# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1853 07 19_S166
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

166

and even expressly called us heretics and a faction and cursed and damned us countless times? Now it is indeed true that not every difference of doctrine arising between two church fellowships at once gives the one a right to receive those banned by the other and separating themselves from it, if the difference of doctrine does not concern fundamental articles, whereby the one becomes a sect; but if the erring church fellowship not only errs, but also forces the error upon its members and by the practice founded thereon seeks to burden their consciences, what then? — Then precisely the case occurs that a church fellowship, without yet being a sect, takes upon itself the guilt of a schism and compels the other fellowship to receive those whom it drives from itself by its assumed lordship over consciences. And that is precisely the case with the Buffalo Synod. This was also already held up to it by us in the first reply sent to it from Cleveland. There our Synod writes as follows: "Finally the Reverend Synod (of Buffalo) accuses us of a self-contradiction, in that we conceded to it that we would not venture to declare it, up to now, a sect or faction, and yet received into our connection those separating themselves from it. We admit that a church which errs, though hardly so, yet out of weakness, may not be forsaken at once; but if the same does not tolerate the witnesses for the truth with their testimony, burdens the consciences by the forcing on of its errors and a practice founded thereon, then the case occurs that Christians who know the truth must also separate from such a fellowship and are entitled to separate, whose errors are not in themselves subversive of the foundation and therefore do not yet make it a sect. Unfortunately, however, the Reverend Synod of Buffalo takes this sad position, and we therefore cannot refrain from reminding it of the warning saying of St. Augustine, that there is no schism which would not, if it took root, finally change into a sect. May God forbid that we, who must declare the Reverend Synod of Buffalo thus far a dangerously erring, yet not yet sectarian fellowship, should not experience in it the truth of that Augustinian saying." —

In the public reply of P. Grabau it says further: "The Synod of Missouri is, however, untruthful and presumptuously domineering toward us. For it presents itself falsely as one that had merely made accusations against us, of which it does not even require that we should first acknowledge them as well-founded! But they are not mere accusations that have been made against us, but upon accusations they have acted in public practice as one does not find among well-behaved and honorably minded heathen; shameful to the point of horror!"

Answer: It is a dishonesty when Mr. Pastor Grabau, because in the proposal of a colloquy we speak only of accusations made by him, draws from it the conclusion for his doctrine that we wished to give ourselves the appearance as though we had hitherto done nothing further against him than raise accusations against him. If we spoke here only of accusations, it was precisely because it is contradictory to offer someone a colloquy and yet to speak as if the matter were already proved; for as soon as a colloquy is arranged between disputants, it is thereby declared that the matter in dispute, and where the right lies, shall first be subjected to a renewed investigation.

It says further in the public reply: "They have received the most atrocious excommunicated sinners without any inquiry."

Answer: This is, so far as the Synod is concerned (for as to individual preachers, the Synod, although it expects the best of them, cannot answer for them,) untrue, if it is meant thereby that the Synod has received people who have separated from our opponents or been excluded by them, without its (our Synod) having had the testimony of the adversaries themselves. The Synod has always acted on the ground of documents lying before it, signed by our opponents with their own hands, and has repeatedly made the strictest investigation of the matter. That it later no longer conferred first with the opponents in such affairs came about because they treated us as heretics and warned against us as ravening wolves in sheep's clothing.

In the public reply it says further: (They have) "declared our Lutheran pastors worthy of deposition, and laid upon our church members as a holy duty to call at once orthodox pastors, that is, Missourian ones!"

Answer: This also is a manifest untruth. The Synod has declared worthy of deposition, in the year 1847 alone, Mr. Pastor Krause, then pastor at Freistatt, and that in an opinion "on the supposition that the reports laid before us" concerning dreadful atrocities committed "agree with the truth." Our Synod has the less cause to regret this decision since Mr. Pastor Krause, after he had come to a knowledge of the hierarchical, romanizing tendency of the Synod of Buffalo, also perceived his grievous wrong, publicly begged pardon for it, and has taken back the false bans repeatedly pronounced by him; and Mr. Pastor Grabau should the less use our former judgment on Mr. Krause as a point of accusation against us, since he, Mr. P. Grabau, now himself brands Mr. Pastor Krause as a Judas.

Finally it says in the public reply of Mr. Pastor Grabau, in spaced type, as follows:

"Manifest now is the curse which the Reverend Synod of Missouri brings upon itself."

Answer: If the curse which we are said to bring upon ourselves is only "now manifest," as it is here said, then it stands sadly with Mr. P. G., for already for many years past Mr. P. Grabau's mouth has been full of cursing (Ps. 10, 7.) against our Synod! Nevertheless be it far from us to curse again. Our revenge shall rather be this, that we bless Mr. P. Grabau for it and beseech God that He would, according to His great mercy, change the darkened and embittered heart of our opponent, and not let him die in his unrighteous cursing, judging and condemning, but grant him sincere repentance of his deep fall, that we may both together inherit the blessing, whereunto we are called (1 Pet. 3, 9.). At the same time we will hold fast to the comfort of the divine word: "As the bird by wandering, as the swallow by flying, so the curse causeless shall not come." Prov. 26, 2. We will, moreover, gladly see a lessening of the guilt of Mr. Pastor Grabau in this, that he now once for all believes that we wish to persist in a thing which he regards as a manifest sin; but herewith he himself makes manifest how dangerous it is to execute curse and ban on principle according to individual moral conviction. In such a course of action one commits the gravest sins, and yet thinks he doeth God service (John 16, 2.). We too once were stuck in this error and brought forth the bitter fruits of it, when we were still held captive in the Stephanite-hierarchical direction; as God has now graciously given us repentance and conversion from it, so may the faithful God give this also to our unhappy opponent. In JEsus' name! Amen.

Vivia Perpetua,

the dear blood-witness of the LORD JEsus at Carthage in Africa, about 202 after Christ's birth.

1.

How Perpetua confessed the LORD JEsus and loved Him more than her father and her child.

Perpetua was born
In the land of Africa.
In darkness lost
Was her youth there;
Yet when she once in faith
Beheld the LORD Christ:
Then she let nothing rob her of Him again.

All that men can desire,
She possessed, highly blest:
Wedded, young, rich in honors,
Delighted with a mother's joy;
Yet Christ was her life,
To Him she remained unmoved
And faithful, devoted even unto bitter death.