# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1853 04 26_S113
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Der Lutheraner.
"God's Word and Luther's doctrine pass away now and nevermore." (Rev. John, ch. 14, vv. 6, 7.)
Published by the German Ev. Lutheran Synod of Missouri, Ohio and other States.
Edited by C. F. W. Walther.
Year 9.  St. Louis, Mo., April 26, 1853.  No. 18.
Terms: Der Lutheraner appears once every two weeks, at the annual subscription price of One Dollar for out-of-town subscribers, who are to pay 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 sent to the Editor; all others, however, 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.

Tabular Summary, in Excerpts

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

Doctrines of Pastor Grabau.

II.

Of the Church.

24. Pastor G. rejects the proposition: "They teach that if no preachers are known whom a congregation (a mere crowd) could acknowledge as orthodox, it is God's order that it choose from its midst one to be preacher." (2nd Synodal Report, p. 119.) Previously G. had written: "Hence we are convinced that a man arbitrarily thrust forward by the congregation can neither give absolution nor distribute the body and blood of Christ, but that he gives mere bread and wine. . As for the individual church congregation, our theologians in the Smalcald Articles by no means intend to say that it may and should by itself arbitrarily pick out and set up from its midst an unlearned, untried and unprepared man for the public office of the Church by the mere force of a majority of votes. For such a thing has not the least validity before God, but is mere mischief." (Hirtenbrief, pp. 15, 16.)

Doctrine of the Roman Church.

II.

Of the Church.

24. Thus it is said in the Decrees of the Council of Trent: "The most holy Synod teaches that for the ordination of bishops, of priests and of the other orders, neither the consent, nor the call, nor the authority of the people or of any secular power and magistracy is so required that without it the ordination would be invalid; nay rather it decrees that those who, called and installed only by the people or by a secular power and magistracy, ascend to the exercise of these offices, . . are all to be regarded not as ministers of the Church, but as thieves and robbers, who have not entered in by the door." (23rd Session, 4th Chapter.)

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

II.

Of the Church.

24. "It is asked: Whether those unlawfully called may be heard as God's ambassadors? I answer with a distinction: as for those who are called wholly and in every respect unlawfully, we say No; as for the others, who are only in part unlawfully called, we grant it. To explain our meaning it is to be known what we call a mediate, wholly unlawful and orderly call, and what that is which one regards as such only in part. The former is that which, without the vote of any estate in the Church, is carried out and effected by force by one who is outside of it, such as a papal or other heretical government can be; but the latter is that which is carried out by one, or also by two estates of the Church, with the exclusion of the third, or of two, and with violation of other laws of a lawful call. The former is no call at all, and is wholly like (the call) of those who run without any call and thrust themselves in, whose service the Church . . cannot make use of; the other is a true one, although not carried out according to the laws." (Tarnovius, Disput. de min. ev. apud Luth. thes. 20.) In what follows Tarnov appeals to Luther's glorious writing: Grund und Ursache aus der Schrift, daß eine christliche Versammlung oder Gemeinde Recht und Macht habe, alle Lehre zu urtheilen und Lehrer zu berufen, ein- und abzusetzen. There Luther teaches that the congregation has the right to call, and that it should not let this its call be confirmed by heretical bishops; that even upright bishops should not take to themselves the authority to set upright preachers over congregations without their call, except in urgent necessity; and that even the orthodox bishop should only confirm one called by the congregation: "If he does not do it, let him nevertheless be confirmed by the call of the congregation." (X, 1804.)