# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1852 10 12_S32
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

32

Grabauiana.

In the latest number of the "Informatorium" Pastor Grabau attacks the words of a correspondent of the "Lutheraner": "To the visible Church belong all Christian sects, so far as they still have Word and Sacrament in essentials." Over against this he adduces passages from Luther in which it is testified that the papacy is not a part of the Christian Church, and he accuses our correspondent of the error of regarding the true Church as a hodge-podge of all sects and factions.

Had a simple man, not scientifically educated, made this objection, we could easily forgive him, for such a one may well often fail to find his way in the use and meaning of the Adverbia limitandi vel restringendi, (words of limitation). There are, namely, certain little words which, when one adds them, so limit a statement that one can say something of a thing which without this limiting addition would be altogether false. To these little words belong, for example: as, according to, so far as, in respect of, etc. Thus one cannot say: He who puts a man under the ban wrongly and unjustly is lost. But one can well say it if one adds: So far as such an unjust banner does not repent. One cannot further say: The devil is something good. But one can well say: The devil, as God's creature, or so far as God has created him, or according to his essence created by God, or in respect of the same, is something good. People, however, who are not able to see what influence the addition of a limiting little word has upon the sense of a sentence, are often horrified at a sentence whose sense they would heartily subscribe to if they rightly understood it. Therefore Spener writes: "It remains an established matter that no Heterodoxus qua talis (that is, no false believer as such) can be saved. But I will readily grant that where one talks with people who have not studied Theologiam, they will not understand such Phrasin (manner of speech), so that it is no wonder if they answer somewhat unequally on that account." (Bedenken VI, 73.)

But who must not wonder that Pastor Grabau answers so unequally to that Phrasin of our correspondent? Or does he not know what the limiting little word "so far as," which our correspondent uses, means? — The whole sentence with its "So far as" means nothing else than this: The sects, so far as they still have something of the pure doctrine, so far and in so far as they have therefore not fallen away from the true Church, so far as they are therefore not sects and have children of God or the Church among them, belong to the visible Church. Whoever cannot find out this sense, we should, as Luther once did with Zwingli, kindly have asked to take a few more lessons in logic.*)

*) Very commendable in this respect also is the Philologia sacra Glassii, where among other things the Adverbia limitandi are treated of, even for the learned, so far as they are unacquainted with this part of syntax and logic.

What, then, are all the declamations of our Herr opponent against our indifferentism and our union spirit? They are blows in the air. — The further elaboration of the matter, and the proof that the teachers of our Church have always spoken thus, we leave to our Herr correspondent himself.

Pastor Grabau makes capital against us in the said number also out of this: 1. that Prof. Dr. Delitzsch has dedicated to us a book in which many errors are found; and 2. that the "Kirchenbote" of Gettysburg reports that Dr. Guericke has fallen away to the United Church.

We answer to 1. We well believe that Pastor Grabau, had he been in our case, would have sent Herr Dr. Delitzsch a bull in answer to his dedication, and declared him therein a heretic. We could not do that, since we know that Herr Dr. Delitzsch is far from obstinately holding fast to his errors. But we have admonished him privately, and, where necessary, have also publicly rejected and condemned his errors. That we have not yet publicly protested against it here in America has its sole ground in this, that we supposed the book was not circulating here.

To 2. we answer: We are not so hasty as to repeat to others anything disgraceful of the all too suspicious "Kirchenbote," which it reports of a man who has hitherto been repugnant to it as a "head of the Old Lutherans." We await reliable reports. But should it later prove well founded that Dr. Guericke has let himself be enticed into the Union, we must and would also decidedly condemn this step. It is, moreover, ridiculous to want to make us answerable and make us pay for the defection of a man who some time ago declared himself in agreement with us. What would Pastor Grabau say if one wished to accuse him on that account of an inclination toward "Missourian doctrines," because such persons had fallen to them as (still in the year of the defection) agreed with him, Pastor Grabau? He would say: What? Do I not honestly condemn and curse not only the Missourian doctrines, but also the Missourians themselves? Though we cannot now maintain that we have ever condemned the Unionists (unless qua Unionists, or so far as they are such), yet we have always condemned the Union as it at present exists (namely, without unity in the truth), and for a long series of years have gladly borne the disgrace of being held falsely exclusive, until Pastor Grabau came, to whom we are not yet exclusive enough.

Receipt and Thanks.

