# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1853 07 19_S163
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

163

By this notice I would like to move the dear readers of the Lutheraner to study the book itself. The matter with which it deals is of the highest importance, a burning question, as one now likes to say, that is, such a question as demands a right answer most urgently, because people everywhere no longer know what Church and ministry are, and yet must and will have Church and ministry. What in recent years has almost become a common saying, that our Confessions and the writings of the teachers of the Church contain the doctrine of Church and Office only incompletely, is victoriously refuted in this book; we have in our Confessions all the principles according to which we can build up our congregations here in this country confidently and securely. Furthermore, I promise all readers of the book that in the extracts from the writings of the Fathers they will find true grains of gold of clear and profound exposition of Scripture, for example Lyser's excellent exposition of Matthew 16, 18 ff. on page 42 ff.

The book may be obtained through Messrs. Barthel in St. Louis, J. H. Bergmann in New York, and Schäfer and Koradi in Philadelphia at the price of $1 10 cts. per copy, and is sent by mail postage free for $1 25 cts.

To our dear Professor Walther, who has not only undertaken the preparation and publication of the book and carried it out so admirably, but who also, before us all, must endure so much disgrace and scorn for the sake of our good cause, we would offer much heartfelt thanks, and wish as his reward God's blessing, peace, joy, and strength.

A. Hoyer.

Whether the Responsive Chants in Our Evangelical Lutheran Divine Service Are Really Roman Catholic?

Everywhere, where the divine service is again held according to the old Evangelical Lutheran Agendas or Church Books, many people have raised a great outcry that it is Roman Catholic when the pastor, for instance, intones: The Lord be with you! and the congregation answers: And with thy spirit! or when the pastor chants the Collect and the Blessing and the congregation at the close answers with "Amen!" A simple Christian, to be sure, would answer such criers: Prove that such responsive chants are contrary to God's Word, and then I too will call them Roman and will have nothing to do with them; but that is just what you cannot prove: but if you assert that that manner of worship is Roman because it occurs in Roman Catholic churches, it would follow that the reading of the Epistles and Gospels is also Roman, indeed that it is wrong to sing and to preach in the churches, because the Romans do that also. But those who ought so to answer let themselves for the most part be frightened by the outcry of the people, and fall themselves into temptation over it. Let them consider that the Roman Catholic Church has those glorious chants from the ancient orthodox Church, that the responsive chants in particular, antiphons and responsories, were used in the Christian Church long before the Roman Catholic false doctrine crept in. For the Christian Church, which from the beginning, even under the Old Testament, had so much joy in singing, retained, when the greater part of the Jews separated from the people of God, the singing of the Psalms, as it had been practiced in the synagogues: a part of a verse of a Psalm was sung, perhaps by the men, the other perhaps by the women and children; the precentor or pastor, according to circumstances, would intone a verse, for example: O give thanks unto the Lord, for He is gracious; and the congregation sang the verse to its end, thus perhaps: And His mercy endureth forever; then the precentor or pastor sang a prayer and the congregation sang at the close: "Amen!" as even the Apostle Paul already presupposes it as known and customary, 1 Corinthians 14, 16. A heathen Roman, by name Pliny, whom the Emperor Trajan had made governor over Bithynia in Asia Minor, wrote in the year 110 to that Emperor that the Christians sang songs to their Christ alternately, or against one another; yes, it is related that Bishop Ignatius of Antioch, who about the year 116 was torn by lions at Rome, saw in a vision in a dream angels who in responsive chants praised the holy Trinity, and therefore introduced this manner of worship first into the Syrian Church. For more than 1700 years the orthodox Christian people have had their joy in such a form of worship, and are we now to be talked into believing that this is Roman Catholic? God forbid. By retaining these wonderful services and introducing them again where they have been lost, we confess rather that we hold neither with the newfangled sectarians nor with the Roman Church, but with the One holy Christian Church, which is as old as the world and built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets.

Pastor Grabau's Latest Answer to the Repeated Offer to Negotiate with Him in Person.

Although Pastor Grabau has for a number of years most horribly condemned and slandered the pure evangelical doctrine which first we, a number of Saxon pastors, and then the whole German Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and other States have publicly confessed, has treated us as heretics, and has sought in the most unchristian and commonest manner to besmirch and disparage us before all the world with his abusive language, we nevertheless already a year ago joyfully agreed to the resolution of our Synod to offer Pastor Grabau a Colloquium, in order that, if God willed, perhaps even in this way a union might be brought about and an end be made of the ruinous discord. The dear readers already know that, alas! Pastor Grabau could not be moved to go with us such an open, honest way, which in disputes that have arisen has already often, and in part to the great benefit of the Church, been taken by orthodox Christians. Pastor Grabau foresaw that on this way the most evident danger threatened his cause. He knew very well that a public discussion of the doctrines that have become disputed among us would make it manifest before his congregations and before all the world that agreement with the Confession of our Evangelical Lutheran Church is on our side, that we have sought to maintain this Confession against him, and that he has hitherto combated the same in us and persecuted in us the Church after which he calls himself.

P. Grabau has by his refusal of the Colloquium offered him placed himself, before the whole Church, under the gravest suspicion that confidence in his cause has forsaken him. He has indeed, in order to give the appearance as though he did not unconditionally reject a public examination of his doctrine, declared that he would consent to a disputation on the doctrine if we first confess the wrong done to him, namely, if we send back to him those who went out from him and were received by us, and, that we received them, would publicly confess penitently as a wrong: but with this P. Grabau has been able to deceive no one but himself and his partisans, for no man of sound understanding, much less a man of Christian knowledge, can recognize it as a just demand that of two parties between whom a Colloquium is to be held for the purpose of union, the one must first confess its wrong toward the other! Every man of sound senses sees that the setting of such a condition on the part of a party is only a stratagem which it employs in order to avoid an open, honest battle, and that whoever sets such a condition thereby reveals that he feels the injustice of his own cause and gives it up for lost.

Without doubt the shame on account of the refused Colloquium was still greater among the other members of the Synod of Buffalo than with Pastor Grabau himself. So this Synod, in its last session in May and June of this year, took up the matter once more, and sent a letter to our Synod assembled at about the same time in Cleveland. Alas! the Synod of Buffalo has, however, not only confirmed the procedure of its Senior Ministerii therein, but also