# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1853 03 29_S98
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

98

Doctrines of Pastor Grabau.

18. "The congregation, therefore, has not to judge and to command or to declare that he" (the sinner) "shall be held as such" (as a heathen man and a publican). (Second Synodal Report, p. 28.) "It is just as erroneous that the congregation, in disputed cases, should have the decision concerning the use of the Key of binding and loosing." (Ibid., p. 16.)

Doctrines of the Roman Church.

18. The distinguished Danish-Lutheran theologian Brochmand mentions an objection of the papal theologian Stapleton against the Lutheran doctrine of the ban, in the following words: "Stapletonus objects: 1. The authority and the example of Paul, who, according to the words 1 Cor. 5:3: I have judged already, as though I were present — placed the Corinthian incestuous man under the ban by himself alone. 2. The constant practice of the apostolic church, in which the judgment, the tribunal and the power of the ban were always with one person, a prelate, pastor or bishop, and not with the congregation." To this Brochmand answers, among other things: "Between these two there is a difference: that to an impenitent sinner it be proclaimed that he has neither part nor inheritance in the kingdom of God; and wholly to exclude an impenitent person from the congregation . . The former any minister of the Word may do according to the command of Christ, Matt. 18:18; the latter" (the exclusion or ban) "is the affair of the congregation, as Christ, Matt. 18:17, and Paul, 1 Cor. 5:1 ff., remind us." (System. univ. tom. II, 379.)

Doctrines of the Lutheran Church.

claws; that would then be called tending the sheep!" (The same, XVII, 140.) "The pastors are (not merely God's, like the angels,) servants of the church (not bondmen, but) servants; rulers of the individual (members of the congregation), but servants of the congregation, to which (ad quam, to which congregation) "the last judgment is to be committed." (Dannhauer, Hodosophie, p. 79.)

18. "Christ says in these words: Whatsoever ye shall bind, etc., and indicates to whom he has given the keys, namely, to the church: Where two or three are gathered together, etc. Likewise, Christ gives the highest and last judgment to the church, when he says: Tell it unto the church." (Smalcald Articles, Appendix 1, fol. 153 b.) "Thus a Christian congregation is not the official's maidservant, nor the bishop's jailer, that he might say to it: Here, Gretha; here, Hans, hold me this man or that man in the ban. Ave, yes, welcome to us, dear Official. In worldly government such a thing might have some sense, but here, where it concerns souls, the congregation shall also be with judge and wife. (Luther XIX, 1182.) "Paul therefore admonishes that they, as that incestuous man had before been banned by the public judgment of the congregation and delivered to Satan, that is, declared by the common voices of the congregation that he was not a member of Christ but of Satan — so now, on the other hand, should confirm his readmission and reconciliation by the public authority of the congregation and their common voice." (Chemnitz in the Examen of the Council of Trent, p. 77.) "The congregation sends" (in the ban) "not only prayers to God, but it also pronounces a judicial sentence valid in heaven." (Calov, Biblia illustr., on 1 Cor. 5:5.)

The Rapping Spirits.

(Rapping Spirits.)

"Let there not be found among thee one that asketh of the dead; for whosoever doeth such things is an abomination unto the LORD." Deut. 18:10-12.

(Conclusion.)

Against these proofs which I have adduced one may, to be sure, cite some passages of Holy Scripture which seem to contradict. But on close consideration these also do not contradict.

Job 4:12 ff. (cf. 33:15 f.) is not suited to refute them. For there the discourse is of divine revelations, just as Acts 12:15 also speaks of a spirit which does not belong to the realm of ordinary appearances. With apparently greater right the appearance of Moses and Elijah on Mount Tabor, Luke 9:28 ff., and the appearance of Samuel narrated in 1 Samuel are drawn in here.

But as regards first the history of the appearance of Moses and Elijah, it is at all events something peculiar, from which one must not make a rule for ordinary life. Even if on Mount Tabor the souls of Moses and Elijah became visible without bodies, God had in this a great purpose, for the sake of which the ordinary course of things might very well be interrupted by way of exception. They appeared beside the Son of God, of whom the voice said: "Hear ye him." It was to be made manifest that Moses and Elijah also had received only out of JEsus' fulness, that the Law and the Prophets were full of His Spirit and entirely one with Him, that to hear Him or Moses or Elijah is only one and the same obedience toward God. But in order to set and prove this concord of the Old and New Testament once for all beyond all doubt, that his passage, Luke 16:29-31, was spoken wholly in the sense of the New Testament, — two blessed spirits might well, as said, appear by way of exception. Moreover, Elijah and Moses in particular were taken from the earth in so peculiar a manner that it might already have happened with reference to the transfiguration of Christ. Who can say whether that appearance of Moses and Elijah did not already take place in the glorified body?

But as regards the history of the appearance of Samuel, Sirach 46:23 has indeed alleged that the appearance was really Samuel. But from this very thing we take one of the proofs that the book of Sirach does not proceed from God. How could it also be from God, since it contradicts the clear passages of Holy Scripture? For according to Holy Scripture the appearance cannot possibly have been an appearance of the real Samuel. Consider the following reasons and see whether, according to Holy Scripture, thou canst judge otherwise.

1. God no longer answered Saul when he inquired. 1 Sam. 28:6. Should now the holy prophet-soul of Samuel have answered him to whom God did not answer? God was departed from Saul, v. 15. Should not Samuel's pious soul have been separated from him from whom God was separated and departed?

2. The Samuel who appeared, appeared at the command of a witch. Shall we therefore have to believe that pious souls, yea, prophets' souls, are not safe from the power of sorcery even in God's hand, even in Abraham's bosom, even in paradise? It is written: "Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord. Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours." It is written: "No man is able to pluck my sheep out of my hand." Can it then be called blessedness, can it be called rest from temporal labour, can it be called safety in God's hands, if redeemed souls must serve vanity and obey sorcerers as often as it pleases these? Does not this Samuel say to the sorceress, whom Saul did not see at all, but only the woman: "Why hast thou disquieted me, to bring me up?" — And this is to be Samuel? Never!

3. The Samuel who appeared to the witch says, v. 19, to the self-murderer Saul: "To morrow shalt thou and thy sons 'be with me.'" Shall then the holy prophet and the self-murderer have an eternal lot and one and the same abode? Is it one and the same people unto which they both shall be gathered? Would that be according to Scripture?

Thou seest, then, dear reader, how little the passages cited prove for the proposition that the spirits which appear are departed souls.

One might, to be sure, object, in respect of the alleged appearance of Samuel, that yet another way of explanation is open, that the witch indeed had no power over Samuel's soul, but that Samuel, at the command of the LORD, against all expectation of the witch, appeared to her himself. But granting that this explanation were correct, one could take from it no proof for the proposition that the spirits which appear are departed souls. It would then be, as with Moses and Elijah, an exception, which can establish no rule. But this explanation cannot be accepted, for this Samuel says outright, v. 15, that he was called up by men, that he had been disquieted. Had he appeared at God's command, he could not, without a lie, ascribe his coming to men, still less could he be disquieted by God's command