Received $9,57. from the St. John's congregation at Euclid near Cleveland.
" 5,53. from members of the congregation Cleveland.
" 6,00. from the Young Men's Society Cleveland.
May the good God bless the kind givers, both bodily, but most of all spiritually.
Heinrich König
Fort Wayne, 24 September 1852.

Received
a. for the Synodal Treasury:
from Herr Gottlieb Richter $-,60.
b. for the Synodal Mission Treasury:
from Herr Pastor Fricke in Indianopolis and his congregation 1,65.
Hrn. Gottlieb Richter 1,50.
c. for the maintenance of Concordia College [illegible]
Vacat.
d. for poor students:
from Hrn. Georg Rasp in Pomeroy, O. 2,00.
e. for the support of the local College building:
from members of the congregation of Hrn. Pst. Kunz in Elgrove, Cook Co., Ill. 3,00.
namely:
75 Cts. Christoph Senne,
50 " Christoph Mensching,
25 " Christian Lunnemann,
50 " Christoph [illegible]enne,
25 " Heinrich Röhler,
25 " Conrad Röhler,
50 " Philipp Ostmann.
through Hrn. Pst. Habel in Pomeroy, O., sent in 16,30.
from Hrn. Pst. Fricke and his congregation:
1. Remittance 31,00.
2. " 12,50.
from the Herren Schuricht and Uhlig here 50,00.
" the Herren Pastors Sihler, Crämer, Kühn, the Herren schoolteachers Wolf and Richter, the greater number of the members and several communicants of the congregation at Fort Wayne, second remittance 100,00.
" several members of the congregation in St. Louis 11,00.
" the congregation in and about Mischawaka, Ia. 5,00.
" a small cong. in Madison Townsh., Ia., 1,50.
" a small little congregation in Township Bainbridge, Mich. 50.
" Herr Hd in Washington D. C. 1,00.
" " Pt there 25.
" Hrn. Pst. Schürmann and his congregation 2,66.
" " Georg Fischer in Staunton, Ill. 3,00.
" " Pst. Klinkenberg and his congregation, in Bartholomew Co., Ia. 6,75.
F. W. Barthel, Treasurer.

Paid
for the 6th volume, Herr Andreas Zagel — 50 Cts.
" 7th " HH. G. Dörner, Hans Meyer, Friedr. Pechmann, Friedr. Thürwächter.
" 8th HH. Past. Baßler, Adam Bohne, G. Dörner, Schneider Fricke, Georg Fischer, Daniel Göglein, Georg Greb, Pastor Hattstädt (10 Cr.), Hans Meyer, Friedr. Pechmann, Fried. Straub, Phil. Theiß, Friedrich Thürwächter.
for the 1st half of the 9th volume, HH. Eduard Schocke, Haunschild, Thorbeck.
for the 2nd half of the 9th volume, HH. Anton Bade, Berg and Vehling, Wilh. Brüggemann, Christian Jäger, Ludwig Meyer, Carl Wischmeyer.
for the 9th volume, HH. Michael Bauer, Heinrich Borrenpohl, Fried. Böse II., Adam Brück, Heinr. Beckmann, Heinrich Brinkmann, Heinrich Biermann, Johann Mich. Deuter, Wilhelm Dornfeld, Gerh. Heinr. Dankmeyer, Schneider Fricke, Franz Früchtenicht, Georg Fischer, Daniel Göglein, Friedrich Heine, Hermann Hover, Philipp Kief, Heinrich Kratz, Johann Bernhard Krudop, Johann Wilh. Lindlag, Heinrich Möller, Ferdinand Meyer, Pst. Clemens Miller, Franz Oelschläger, Heinr. Odenthal, Christian Ostermeyer, Christian Piepenbrink, Ernst Piel, Wilhelm Piel, Friedrich Rösener, Ehlert Reese, Christian Rose, Pst. Richmann, Hermann Rösener, Heinrich Sudbrink, Christ. Schröder, Gustav Spiegel, Johann Schner, Friedrich Stutz, Christian Heinrich Schönkel, Gottlich Thieme, Phil. Theiß, Ernst Voß, H. Wolf, Johann Wesel, Christian Webking, Gerh. Friedrich Dankmeyer.
for the 10th volume, Herr Philipp Theiß.

Jahrg. 9 for Herr John Dobler had already been settled by Hrn. Pastor Brohm, and $1,00 has been credited to him.