# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1853 10 25_S38
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

38

The mystery of the holy "Trinity" the Baptist party which the Sendbote wants to serve seems, to our joy, to acknowledge without reserve. Indeed, Mr. Rauschenbusch writes in the paper that "the doctrines of the Trinity and of justification are more important to him than the doctrine of Baptism."

Original sin also the "Sendbote" seems to believe. At least it says in the second number: "God says of every living man who is not a believer, be he young or old besides: he is dead," namely, as it says further below, "spiritually dead." "All men without exception have need of it" (regeneration). "All are children of the same earthly progenitor, who fell through sin and can be transformed into children of the heavenly Father only through a new birth. That we cannot accomplish this work ourselves is certain. We can change our sins, but not our hearts." Man, before and until he is born anew and becomes a new creature, through the Spirit and faith, does nothing toward it, nor can he strive for anything by which he might prepare himself for spiritual regeneration and for the kingdom of God."

The more and the more sincerely we now rejoice over every ray of divine truth, wherever it may be found, since in every one lie powers of regeneration and of the new life from God, and the greater therefore our joy was to find at least those truths uttered by the 'Sendbote': the more saddened were we to find, alongside these truths and in contradiction to them, also "many grievous, most dangerous false doctrines" in it. Of this, if the LORD will, next time.

Review of the writing published by our Synod: "Die Stimme unserer Kirche in der Frage über Kirche und Amt."

That there are also in the old fatherland still men who confess with us the old evangelical-Lutheran doctrine held fast by us and defended against the Grabauite party here, also of Church and Ministry, is shown by a review, which appeared in the "Zeitschrift für die gesammte lutherische Theologie und Kirche von Dr. Rudelbach und Dr. Guericke" (third quarterly number of this year), by the Licentiate and gymnasium teacher Karl Ströbel. By a resolution of the St. Louis District Pastoral Conference we herewith communicate this review. It reads, pages 571–573, as follows:

"That the Lutherans are now divided on the important doctrines of Church and Ministry and what stands in immediate connection with them, comes from this, that one departs and deviates from the doctrine laid down in the public confessions of our Church and developed in the private writings of its orthodox teachers. . . . And whoever among us may find with astonishment principles and doctrines set forth as principles and doctrines of the Lutheran Church which he has hitherto abhorred as enthusiasm, him we can confidently refer to the proofs which we have adduced for them, and leave him the choice, either to leave to us the glory of Lutheran orthodoxy, or to deny the same to the whole cloud of faithful witnesses from Luther down to a Baier and Hollaz." Thus the Synod of Missouri expresses itself in the "Vorerinnerungen" to Walther's book, and the reviewer can add to this declaration only his joyful Yea and Amen, and welcome the glorious American "Glaubens-Zeugniß" as the decisive turning point of the strife over Church and Ministry. Henceforth the question can no longer be what evangelical Christendom teaches on this important subject, or what at all is compatible with its principle and spirit. The valiant Walther has irrefutably demonstrated that it must give itself up and return to the Papacy, if it does not hold fast with all strictness the following propositions: 1. "The Church in the proper sense of the word is the congregation of saints, that is, the totality of all those who, called out by the Gospel from the lost, condemned human race by the Holy Spirit, truly believe in Christ and are sanctified by this faith and incorporated into Christ." 2. "To the Church in the proper sense of the word there belongs no godless person, no hypocrite, no unregenerate person, no heretic." 3. "The Church in the proper sense of the word is invisible." 4. "It is this true (invisible) Church of believers and saints to which Christ has given the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and it is therefore the proper and sole possessor and bearer of the spiritual, divine and heavenly goods, rights, powers, offices, etc., which Christ has obtained, and which He gives in His Church." 5. "As the visible communities, in which Word and Sacrament are still essentially present, bear the name Church on account of the true invisible Church of true believers according to God's Word found in them, so these also, for the sake of the invisible Church lying hidden in them, even if there were only two or three, have the power which Christ has given to His whole Church." 6. "The ministry of preaching is no special, holier estate standing over against the common Christian estate, like the Levitical priesthood, but an office of service." 7. "The ministry of preaching is conferred by God through the congregation, possessor of all church power or of the keys, and through its calling prescribed by God. The ordination of those called with the laying on of hands is not of divine institution, but an apostolic church order, and only a public, solemn confirmation of that call." 8. "The holy ministry of preaching is the power, conferred by God through the congregation as possessor of the priesthood and of all church power, to exercise the rights of the spiritual priesthood in a public office on behalf of the community." — These are the fundamental articles of the evangelical-Lutheran doctrine of Church and Ministry, and, to spare the friends of the opposite views the useless trouble of narrowing these articles of faith by quibbling, I remark further that they are taken by our approved teachers of the Church in the widest extent. The strife over Ministry and Church reduces itself henceforth to the question: Is the evangelical-Lutheran conviction divine truth, or human error, pernicious "enthusiasm"? Are we to accept the Reformers and their kindred successors as true proclaimers of the Gospel, or to flee them as false teachers and wolves? From now on that strife will be carried on no longer between members and members, but only between members and enemies of the evangelical-Lutheran Church. Whoever does not swear to our banner is no confessor of the Augsburg Confession, but a Roman outpost pushed forward into our camp, which sooner or later will be driven back from its present position into the more fitting, natural one on the Tiber. On our side is the Christian truth and with it the certainty of the final victory. Walther has proved by numerous passages from the Holy Scripture and the Fathers that in the apostolic and patristic age no other doctrine of Church and Ministry prevailed than that which was once defended by the Reformers and is now defended by us. We can therefore very well be content that our doctrine is called "democratic" in the "second Synodal Letter" of the Vatican-Lutheran Church at Buffalo, and its defenders (Walther in particular) "Rottenbeschützer." We as evangelical Christians must lay no weight on that at all, but rather be prepared that it may come still worse, that one may perhaps not merely call us a "democratic rabble," but after some time also treat us as such, as it went with our blessed fathers. The language and principles of the masters of Buffalo leave no doubt that an Eck, Emser, Murnar, Bellarmine and consorts have risen from the dead and (ostensibly against us, but in reality) against Luther, Melanchthon, Chemnitz, Chyträus, Joh. Gerhard, against Ignatius, Irenaeus, Origen, Chrysostom, Cyprian, Ambrose, Augustine, Jerome, against Paul, Peter, John, against Christ, the divine Word and the whole ecumenical Church on earth have taken up again the superannuated strife over Ministry and Church. Should they succeed anywhere in winning Mr. Omnes or the brachium sæculare to their side, they would make very little ado with us poor wretches. How the excellent Löhe came into this company and how he can so completely deceive himself about the relation of his views to the Bible and the evangelical-Lutheran doctrine of the Church