# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1853 03 15_S90
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

90

itself and be seen nowhere else than in and at the Church of Jesus, which is assembled in His name." (Inform. I, 22.)

16. "Should the Lutheran members of congregations now imagine that in their own personal anointing and spiritual state of grace, that is, in the spiritual priesthood, they possess the office of the keys, it would be the same enthusiasm (fanaticism) that sits in the Roman Pope, who maintains that in the shrine of his heart, on account of the most holy anointing of his person, the office and power of the keys has been deposited by Christ." (Inform. I, 37.) "Accordingly our Symbols do not teach that Christ has laid Himself in such a form into the hearts of the believing little flock, that He has drawn His power of the keys in along with Himself, for that is Pietistic, enthusiastic, yea, downright Popish." (Ib. 86.) We know that all orthodox Catechisms so teach that Christ our Lord has ordained and instituted in the ministry of preaching the power to forgive sins in His name, and that this power is assigned exclusively to the ministry of preaching in all believing Catechisms." (2. Synodalbrief p. 88.) — Who it is that teaches Popishly on this point, is shown by what stands over against it. Grabau indeed does not maintain that the Pope and his bishops alone possess the keys, but is it any less Popish if he ascribes this to himself and his bishops alone? — It is also a deceitful perversion when Grabau writes that the Pope wished to have received the keys in his anointing in the sense in which we Lutherans assign the keys to those anointed by the Holy Ghost. Yea, it is downright blasphemous that Grabau herewith places the stinking papal anointing on a level with the anointing of the truly believing with the Holy Ghost!!

The Rapping Spirits.
(Rapping Spirits.)

"That there be not found among you one that asketh of the dead; for whosoever doeth such things is an abomination unto the LORD." Deut. 18, 10–12.

"Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time:" this prophecy, Rev. 12, 12., is being fulfilled in our days before our eyes. Satan already sees the lake of fire into which he shall soon be cast; therefore he uses the short respite which is still granted him to seduce as many men as possible. And indeed the devil is not content that he has already so far dehumanized and brutalized many that they deny the existence of God: he also would gladly be worshipped by men. Therefore he now seeks to found a kind of new religion, and for this purpose he reveals himself through rapping spirits.

It was first in Rochester, in the State of New York, where in the year 1846 in the house of Mitchell Weekmann such a rapping made itself heard. For a long time no one knew how to explain it. At length the thought was hit upon that it proceeded from the dead, from the departed souls of the deceased, and this is now accepted almost unanimously by the world. Thereupon the spirit-rapping spread over the whole land and found everywhere so many adherents that their number has now already risen to half a million. They publish several newspapers, hold at times conventions or public assemblies, to which delegates are sent from all sides, and are, as it seems, still on the increase.

These rapping spirits, however, are by no means human souls, but devils, as God's Word testifies to us most clearly. They reveal themselves by choosing a go-between (medium), to whose questions they answer by rapping or by the tilting of a table. They also reveal themselves through writing go-betweens (writing medium). For when anyone asks a dead person, the rapping devils answer in his name by letters which they write through the go-betweens, guiding their hand and imitating the handwriting of the deceased in the most deceptive manner.

Through these rapping spirits Satan now seeks to introduce a new religion into the world. It would naturally lead us too far if we were to describe them more exactly; we will only from the newspaper appearing in St. Louis: "Licht aus der Geisterwelt (light from

the sense, because that confession was for the benefit of the whole Church, but also because in the confessing Peter the Church itself also confessed, so the keys of the kingdom of heaven were also given to Peter in the person of the Church, not only because they were given to him for the benefit and use of the whole Church, but also because the Church received them in the person of Peter, that she herself might exercise the use of them, as in other matters understood under the name of the power of the keys, so also in the election and calling of fit servants of the Word." (L. c.)

16. "As regards the dispensing of this sacrament (of penance), however, the holy assembly declares that all those doctrines are false and wholly opposed to the truth of the Gospel which ruinously extend the office of the keys to any other men besides the bishops and priests, supposing that those words of the LORD: Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever ye shall loose, etc., Matt. 18., were said, contrary to the institution of this sacrament, without distinction and in common to all the believers of Christ, so that everyone has the power to forgive sins." (The Council of Trent, Session 14, Chap. 6.) "If anyone says . ., that not only the priests are the dispensers of absolution, but that to all and every believer of Christ it is said: Whatsoever ye, etc. . . let him be accursed." (Ib. Can. 10.)

have, it follows that all are also equipped with this authority. So concludes Herr Dr. Brenz in his exposition of John 20. This, however, by no means serves as a defense of the fanaticism of the Anabaptists, who confound in the worst way the estates which God has willed to have separated and introduce an exceedingly shameful confusion. Indeed J. B. Fickler seeks to convict us of this error in his Replik against Heilbrunner, when he writes: There (namely in our congregations) nothing further is necessary than that it be said to everyone without distinction: You, Hans, go and be a preacher; you, Michel, take bread and wine and distribute the Lord's Supper to your neighbor; you, Barthel, go and absolve the peasants. From this suspicion, however, a sincere explanation of our opinion and heed to the distinctions which our theologians apply in this question will easily free us." (J. Gerhard Explicatio ex dom. p. 732.)

16. "There is no doubt that no one binds or forgives sin save him alone who has the Holy Ghost so surely that you and I know it, as these words of Christ here (John 20, 22. 23.) prove. But that is no one, except the Christian Church, that is, the assembly of all believers of Christ; she alone has these keys, of that you should not doubt; and whoever ascribes the keys to himself over against her, he is a right smooth-glued sacrilegus, a robber of the Church, be he Pope or whoever he will. If a stone or a piece of wood could absolve me in the name of the Christian Church, I would accept it; on the other hand, if the Pope in the name of his power set me in the highest choir of the angels, I would stop both my ears and hold him for the greatest blasphemer. He is a servant of the keys, like all other priests; they belong, however, to the Church alone. A lord may suffer his servant to bear his coat of arms, provided he does not presume (that) the coat of arms is his before all servants and everyone. Thus the Christian Church gives the keys to the Pope, and bids him to carry and use them in her name, but she does not therefore let them be his own. . That even a child in the cradle has more right to the keys, and all who have the Holy Ghost, than he." (Luther. Opp. XIX, 1052. 54.) "In short, God will be unbound, by the multitude, size, height, power, and whatever is personal among men, but will be alone with those who love and keep His Word, even if they were all mere stable-boys. What does He ask after high, great, mighty lords? . . We have here (Matt. 18, 19. 20.) the LORD Himself over all angels and creatures: He says they shall all have equal power, keys and office, even two poor Christians alone, assembled in His name. This LORD shall not be made by the Pope and all the devils into a fool, liar or drunkard, but we will tread the Pope under our feet and say that he is a desperate liar, blasphemer and idolatrous devil, who has snatched the keys to himself alone under the name of St. Peter, whereas Christ has given the same to all alike in common." (Luther of the year 1515. XVII, 1346.) "To this belong the sayings of Christ, which testify that the keys have been given to the whole Church, and not to certain particular persons, as the text says: Where two or three in, etc. Finally, this is also confirmed by the saying of Peter, where he says: Ye are a royal priesthood." (Smalcald Articles. Appendix, Of the Power of the Bishops. fol. 157.)