# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1853 07 19_S164
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

164

repeated. For thus it was said, among other things, in the letter, this time however not filled, as usual, with abusive and scolding words: "As long as the Rev. Synod of Missouri does not recall the preachers sent to our Excommunicated, but retains, absolves, and communes the Excommunicated, we are, by this act, in their eyes no longer a Lutheran Church, and if, without this recall and penitent reconciliation and apology, we hold a colloquy with them, we confess just as much that we are a sect and no longer a Lutheran Church, as Pastor Grabau would have confessed to the slander of being a pope, if he had accepted it, when the Synod of Missouri, passing over our Ministerium and Synod, offered reconciliation and colloquy to him alone."!? Were the matter not so bitterly earnest, one would truly be tempted to take such conclusions as the Rev. Gentlemen here draw for jest and mockery; under present circumstances, however, we must explain such conclusions to ourselves from the painful embarrassment in which the gentlemen found themselves, since they wished to refuse the colloquy and yet to give a reason for it. As for the Synod of Missouri, it could naturally not agree to this condition. Why? This it explained to the Synod in its letter of reply, among other things in the following words: "Our simple reason is this, that we could be convinced of having done wrong to the Rev. Synod of Buffalo only if it were demonstrated to us that the same does not harbor the errors in doctrine, and does not follow the conscience-burdening practice founded upon them, on account of which we received into our fellowship those who separated from it . . . If we were to consent to the repudiation, expected of us, of our hitherto course of action in relation to the Synod of Buffalo, we should thereby at the same time repudiate the doctrine recognized and confessed by us as divine truth." — But since the Synod of Buffalo had seen only too clearly how important it was for it to produce the appearance as though the dispute between it and our Synod did not originally and properly concern the doctrine, but wrong committed in life, the Synod of Missouri, etc., upon the proposal, now made formally also to the whole Synod of Buffalo, to hold a Christian colloquy with it, received again from P. Grabau, in the name of the last-named Synod, the same answer. He wrote, among other things: "Accordingly the first step to true peace is that the same be introduced with reconciliation, namely, that the Synod of Missouri extend us the hand thereby, in that it give up its sinful party-court for our excommunicated church members and release them from its fellowship." Very remarkable here was this: the Synod of Missouri, etc., had in its letter reminded the Synod of Buffalo of 1 Pet. 3, 15. 16., where it is said: "Be ready always to give an answer to every man, etc." How now did Past. G. seek to escape this clear saying of the divine Word, by which he certainly ought gladly to have let himself be taken captive and moved to a colloquy? — He answered: "The word which the Rev. Synod of Missouri stresses: ""Be ready to give an answer to every man,"" indicates quite well those who have the power or right to demand the answer, as: authorities, superiors, and the like." It is remarkable, as said, namely, that the Jesuits Grether and Tommer, who were compelled to hold a colloquy with the Lutherans at Regensburg, made a similar interpretation of that Petrine saying put before them, in order to excuse their refusal to give account and answer concerning their judge in disputes of faith *). — In order to do the utmost that could serve peace, our Synod answered the Synod of Buffalo once more, and indeed among other things as follows: "The Synod of Missouri feels constrained to remind the Rev. Synod of Buffalo once more how unreasonable its demands and how reasonable the offer of our Synod was. That Synod demands of us, as a condition under which it will confer with us, a prior recognition and putting away of a wrong of which, however, we cannot be convinced that we have made ourselves guilty. Is it not against all rules of Christian fairness to want to extort from us an act against our conscience? Does that not manifestly mean to scorn the way of peace, if the Rev. Synod of Buffalo will enter upon a colloquy with us only on condition that we perform something which wounds our conscience? †) We, on the contrary, asked of the Rev. Synod of Buffalo something which it could without hesitation fulfill without any violation of conscience. Although we were fully convinced of the Scripturalness of our doctrine and of the unscripturalness of the doctrine of the Buffalo Synod, yet we did not make it a condition of a colloquy to be held that there should first be a prior assent to our doctrine, or a confession of the hierarchical practice charged to the Buffalo Synod by us, still less the previous readmission of those whom we regarded as wrongfully banned by it, but we asked simply nothing more than a meeting in which first of all the disunity in doctrine, which has been the cause of the schism that arose, should by God's grace be removed; we also have not refused to answer the Rev. Synod of Buffalo for its accusations, yes, we are even willing to recognize and put away a wrong demonstrated to us, only that it be actually demonstrated to us. We also beg the Rev. Synod to consider that, if without prior agreement in doctrine it were to be decided concerning the individual cases in which it accuses us of wrong, the understanding about them would prove impossible so long as, with the difference of our doctrine, we must necessarily judge also these cases differently. If any willingness at all to reconciliation prevailed with the Rev. Synod of Buffalo, how should it not gladly enter into our wish?" Our Synod then declared once more, in conclusion, that it was still ready for a colloquy.

*) Calow mentions this in his Biblia illustrata on 1 Pet. 3, 15. He writes: "Thus (one ought to be ready to give an answer) not merely when the authorities demand it, as the Jesuits replied in the Regensburg Colloquy — which limitation Perkins also makes — but to everyone who demands it an account is to be given, if he deals with the matter only in earnest and at the proper time and in the proper place."

†) We are, namely, to depose from their offices preachers as "factious preachers," to whom we "in the first place have not given the office at all, and whom we in the second place recognize as regularly called and faithful servants of Christ; we are to thrust from us those who have gone out from the congregations of the Synod in Buffalo and whom we have received at their request, as such who in self-judging fashion and against right withdrew from their church court, whereas we have recognized after strict investigation that the same separated themselves from their church court on account of conscience, namely, on account of the false doctrine of their preachers, and only then, when they found no more justice with it; we are to send back to their banners those as lawfully banned who either were already beforehand, as has been proved, unjustly banned, or, as has mostly happened, were put under the ban afterward only in consequence of their departure and joining our fellowship. — It is, to be sure, true that P. Grabau denies all this with unheard-of boldness, but precisely thereby proves how necessary a colloquy is in order to bring to light the truth or untruth of the assertions on both sides, before the one party can make to the other the demand to do penance. The Editor.

To this last letter there has now appeared, in the latest number of the "Informatorium," a "public answer" of Pastor Grabau's "in the name and by commission of the Church Ministerium." The precious name of JESUS stands indeed at the head of this "answer," but nothing of His Spirit is to be detected in it; but rather that spirit which usurps a lordship over the consciences themselves; that spirit which breathes in the bulls and decrees of those who call themselves "the servants of servants"; the spirit that says: Sic volo, sic jubeo, sit pro ratione voluntas, that is: Thus I will, thus I command, instead of reasons let my will count. Cleverly is the motto chosen which Pastor Grabau has set above his Ultimatum, namely: "Men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil." John 3, 19. We say, cleverly; for at any rate Pastor Grabau has wanted thereby to forestall us. Who shuns the light? we ask all our readers, be they friend or foe, we, or Pastor Grabau? — We have already five times offered to confer with Pastor Grabau publicly, or before as many witnesses as it pleases Pastor Grabau, concerning the controversies pending between us