# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1853 02 15_S82
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

82

Doctrines of Pastor Grabau.

still retained, and therefore children of God or true believers of Christ can still be born in them, and are born. They are therefore empty declamations when the Informatorium cannot find words of indignation enough to punish in us the abominable error that the Pope and his synagogue of the devil, all factions and sects, etc., are supposed to belong to the universal Christian Church. To believe and teach this occurs to us as little as to Pastor Grabau, and the latter imputes this to us with the same right with which the Jesuits once imputed it to the great theologian Musäus himself. But Pastor Grabau cannot see the truth here, because his false doctrine of a visible catholic (universal) Church stands in his way; otherwise the one little limiting phrase "insofar, so far as" would quickly solve the riddle for him.

11. "As the Smalcald Articles: Of the Power and Jurisdiction of the Pope interpret this saying, Matt. 18, 17, "Tell it unto the Church." "'"Christ gives the highest and last judgment to the Church, since He says, tell it to the Church. From this it now follows that in such sayings not Peter alone, but the whole multitude of the Apostles is meant."'" Thus the highest and last judgment is to be had not by the multitude of a local congregation, but by the multitude of the Apostles, and now those who stand in the holy ministry, in the office which carries the confession." (Inform. II, 5. 6.) It is now indeed true, as may be seen in the third column opposite, that the word Church can be taken for Presbyterium; but this word then signifies not an assembly of mere preachers, but a body fully and actually representing the Church, namely one consisting of preachers and laymen (e.g. so-called lay elders). It is therefore a manifest deception when Grabau, in order to ascribe to the preachers alone the commanding of the office through the elders, of whom the Apostle speaks, cites in the 2nd Synodalbrief (p. 109) Chemnitz's words thus: "This took place by ordination of the elders or assembly of the preachers." Chemnitz says in the passage cited by Grabau the exact opposite, namely: "This took place by the laying on of the hands of the Presbytery or by the assembly of the elders, who were not only those who labored in the Word, but also other chosen and honorable men, a committee, to whom the affairs which concern the Church were committed in the name of the whole Church."

Doctrines of the Roman Church.

Jesuit l. c.) "If the true catholic Church can be and remain the true Church, and at the same time publicly teach errors in the faith against the fundamental articles (such as idolatry and other abominations are), then the Church, in respect of doctrine, can be at once Christ's bride and a harlot of the devil; at once a virgin and an adulteress; at once serve Christ and Belial; at once join light with darkness; at once be holy and godless; at once true and false; at once apostolic and devilish." (So the Swiss Jesuit Laurentius Forer in his Umbella fatuo lumini accensa p. 34.) Musäus, who cites this passage, shows how that Jesuit distorts here the Lutheran doctrine that even a Church in error is in a certain sense a true one (that is, an actual one, not a Non-Church); for indeed, writes Musäus, "a Church in which the unholy, those falsifying the public doctrine, have the upper hand, is a holy, true, etc., according to the part which consists of truly believing and holy persons; it is also a godless, false, devilish, etc., according to the other part, which consists of the unholy, those falsifying the public doctrine, which has the upper hand over the other. And in this there lies no contradiction. In the other meaning, in which true Church is the same as a pure Church, or one falsified by no corruptions, no one who is still of sound mind can call in question whether a Church can be true, that is, pure from corruptions, and remain so, and at the same time teach errors against the fundamental articles of the faith." (Tr. de eccl. I, 222. 223.)

11. "Sometimes the name of the Church also designates its rulers and pastors. If he hear thee not, says Christ, tell it to the Church; in which place the rulers of the Church (the pastors) are indicated." (Catechismus Romanus ex decreto concil. Trid. I, 10. Question 9.) "To that Church it is said: Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth, etc. Matt. 18, 18.. of which in the preceding it is said: Tell it to the Church. Matt. 18, 17. But by this, Tell it to the Church, a prelate of the Church or a council of prelates of the Church is understood." (So the Cardinal Bellarmin, according to the citation of Joh. Gerhard's loc. de min. §. 87.)

Doctrines of the Lutheran Church.

falsified part of the Word, and therefore even through a heretical and corrupt ministry sons and daughters are born to God, where the valuable is to be carefully distinguished from the worthless, the gold from the dross, the divine from the human. The conversion of men through the Word and the new birth through Baptism in the communion of the heretics is not to be ascribed to the leaven of the heretical opinions, but to the Word itself, which is read to the hearers out of the biblical books, and to Baptism, which is effectual even when it is administered by heretics, provided they only observe the form of the institution and hold rightly to the essential parts of this Sacrament. But now, as far as the multitude of the lawfully baptized extends, so far also extends the catholic Church of the called, as can be shown by irrefutable grounds: therefore the heretics are in a certain respect still in the Church." (Gerhard loc. de eccl. §. 59.)

11. "Whence can Bellarmin prove that under the name Church in those words of Christ: Tell it to the Church, Matt. 18, 17, — a mere prelate of the Church or a council of prelates of the Church is understood? A mere prelate of the Church is not the Church . . nor is a council of prelates of the Church or of bishops the Church, because the hearers also belong to the Church . . But, you say, the represented Church is understood, in that it is not taken as all, man for man, since that word: Tell it to the Church — cannot be taken of the whole Church man for man. Answer: the mere bishops or teachers cannot represent the Church, since the hearers also belong to the concept Church, but the Presbyterium can represent the Church, to which belong not only those who labor in the Word, but also the elders, the overseers, who is appointed to attend to the church's affairs in the name of the whole Church. We therefore grant that under the name of the Church teachers are understood, whom Bellarmin calls prelates, but we deny that the hearers are wholly excluded, for their place the elders fill, namely the more eminent members of the rest of the Church, who together with the ministry make up the Presbyterium or, as we are accustomed to call it in our churches, the Consistorium." (Gerhard loc. de min. §. 87.)