# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1853 03 29_S97
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Der Lutheraner.
(Rev. John, ch. 14, vv. 6, 7.)
"God's Word and Luther's doctrine shall never pass away, now nor evermore."
Published by the German Ev. Luth. Synod of Missouri, Ohio and other States.
Edited by C. F. W. Walther.
Year 9.  St. Louis, Mo., March 29, 1853.  No. 16.
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 the same 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 sent to the Editor; all others, which contain business matters, orders, cancellations, money, etc., are to be sent hither under the address Mr. F. W. Barthel, care of C. F. W. Walther, St. Louis, Mo.

Excerpted Tabular Survey

of some manifest errors of Pastor Grabau, laid before the reader 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.

17. "Should a pastor fall into errors in doctrine, as was the case, for example, with Pastor Oertel in N. Y., it will not remain hidden from the whole congregation, and in that case the 'congregation' is nevertheless not yet to pronounce judgment, but is first, by a writing of the elders, to turn to one or several pastors of the church and to lay the matter before them in accordance with the truth; these are then to ask the accused pastor how matters stand, and are to confer with him orally or in writing, and then it will probably become manifest whether, and in what errors, such an accused pastor is involved . . . You would 'leave' the judging of doctrine to those to whom it belongs according to the 28th Article of the Augsburg Confession. Your teachers are not teachers of a false church, nor teachers of a worldly-minded tendency, but teachers of the true church, as is sufficiently well known. You may therefore presuppose in them an upright knowledge of the doctrine of the church, and indeed a deeper knowledge than you can have, since they have learned in order to believe, to teach, and to keep you in the right faith, but you in order to believe, and to be kept in the right faith and sanctified. Heb. 13, 17. 18. Obey your teachers and follow them, etc." (Pastoral Letter, pp. 18, 19.) "But what is against and not against God's Word, that no single member of the church decides, but the church itself in its Symbols, church orders and Synods." (Ib. p. 14.)

Doctrine of the Roman Church.

II.

Of the Church.

17. "Bellarmine objects: Since the people are uneducated, they cannot judge concerning the doctrine of their pastor otherwise than by comparison with the doctrine of his predecessors in office and of the regular pastors . . . If the people themselves could judge concerning the doctrine of their pastor, they would need no preachers . . If the regular pastor and another, not called, who preaches, teach opposite things, the people must by all means follow their pastor rather than that other, who is not a pastor, even if it should perhaps happen that the pastor erred." (See Gerhard's loc. de min. § 88., where Gerhard refutes these principles of the Lord Cardinal.)

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

II.

Of the Church.

17. "To discern and judge concerning doctrine belongs to all and every Christian, and indeed in such a way that he is accursed who infringes such right by a hair's breadth. For Christ himself has ordained such right in invincible and many sayings, e.g. Matt. 7: Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing. This word he surely speaks against the teachers, to the people, and commands it to shun their false doctrine. But how can they shun the same without discerning them? and how discern, where they have not power to judge? (Luther XIX, 424.) "Christ sets forth directly the opposite, takes from the bishops, the learned and councils both, right and power to judge doctrine, and gives it to every man and to all Christians in common, when he says, John 10:4: My sheep know my voice; likewise v. 5: My sheep follow not strangers, etc. Here thou seest plainly whose right it is to judge doctrine. Bishops, Pope, the learned and every man have power to teach, but the sheep are to judge whether they hear Christ's voice or the voice of strangers . . . so that they not only have right and power to judge everything that is preached, but are bound to judge, on pain of the divine Majesty's displeasure." (Luther X, 1797 ff.) "Nothing would ever have come of the papacy, had this judgment been in force. Therefore they have advised themselves quite well, in that they assigned this office to themselves alone." (The same, X, 1853.) "Perhaps they will upbraid you before the simple rabble and other unlearned people, saying that they are not yet recognized by the church as wolves and false teachers, but are held to be true Christians. Yes, truly, that is wisely and well said: if the sheep were not to flee from the wolves until the wolves, by their Christian council and public judgment, bade the sheep flee, the sheepfold would soon be empty, and the shepherd in one day would have neither milk, cheese, butter, wool, flesh nor a