# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1853 03 01_S85
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Der Lutheraner.

"God's Word and Luther's doctrine pure shall to eternity endure." (Rev. John ch. 14, v. 6, 7.)

Published by the German Ev. Luth. Synod of Missouri, Ohio and other States.
Edited by C. F. W. Walther.

Year 9.  St. Louis, Mo., the 1st of March 1853.  No. 14.

Terms: Der Lutheraner appears once every two weeks, at the yearly subscription price of One Dollar for subscribers living at a distance, who are to pay for it in advance and bear the postage. — In St. Louis each single number is sold for 5 Cents.

Only those letters which contain communications for the paper are to be addressed to the Editor; all others, which contain business matters, orders, cancellations, money, etc., are to be sent here under the address Mr. F. W. Barthel, care of C. F. W. Walther, St. Louis, Mo.

Extracted Tabular Survey

of some manifest errors of Pastor Grabau, set forth in his own words and compared with the false Roman doctrine as well as with the pure Lutheran doctrine.

Doctrines of Pastor Grabau.

II.

Of the Church.

12. "Matt. 18:20: 'Where two or three are gathered together in my name,' etc., for" (here) "our LORD speaks His 'Ubicunque' (wheresoever) of the whole Church, and indeed of that which is gathered in the order of the Gospel, in Jesus' name, it is understood, with the regular office of preaching, where He, Christ, will be in the midst of them." (Inform. I, 87.) "Church and teachers of the Church are divinely joined together; where the one is, the other shall be; they are correlatives, as no bride can be without a bridegroom." (2d Synodical Letter, p. 97.) "Christ's name is not our faith, but His Word and His divine order. Faith gathers us to Christ and His merit; the pure Word and Christ's order gathers us in Christ's name . . Hence it follows that the opinion . . is false, . . in that he thinks that Christ is in our midst by virtue of faith." (Ib. 93.)

13. Grabau rejects the proposition as an error of the united church, that "only communion with the invisible Church is unconditionally necessary." He declares that it is "fanaticism that it is sufficient for salvation to belong to an invisible church, since the invisible one is no separate church, but only the One holy Christian Church with unanimous confession of the truth." (Inform. II, 70.) It "demands, in the 8th Thesis, on pain of the loss of salvation, that one go out of the other parts or particular churches or erring congregations of this new United Church into the best part of the same, which are called the orthodox congregations. Yet even this admonition is immediately made void again by the 9th Thesis: That for the attainment of salvation only communion with the invisible Church is necessary." (Ib. p. 58.)

Doctrine of the Roman Church.

II.

Of the Church.

12. "Matt. 18:20: 'Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them' . . Bellarminus makes the objection that this passage does not show where the Church is, but where Christ is; then he adds that to be gathered together in Christ's name is to be gathered together by those who stand in Christ's authority, as are the lawfully appointed bishops." (See: Gerhard's loc. de eccl. §. 129.)

13. "Bellarmine objects: We are all bound, at the peril of eternal death, to unite ourselves with the true Church and to remain in it; but this cannot happen if the Church is invisible. (See Quenstedt. theol. did. — pol. P. 4. c. 15.) The more recent Catholic scholar Möhler writes in his Symbolik: 'The Catholics teach: the visible Church comes first, then comes the invisible. The Lutherans say the reverse: from the invisible proceeds the visible, and the former is the ground of the latter.'" (P. 426.)

Doctrine of the Lutheran Church, which Pastor Grabau calls the Missourian.

II.

Of the Church.

12. "Then only does one truly come together in the name of Christ, when those come together who lay hold of Christ in true faith, and call upon God alone, the Father of our LORD JESUS Christ, and among themselves in true fear of God treat of the doctrine of the Church and of other necessary things . . from the Scripture." (Brenz in the Apology of the Würtemberg Confession, page 68.) "Not with a single little word is mention made, in this passage (Matt. 18:20), of the regular succession of the bishops, which Bellarminus dreams is required in order that the gathering may take place in the name of Christ . . Those who are not Christ's" (who have not Christ's Spirit) "cannot be gathered together in Christ's name . . It matters little by whom those are gathered of whom this saying speaks, if only they are gathered in Christ's name; by whomsoever pious people may be gathered, be they more or fewer, be it by bishops or by the secular authority, be it secretly or openly, if only they are gathered in Christ's name, which happens when they hear His Word and follow it; there Christ is in the midst of them, there too is the Church." (Gerhard's loc. de eccl. §. 29.)

13. We confess that it is not absolutely and altogether necessary to know which and where the true visible Church is. For we ourselves teach, even against the Papists, that this is necessary only in the ordinary way, not by an unconditional necessity, and that a man can be saved even if he does not know this, provided he is only a member of the invisible Church." (Hollaz theol. 4, 1, 35.) "It is indeed necessary that we unite ourselves with the visible Church as to outward fellowship, in which the heavenly doctrine resounds pure and the sacraments are rightly administered; but this union with the outward fellowship of the visible Church is not absolutely and unconditionally necessary . . . One unjustly excommunicated is deprived of outward fellowship and union with the particular and visible church; he is not, however, thereby deprived of inward fellowship and union with the catholic and invisible Church, and so also not of salvation." (Gerhard loc. de eccl. §. 84.)