# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1853 05 10_S121
# 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., May 10, 1853.  No. 19.
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.

III.

Of the Power of Preachers.

25. "He (the preacher)," it says, "pledges himself to the congregation with his fidelity in doctrine and walk, and the congregation binds itself to him with its fidelity and its 'obedience in all things that are not contrary to God's Word.' But what is contrary and what is not contrary to God's Word, that no single member of the Church decides, but the Church herself in her Symbols, church orders and Synods." (Hirtenbrief, p. 14.) Here it is not to be overlooked that in turn, in the Synod, according to Pastor Grabau's doctrine, only the pastors have the deciding vote. (See No. 17 of the "Lutheraner.") Pastor Grabau also declares what sort of things, among others, he reckons as belonging here, in which a congregation owes obedience to the preacher. For he writes of us Missourians: "They err in denying that the congregation owes its pastor obedience in all things that are not contrary to God's Word; for it remains indebted to him, according to Hebr. 13, 17., but whether it can in every single case render and carry it out, e. g. a necessary school building, is another matter. The obedient carrying out of a thing may well often have to be postponed according to circumstances, there-

Doctrine of the Roman Church.

III.

Of the Power of Preachers.

25. Bellarmine writes: "Where any man would act presumptuously, so as not to hearken to the priest who there standeth in the office of the LORD thy God, or unto the judge, that man shall die. Deut. 17, 12. If now, accordingly, the precepts of an Israelitish priest were true commandments and bound the conscience, so also those of a Christian one. The ground of the inference is that the authority of a Christian priest is not less than that of an Israelitish one." (Lib. 4. de pont. rom. c. 16.) In the Pope's bull of condemnation of several propositions of the Synod of Pistoia it says: "The proposition which asserts that it is an abuse of church power if one extends it beyond the bounds of doctrine and morals to external things . . is heretical." (Concil. Trid. ed. Smets. p. 285.) Already at that time, when Luther had only just begun the Reformation and appeared at Worms before Emperor and Empire, the papal theologians, among others, laid the following proposition from his writings to his charge as a

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

III.

Of the Power of Preachers.

25. Luther writes: "Therefore I say, neither pope, nor bishop, nor any man has power to set down one syllable over a Christian man, unless it be done with his will; and whatever is done otherwise is done in a tyrannical spirit." (On the Babylonian Captivity, of the year 1520. XIX, 83.) The same: "What? if they were compelled to admit that we all, so many as are baptized, are likewise priests? (as in truth we are) and that they, with our consent, have been commissioned alone with the preaching office: then they would also know at the same time that they had no right nor power to command us, save so far as we ourselves of our own good will allowed them." (Ibid., p. 131.) The very same: "We have One Lord, who is Christ, who governs our souls. The bishops are to do nothing but feed. Thereupon St. Peter (1 Pet. 5, 3.) has with one word overthrown and condemned all government that the pope now exercises, and concludes clearly that they have no power to command a word, but that they are to be servants only, and to say: This saith thy Lord Christ, 'therefore' shalt thou do this." (Exposition of the 1st Ep. of Peter, of 1523. IX, 821.) So it says, finally, in our symbolical books, and indeed in the Apology, that is, in the Defence of the Augsburg Confession, at the 28th Article, concerning the passage so constantly cited by Pastor Grabau: "They also" (the Papists) "draw this passage to the Hebrews, ch. 13, 17.: Ob-