# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1852 12 07_S1014
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

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be found! But how, if with wanton deed they ban and curse the children? How often, how earnestly and urgently were those pastors, ever up to the time before the great rent occurred, admonished, reminded, entreated and reproved! They have not heard, they have not heard the congregation of Christ, but have despised it, one single man excepted, who came later. Who now are the Rotters?

That also in this respect no improvement is to be perceived in them is proved by the following case. A married man from Krause's congregation in Milwaukie had committed adultery. His wife tells the deed that had taken place to her mother, who lived in Freistatt, only after a considerable time; the man does not deny it at all, since the wife had been an eyewitness. The mother, being apprehensive on account of the increasing discord between the two spouses, reports it, on the advice of a congregational elder, to the pastor, and at his questioning discloses the whole course of their quarrel; he takes under his protection the person who had given herself to adultery, a girl from the bush, because she obstinately does not confess it; and upon that mother, although the son-in-law had confessed the deed orally and in writing before relatives and acquaintances, even before the church court (and afterward before the Lutheran congregation in Milwaukie), the gradus admonitionis (which were in fact only proceedings actually brought about by the mother's own pressing) are carried out, on the ground that she is a slanderer, and she is finally, Krause having meanwhile been called elsewhere, put under the ban by his successor Müller. Kindermann, to whom she had already turned beforehand in her distress, had given her the advice: since he could not break this matter over his knee, she should at least on her part, because she could not convict that girl for lack of other witnesses besides the man's own wife, retract before the congregation her former statement, which she had made on the ground of the confession of the one party. When now the conscience of the mother rebelled against this, a warden, wholly according to Jesuitical morality, wished to quiet it by answering: You may indeed believe for yourself that it is true — but since you cannot make it true, you must say before the congregation that it is not true. And Pastor Kindermann with his church court confirmed such a speech by silence. Yes, he himself made to the penitent offender the remark: in the confessional he might confess it, only before the church court he should retract his confession. Can one still make it a sin to the consciences of honest disciples of Christ if they leave a church which not only tolerates such a manner of acting among itself, but glosses it over with doctrine? The foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal: The Lord knoweth them that are his, — And: Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity (such as is manifest)! — But that is not enough. The banned woman joined Pastor Keyl, and her husband, an old man of eighty years neglected in an inexcusable manner by Kindermann and Müller, and two of their children took the same step likewise. The pastor who had stepped into Krause's place, Müller, now pursued them with equal progress to excommunication, under the shameful pretext: "Although the former Pastor Krause was a hypocrite, as has now become manifest, yet no one, on pain of his salvation, may separate himself from such a preacher before a spiritual court has pronounced a preacher false and condemned him as a hireling and wolf." These are, on documentary evidence, his own written words. Yes, apart from this, that Krause, so long as he was in this soul-murdering communion, was called a faithful pastor, a faithfully deserving pastor of souls, and all his encroachments had to be right, but now, since he has nothing more to do with the apostates, is a hypocrite made manifest and is otherwise most liberally presented with all sorts of titles of honor: so with brazen forehead they will in doing this still be Lutherans besides. For thus it is said further in that address to the poor ill-treated people: "Thus the orthodox Church of Christ has always held, and thus it is also in accordance with God's Word and our Symbols." And after they have appealed to the conclusion of the 8th Article of the Augsburg Confession, (— prudently, however, concealing the beginning —), they go on: "Accordingly you with your children can well perceive into what hands ye have fallen, namely into the hands of the (— sc. damned —) Missourian preachers, who lie not only in the dreadful error of the Donatists, but in still other errors dangerous to souls, (— which, however, it did not seem good to cite at this place —) etc. etc. thus the spiritual mother, the Christian Church, (— that is, Senior Grabau and his synod —) which suckled you at her breasts, calls to you through me, to hasten back soon into her bosom, and to consider well the great danger of your souls, etc. etc. But say not, as Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab, of old, when Moses sent to call them: We will not come up. Their disobedience, how it was rewarded, may be read in the 4th Book of Moses, chapter 16. They also thought that the Rotters were a congregation of the Lord and holy, but the outcome proved it quite otherwise; now it is indeed true that God does not always punish at once on the fresh deed, yet His judgment slumbereth not. It is, as God the Lord Himself says: The time cometh when I will visit them." If now in this remarkable document it is further asserted, among other things: "They, the Missourians, have also been guilty of a crying injustice, in that they accepted the accusation of the deputies of that time, Kaufung and Beebersdorf, instead of referring them to their own regularly lawful church court; (and even if this had erred, they would have been bound according to Matt. 18 to admonish it three times.) but no, there they show of what spirit they are the children, in that they give the deputies the counsel: forthwith to rid themselves of Pastor Krause as a hireling and wolf, and to call another shepherd. One should not believe at all that such unheard-of injustice could be committed by those who call themselves Lutherans, that is, orthodox Christians. God's Word says plainly enough: Doth our law judge any man, before it hear him, and know what he doeth? John 7. There they have shown themselves right as the brothers of Caiaphas: What need we any further witness. —; so every unprejudiced Christian reader will, by comparison with our report above, which more than 100 witnesses confirm, as well as with the first Synodal Letter of the Missouri Synod of 1847 and the correspondence between the Saxons and Grabau (New York 1849) published by the blessed Pastor Löber, be able to form the judgment where the truth and the lie, the Rotters and the true Church, Christ and Belial are to be found.

The Buffalo Synod has heaped bitter revilings upon the proceedings of our Synod with those separated from Pastor Krause, as also upon Pastor Keyl's assumption of office among them and the Kirchhainers who had withdrawn from Kindermann. (Pastor Krause has already retracted his participation in the same, and penitently confessed what was to be confessed. Not everything that the deputies stated at that time in Chicago can be proved as fact.) We will here illumine somewhat more closely the most important point of difference between the two, the article on the Church: thus it will show itself to us of its own accord how the conduct of the office and the use of the ban are rooted therein.

Pastor Krause had taught, as the Buffalo men still do now: the Lutheran Church is a visible one, outside of which no one can be saved. This doctrine is pseudo-Lutheran, Romanizing. Truly catholic, in the proper sense of the word, so that outside of it no man is saved, can never be a mere particular church, (it is a contradictio in adjecto) and that is the Lutheran Church, in so far as it is visible. See Carpzov's isag. in libb. symb. p. 876. Jo. Gerhard's locc. theol. V. p. 275. ed. Francofurt. Baier's compend. theol. pos. p. 769. 768. 770. ed. Lips. Grabau does indeed cite a passage from Chemnitz's locc. th. III. de eccl. ed. Witteberg. p. 115. ed. Francofurt. p. 106. in proof of his doctrine; but he who is better informed knows that these words belong to Melanchthon, and indeed not to the first edition of his locc. of 1521, but to the later ones, enriched with additions not always to their advantage. He who in such matters does not