# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1852 10 26_S39
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

39

its mission, and in addition the news that in your seminary a pupil is now again being trained for the mission among the Indians, who perhaps in a short time could stand at the side of our Mießler, has helped us overcome our scruples.

Should Baierlein be sent to the East Indies still this year, that would indeed be most desirable to us, yet we leave the time of his dismissal wholly to your judgment.

With faithful brotherly greeting
the College of the Ev. Luth.
Mission in Leipzig.
In the name of the same
Deacon Schneider.
Leipzig, 17 July 1852.

Explanations for Pastor Grabau.

Pastor Grabau lays before us in his Kircheninformatorium, Jhrg. 2, No. 6, four questions, about which he desires explanations.

1. He asks: "How is one to reconcile it, when the Lutheraner, Jahrg. 4, pages 10-11, sets Spener and Bengel on the heretic tree . . and on the other hand in No. 21 of the 8th Jahrg., p. 163, Spener's writings are called Lutheran core writings."

Answer: Let Pastor Grabau be so kind as to look at both passages once more, and he will find that we have neither made Spener a heretic, nor have we called his writings "Lutheran core writings." We ask him, however, to read exactly and to take the German grammar to his help in doing so.

2. He asks: How is one to reconcile it, when the Lutheraner, Jahrg. 5, column 3, p. 14, calls old Flacius a false teacher . . , when on the other hand one reads in the Lutheraner, Jahrg. 8, p. 64, the following about the same man: Matthias Flacius, this steadfast fighter in a time when even heroes sank down" etc.

Answer: If Pastor Grabau is so unversed in the history of the Church that he knows nothing of the fact that the dear Flacius was indeed a steadfast fighter at a time when even heroes sank down (for example in the Interim controversies) and on account of this his fidelity was shamefully slandered; if Mr. Pastor Grabau does not know Flacius' polemical as well as exegetical and historical writings and the treasures stored up in them; if Mr. Pastor Grabau is unacquainted with the favorable judgments of our theologians on Flacius, and even on his alleged authorship of the so-called Flacian errors (such as that of Löscher, certainly not a lax man, in the Unschuldige Nachrichten VI, 247 ff.); if Mr. Pastor Grabau is not aware that Flacius came upon his error only in the year 1560, while the passage cited by us was written in 1550 (compare the work referred to, IV, 710, where Löscher says of Flacius: "He who until now" [until 1560] "in the disturbed Interim times had deserved well of the truth.")—if Mr. Pastor Grabau does not know all this, then we are not to blame that he has taken offense at our testimony to Flacius' faithful fight in his time.

3. He asks: "How is one to reconcile it, when one reads in the Lutheraner, Jahrgang 4, page 35, column 1, that one should retain private absolution and not let it fall, etc., . . . . when on the other hand one reads in all the synodical proceedings of the Missouri Synod that private confession and private absolution are placed quite and wholly democratically in the free arbitrariness of the individual local congregation, indeed even in the freedom of the individual members, etc.?"

Answer: That can be reconciled excellently, if Mr. Pastor Grabau will first drop the word "arbitrariness" and the clause about the "individual members," which the honored gentleman merely imputes to us, and if he considers that in our churches no compulsion rules, but such compulsion is rather rejected and condemned by us, and that we leave such compulsion to the hierarchs alone. More on this point at another time.

4. He asks: "How is one to reconcile it, when the Lutheraner, Jahrg. 4, p. 42, column 3 . . and in Jahrg. 8, p. 7, col. 1, it is said still more decidedly: that all those who knowingly and willfully live outside the orthodox Christian Church have no hope of salvation . . .; how is one to reconcile it, when one becomes aware in the Lutheraner, Jahrg. 8, pp. 21-23, of an essay . . . in which the attempt is made to prove that the true Church is merely an invisible one, etc.?"

Answer: First, it is a distortion that Mr. Pastor Grabau says that in that essay it is said so unconditionally: "the true Church is merely an invisible one," since it says expressly in it: "To speak of a visible true Church has indeed in itself nothing objectionable, if it is done with the reservation that according to Art. 8 of the Augsburg Confession 'the Church is properly nothing else than the assembly of all believers.'" The reader sees from this that the expression, true visible Church, is rejected by us only when thereby a visible particular church is meant, as the Pope and the Romanizing Lutherans do, wishing to stamp it as the Church outside of which there is no salvation; of this "properly so-called true Church" we say indeed that it is "merely invisible," according to the apostolic Symbol: "I believe (not, I see) one holy Christian Church." If now Mr. Pastor Grabau cannot reconcile how we, with this doctrine, can nevertheless deny salvation to those who knowingly and willfully persist in a sect, then it stands sadly indeed with his understanding. With us here a child of 7 years knows, first, that the properly so-called true Church of the children of God, invisible to men, is scattered over the whole earth; and then, second, that, however, whoever knowingly and willfully separates himself from the orthodox Christians and knowingly and willfully holds with the enthusiasts and their sects, sins willfully; and finally, third, that all willful sinners, if they do not repent, cannot attain salvation and blessedness. — More on this too another time. Until then we would kindly advise Mr. Pastor Grabau to study the many glorious testimonies of our old faithful teachers concerning the Church, which are set forth in the book published by our Synod and sent to him: "Die Stimme unserer Kirche" etc.; then he will hopefully learn later to reconcile quite well much that now seems to him irreconcilable. In doing so, however, let him follow the rule: Qui bene distinguit, bene docet (Who distinguishes well, teaches well)—for otherwise it seems to us, if Mr. Pastor Grabau is not merely pretending not to understand us, that he lacks observance of that rule.

Grabauiana.

In the latest number of the Kircheninformatorium of 15 October, Pastor Grabau, in order to justify himself somewhat before the people for his timid and shameful refusal to confer with us, communicates a Votum from the old Neumeister, which bears the following title: "How an evangelical Christian should conduct himself when a religious conversation occurs between him and another who is of a strange faith."

The Votum is not bad at all. It makes the acceptance of a conversation a matter of conscience for those who have the necessary knowledge and gift for it. Only "one caution (precaution)," it says, "is well to be noted. One should not readily or without cause let himself into religious conversations, especially in foreign lands, where false doctrine has the upper hand. One should decline it as far as possible, with the excuse that one is not called to this. For it happens not seldom that people begin to dispute not out of desire for the truth, but out of blind zeal, especially the Papists. When their mouth is stopped and they cannot get on, they are apt to cause one manifold danger. They are spiteful and vindictive, like the Pharisees. When these, in the tempting and disputing with Jesus, got the worst of it, they sought His life. They have as little conscience as those from the school of the Libertines and others, who could not withstand Stephen, and out of bitterness suborned false witnesses against him, so that he was accused before the court, and even stoned.