# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1853 08 02_S172
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

172

node of Buffalo have the right and warrant to refuse us the colloquy?

The Synod of Buffalo asserts this and supports itself thereby upon 2 Thess. 3, 14. 15., Rom. 16, 17. 18., 2 Tim. 3, 5., 1 Cor. 5, 13.

The first of these passages of Scripture reads thus: "And if any man obey not our word, note that man by an epistle, and have no company with him, that he may be ashamed. Yet count him not as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother." Here it is commanded that Christian congregations shall exclude from themselves those who are disobedient to the Word of God, and shall have nothing to do with them. But it is not commanded them that they shall not speak with them. "Admonish him," it says rather in the passage, "as a brother!" This proves sufficiently how little anyone can appeal to this passage who gives a refusing answer to those whom he regards as the most accursed sinners, and with him the whole church excludes from all communion of faith, when they invite him to a conversation. "And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain," says the LORD (Matth. 5, 41.). The word suffers no exception: for to go and speak with a person is not communion at the Lord's Table.

The second of the passages adduced, Rom. 16, 17. 18., reads: "Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them. For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly; and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple." According to this passage Christians are to turn away from those who, beside the apostolic doctrine of the Gospel, introduce new errors into the church and thereby cause division and offence. This, then, does not belong here at all. The Synod of Buffalo wishes therefore to have nothing to do with us because we will not release its excommunicated from our union. These, however, it says expressly, have fled to us not for the sake of the doctrine, but because they had an unclean conscience; the doctrine they have taken only as a pretext. The controversy in doctrine, on the other hand, which separates us from the Synod in Buffalo, is not to hinder the colloquy. Absurd as it would be, it would yet be far more suitable to the Scripture passage improperly applied to our case if we on our part did not enter upon a colloquy with the Synod of Buffalo until the purpose of the colloquy, namely, a union in doctrine, had already been attained beforehand.

The third passage, 2 Tim. 3, 5., reads thus: "Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away." Here we may surely ask boldly all the pastors of the Rev. Synod of Buffalo: Can you avoid, I will not say speaking with such as have a form of godliness but deny the power thereof, but absolving them and admitting them to the Table of the LORD? You will not be able to answer with Yes! For among these are those who, to be sure, do not keep it up for long, but yet for a time, whose folly will probably become manifest to everyone, but is yet not always manifest when they present themselves for the holy Supper. Nevertheless one can avoid them, even though one were with them all day long and they opened their mouths again and again and also received an answer. For the discipline of the Spirit, in which the Christian stands, separates him inwardly, as from his own flesh, so also from all carnally minded hypocrites. Excommunication is in the camp of the Christians only a testimony that this inner discipline belongs to the essence of the church, as it were the banner which one holds, while all have the sword at their side and defend themselves daily therewith. Without this inner discipline even the greatest severity in maintaining the outward church ban is only the form of godliness whose power is denied. The hypocrite feels it very well that the spiritual man, that is, the Christian, avoids him, even when the latter regards him as the very best of Christians. For since his speech is seasoned with salt, he spits, without knowing that one of them is near him, at every moment before such persons, turns his back upon them, cuts off intercourse with those who have only the form of godliness but deny the power thereof. That is the "avoiding" and "having nothing to do." This draws not an outward, visible, but an inward invisible wall of protection, planted by faith in the heart, about God's saints and beloved, which stands not at all in their own caprice, like the holding of a colloquy, but, as dependent upon the indwelling of the Holy Ghost, who makes a new man of us, is so inseparably bound up with it. It is therefore only an abuse of the doctrine of the visible church when the Synod of Buffalo reckons it among the avoiding commanded in 2 Tim. 3, 5. that it refuses, before the release of the members of our congregations excommunicated by its pastors, to hold a colloquy with us. All else set aside, the Apostle here forbids as little as in the first passage, 2 Thess. 3, 14. 15., to speak with the excommunicated and to admonish them, because it is the same thing to avoid a person as to have nothing to do with him, and this does not exclude admonishing, thus conversation and consequently also colloquy, but requires it according to 2 Thess. 3, 15.

Now there remains 1 Cor. 5, 13. There it says: "But them that are without God judgeth. Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person." That the congregation of God here receives the command to excommunicate manifest impenitent sinners is right. But that one may not hold a colloquy with those who have received such excommunicated persons into their church union, on the premise grounded on facts that they were unlawfully banned, does not follow from this. From comparison with 2 Thess. 3, 15. it appears rather that this command of excommunication, which contains neither an instruction how one is to proceed in banning, nor a prescription what one is to observe toward the excommunicated after the ban has been executed, does not forbid even meetings and conversations with those who have been lawfully excluded from church fellowship.

Thus all four passages, in spite of their mighty content, prove nothing for the present case except the horrible lack of understanding of the Synod of Buffalo: for that it should have wished to frighten us with them craftily, and thus pervert the Word of God against better knowledge, would be too godless for us to assume. But we have learned this much from it, that it must indeed be no slight task to stand in connection with such a Synod, whether as shepherd or as sheep of a flock, and yet in all patience to wait until God shall look into it. Now we are still far calmer about the whole matter. We should on the contrary have to fear the reproaches of our conscience, were we to enter upon the demand of the Synod of Buffalo. How could we, without further ado, hand over members of our synodal union to an ecclesiastical body which has publicly documented its ignorance of the Word of God and its exaltation of discipline above doctrine, such as is otherwise proper only to mad enthusiasts? Border-guards we should be, and no shepherds!

K. Röbbelen.

(Letter to Pastor Hattstädt.)

From the East Indies.

Tranquebar, September 1, 1852.

Grace, mercy and peace from God, the Father, and from Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour, be with thee!

* * * The tidings which thou hast communicated to me from your North America of your experiences, your joy and sorrow, have greatly rejoiced my soul, since they show and testify so plainly that the Lord has poured out His Holy Spirit in rich measure upon His church, which only a few decades ago lay almost wholly prostrate, and has caused a breath of life to blow anew over the bones of the dead from His countenance. How it delights a heart that loves Zion and desires that its walls be built, that wishes Jerusalem good fortune and seeks its good, when it hears that the Lord has arisen to help His people, to build again the walls of His city and to grant peace to His own. And truly, wherever we turn our ey-