# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1853 08 02_S170
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

170

Doctrines of Pastor Grabau

33. "We also believe and confess that this office, as God's own ordinance in the church, constitutes a peculiar Christian estate . . . The Apostle Peter says (1 Epist. 5, 1. 2) not: Play the priest in the stead of the flock, which has conferred something upon you . . We do not play the priest out of our own faith or spiritual priesthood in our own or other people's stead . . Where does it stand, then, in the 5th Article of the Augsb. Conf., that God instituted a preaching office which must first creep out of the unripe egg of a spiritual priesthood? and where does it stand in this Article that God instituted a preaching office which should exercise the spiritual priesthood of a heap?" (Informatorium, 1st year, pp. 73. 74. 75.)

(Sent in for the 'Lutheraner'.)

"And the king of Israel answered and said, Tell him, Let not him that girdeth on his harness boast himself as he that putteth it off."

1 Kings 20, 11.

Pastor Grabau has called us, in his second Synodal Letter, the 'Ahab-synod.' A member of the same therefore herewith answers him with a word of King Ahab upon the libelous pamphlet which has gone forth anew in the 16th number of the 2nd year of the 'Kirchliches Informatorium,' to fling mud after those who in vain offered themselves for an open, honorable duel. For it appears to me, in truth, no otherwise than as the presumptuous assurance of victory of the boastful Syrian, when we are judged in the "Öffentliche Antwort" of June 21, 1853, with the following words:

"Manifest now is the curse,

Doctrines of the Romish Church

33. That the holy preaching office is something other than the public administration of those offices which believing Christians possess originally and immediately as spiritual priests, by common right or in the stead and in the name of the Christians or of the congregation; that the preachers rather constitute a special spiritual estate which possesses certain privileges which the church has only by means of the same: this is, as is well known, the cardinal point on which the differences between the Romish and the Ev. Luth. Church turn. If the Protestant Church gives up the belief that the totality of believers is the church and Christ's bride, to whom Christ has given all the glory which He acquired through the works of His redemption and which she has appropriated to herself through faith, and that therefore the preachers are only the servants of the church and the stewards, not the masters of the house in the house of God, and officiate only in the stead of the congregation of the saints: then it is all over with true Protestantism, and the same has then itself planted the poisonous root in its field out of which, if rightly tended, the whole papal hierarchy must grow up again. That it is precisely the Augsb. Conf., to which Pastor Grabau appeals, that does not expressly touch upon the relation of the spiritual priesthood of believers to the preaching office, like much else, has its reason in this, that the Augsb. Confession had the purpose, wherever possible, of leaving the way to peace open. Therefore, say the theologians assembled at Augsburg, "the odious articles," that is, those which would only breed hatred, "were not stirred up at this time." Among these articles they reckon, among others, the following: "Whether all Christians are priests? Whether a layman can consecrate the Sacrament? Whether ordination to the priesthood impresses a perpetual character?" ("The reasons shown by the theologians why it would not be advisable to deliver more articles." See the whole important essay in Luther's Werken, Hall. Ed. XVI, 1058.)

which the Rev. Synod of Missouri takes upon itself"

Shall "the curse" here be that which the undersigned pronounces over us "in the name and by commission of the Kirchen-Ministerium," then the expression is at least not logically incorrect, since that is indeed manifest. Meanwhile, how many times has not curse and ban been poured out over us from the same source long before, in Synodal Letters and in the Informatorium, so that the "now" can have no other meaning than that of long-suppressed wrath, still to see all that, even the "Get thee behind me, Satan!" not crowned with success? But if this success itself, the Amen of Almighty God in heaven to the ban-curse of the Synod of Buffalo upon that of Missouri, is to be understood by the "curse" which is now supposed to be manifest, then one really does not comprehend to what judgment of punishment reference is thereby made. It can at least comfort us that it was deemed necessary to call our attention to it by spaced type. Although we do not desire always to get faith into our fist, and therefore by no means found the good confidence in the "work of our hands" upon visible blessing on our labor, still less upon something that the world calls fortune: yet we have, precisely "now," when the curse which we are drawing upon ourselves is supposed to be manifest, absolutely no cause to complain of any diminution of the blessing which God has hitherto of grace laid upon the Synod of Missouri, as our synodal report of this year will bear witness. But the "curse" is perhaps not meant to be that either, but the judgment of hardening. Although the LORD alone can decide whether we have fallen under that, and we can content ourselves with the verdict of our conscience, yet let the grounds be weighed once which the Kirchen-Ministerium of Buffalo brings forward for its grave accusation. They are as follows:

Doctrines of the Lutheran Church.

33. Luther: "Some are drawn out of the heap only in order that they may conduct and practise, in the stead of the congregation, the office which they all have; not that one should have more power than the other . . Now those have set up a peculiar estate, as if it were of God, have won such liberty that almost in the midst of Christendom there is a greater difference than between us and the Turks." (In the exposition of 1 Pet. 2, 5.) — Luther: "Therefore the consecrating of a bishop is nothing else than as if he, in the stead and person of the whole assembly, took one out of the heap, who all have equal power, and commanded him to execute the same power for the others; just as if ten brothers, king's children, equal heirs, chose one to rule the inheritance for them; they would all be kings and of equal power, and yet one is commanded to rule." (X, 302. From the writing to the Christian Nobility, etc.) — Luther: "The right of the community requires that one, or as many as please the congregation, be chosen and received, who in the stead and in the name of all those who have just the same right, perform these offices" (preaching, baptizing, communing, etc.) "publicly . . Now let us speak with the papistical priests, and ask them to show us whether their priesthood has other offices than these offices" (of the spiritual priests, of the believing Christians) "are? If it has others, then their priesthood will not be a Christian priesthood. But if it has just those which we have recounted, then it cannot be a peculiar priesthood. So we conclude against them, let them turn whithersoever they will, that they either have no priesthood that is other than that which is common to all Christians: but if they have one that is other, it must be Satan's priesthood. For Christ has taught us, Matth. 7, that we should learn to know all trees by their fruits; but we have now seen the fruit of our common priesthood, so let them show us either other fruit than this, or confess that they are not priests. For that this fruit is borne peculiarly or publicly does not prove another priesthood, but another and different use of the priesthood . . We stand firm on this, that there is no other Word of God than that alone which is commanded to be proclaimed to all Christians; that there is no other Baptism than that which all Christians may give; that there is no other remembrance of the Lord's Supper than that which every Christian may observe, which Christ has instituted to be so kept; also that there is no other sin than that which every Christian may bind and loose; likewise, we hold that there is no sacrifice but the body of every Christian man; that also no one can or may pray but the Christian alone; moreover, that no one shall judge concerning doctrine but the Christian alone. These are, however, the priestly and kingly offices. Therefore let the papists either show us other offices of the priests, or else give up their priesthood, and renounce it." (X, 1857-59. from the Letter to the Bohemians.) We also therefore demand of Pastor Grabau that he show us either other works and offices of a preacher, or concede that the preaching office is nothing more than the public administration of the offices which all believers originally have, in their stead.