# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1852 12 07_S1019
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

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nominatio fit, the believers are), which is here revealed through a pure, catholic confession of faith; for without the existence of a church, an assembly of believers, Christ's Sacraments, like His Word, would not at all be accepted and confessed and administered according to His institution: so Christ also is, in general, present with His personal presence of grace only where His promise is believed, where one therefore has and possesses the Gospel and thereby the forgiveness of sins, and dispenses these goods in Word and Sacrament through the office which He has given. It is a fearful error which Grabau utters when he says on p. 75: The office of preaching and of the keys is laid from Christ's Word and mouth into the mouth of a shepherd and teacher through the means of the regular call—therefore, after all, by means of the Church—although not only among those who call there be unbelievers, but even all those who are called, as to their persons, were unbelieving and hypocrites and no spiritual priests at all. The regular call in the Church, according to the likeness and order of the Gospel, indeed draws the office from the Word of the mouth of Christ and commands it to the person who is called; but that is precisely the Church which does this, for without the invisible no visible. The persons contribute nothing to it, but Christ gives Himself and His goods only to believers. Indeed the assembled Church directs itself only by Christ's revealed will and gracious promise, as Grabau remarks; but can this directing itself take place otherwise than through the preceding true faith? Not even when, as among the Papists, a merely historical faith is asserted to be sufficient; for this has no denial of one's own will as its consequence. The office of the Word is indeed bound into the Word of the mouth of Christ Himself, and must also flow necessarily from it, if it is to be committed to a person anywhere; but this Word, this voice of the Gospel, has on earth, through Christ and in Him, only the orthodox Church.—Can anyone, then, become a preacher without having first become a spiritual priest in Baptism? Is not, then, the common estate of Christians above the estate of preachers, and in Christ the effective cause of the latter? The contrary, to make out of this an estate that is better than that, says Luther in his Exposition of the 117th Psalm, is a perverse thing and denies and curses Christ; they are to serve and help toward the Christian estate, like the schools, household discipline, and worldly government, together with all other creatures; but better or higher than the Christian estate they shall not be; the Christian estate shall hover over everything and everything, as the heaven over the earth; for it is (as the most original) Christ's own estate and God's own work. And how he would have this understood he shows in his Explanations against Dr. Eck concerning the Power of the Pope, 1519, where he says: “Thus faith has with it everything that follows upon faith, keys, sacrament, power, and everything else.” With this thunderword he overthrows Grabau's whole laboriously constructed justification of his false doctrine and puts it to shame all at once, for it is founded upon God's eternal decree that Christians are the lords of the world through faith, for all, all things without exception are theirs, 1 Cor. 3, 22; only through love does each serve the other, and so also the preachers through regular call. Cf. the striking words of a Chemnitz in his Examen concil. Trid. II. can. 10. as also J. Gerh. locc. th. VI. p. 47 sq. (It is a striking fact that the same objections against the Lutheran doctrine in these points are found anew in a Grabau, (as formerly among the Puseyites,) which men such as those just named have already victoriously and irrefutably repulsed against a Bellarmin and his predecessors.)

Faith indeed relies upon the promise of its God and sees in it the present Christ; the believing Church directs itself by the Word of His mouth and seeks nothing in its own faith, but its faith seeks everything in the Gospel; but if she were first to assemble in His name and then believe: then she would first assemble in her own sinful, yes, the devil's name, for she would not yet have known the name of Jesus at all. It goes precisely from faith to faith. When some assemble in the name of the Lord, they do so because they believe in Him, His Word, His command, His promise and assurance, and in such a believing assembly Christ is present with all His power and grace. Everything, everything that happens in the name of Jesus, the praying, the being justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, the receiving of Baptism unto salvation in the name of the triune God, everything presupposes faith; without faith Christ is present only as with every creature that lives, moves, and has its being in Him, among the devils in hell; and if, when the believers assemble, Grabau and others who are without faith, intruding alongside, are present with them, they can indeed, through the working of the Word, where God gives grace, and through believing prayer, come to the congregation of those who are being saved, and amend; but they would have turned up from the outset for quite other things, if those assembling in faith had not invisibly exerted the predominant influence upon the general consciousness from youth up; and as long as they themselves have not yet become truly believing, Christ with His graces is also not present for them, even if they were all preachers; they have been there in their own damnable name, not in the gracious name of their Savior, although outwardly they have joined in the order of the divine service, etc. Indeed, for the sake of this latter,—nothing else remains according to Grabau's doctrine—they think Christ is present; but that would profit them neither more nor less than if a block of wood were among them, indeed rather unto a curse and perdition.

The faith of the saints makes itself known, it cannot be otherwise, through the confession, and according to such faith the divine gift is also determined. As much as I believe, says Luther, (and therefore confess,) so much I have. Every assembly which, according to public confession, takes place for the purpose that what is undertaken may redound to the honor of Jesus Christ, the Savior of all men, and thus the salvation, the bodily and spiritual welfare of those for whose sake He became man, may be thereby promoted,—every such assembly takes place in His name; for in this is comprised the manifestly great mystery of godliness and, revealed, shines forth the whole loveliness and fullness of the almighty Reconciler as in a reflected radiance, as in the name of God generally His hidden glory makes itself known to His creatures capable of it and comprehends in itself all the words and works of Jehovah. Where only 2 or 3 are gathered in that name, there heaven unites with earth and a tabernacle of God is set up among men. He walks in the midst of the golden candlesticks, that is, His congregations, although the tares are not yet separated from the wheat, which indeed Grabau, according to the utterance cited above, seems to count as belonging to the visible Church.

We therefore give with Luther the honor to faith alone and say: if there were and still were no faith in the world in the Word spoken originally and immediately by God Himself, there would also be no Church and no office; but the Grabauites: if there were no office and with it no Church (thus merely externally held together, produced by a spiritual mechanism, as Grabau also wishes, not a free organism which proves itself active in living unity through working in one another,) there would also be no faith upon earth. We do not deny the second, only we put the first foremost; just as: ubi Spiritus Dei, ibi ecclesia — and then only: ubi ecclesia, ibi Spiritus Dei; for otherwise the inner life springing from the fresh breath and blowing of the Spirit would grow rigid in works of the law, to which it would have to be subordinated. And remarkably, our doctrine is supposed to be confirmed by Grabau himself against his will, since he, in order to maintain his own the more surely, cites a passage of Luther's, Inform. Vol. 1. p. 60 ff., where he is contradicted most decidedly, when it says on p. 61. at the bottom: For there must indeed be some who the Word and