor Grabau's whole reproach appears to be grounded upon this, that there are some among us who indeed for the most part speak publicly. But to prove from this that the others all, like minor children, say only Yes and No, and are bound in their consciences by fear of man or by man-pleasing, is a strong presumption, which lacks every just ground. For is it not always and everywhere so, that those speak most publicly who are especially equipped for it with light, power and spirit? Would it not be shameful to call the great instrument of the Reformation, Dr. Luther, a pope for the reason that he took the foremost word in all controversies? Has not God made the members of the body different?