# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1854 06 20_S175
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

175

Lutheran Church, but of a Church still to be sought (still more orthodox?), yet already living in the thoughts of present-day theologians, an abstracted Church. D. R. d. L.

that ordination, as the setting apart and appointment to the teaching office in general, is the thing that comes first into view, but vocation, as destination (assignment) to a definite sphere of office, is the second. “So Herr Dr. R. has thereby declared plainly that the doctrine of the Roman Church concerning the creation of an order of certain spiritual persons or priests through ordination, from whom those to be called are to be taken, is his also, only with the difference that Dr. R. does not want ordination to offer sacrifice for the living and the dead.

Next it says further in the Rudelbach essay: “Alongside Luther's conception there formed another type in the Church, which in manifold ways appropriated that which we can hold to be alone the proper presentation” **).

**) It must not be forgotten here that Dr. Rudelbach was honest enough to admit that Luther's doctrine on this point is also that of our Symbols. D. R. d. L.

How weak Dr. Rudelbach's proof for this has turned out to be, that there really formed in the Lutheran Church another mode of teaching about ordination alongside Luther's, we pass over here. The proof looks hardly like other works of this great theologian, so weak is the footing on which it stands. Must not the honest man himself confess that in a Lutheran ordination, according to almost all liturgies, the particular parish is always named, for the administration of which the one to be ordained has been called, as the confirmation of which call ordination is thereby always represented?

But how far Dr. Rudelbach has already strayed from the doctrine of our Church appears most clearly finally from this, that he declares the notoriously half-papistical doctrine of the Episcopal Church on the nature of ordination unconditionally to be his own! He writes: “Most clearly of all, as we think, the Anglican (Episcopal) Church has grasped the nature of ordination and has established the liturgical church practice relating to it. She ordains, as is well known, not on the presupposition of a definite office” (a definite parish), “but to the church office itself. The bishops are ordained to the bishopric, the presbyters to the presbyterate, the deacons to the diaconate. The English Church had not only the courage to reject the decree of the Chalcedonian Council as mere human custom, but insight and ability enough to defend this step and its whole concept of the nature of ordination. This has been done, among others, by Richard Hooker” (a learned Episcopal preacher, died in the year 1600) “in his work, still and rightly regarded as the first classical authority for questions of church government: ‘the laws of ecclesiastical policy.’ And since the whole belongs to the best that has been said on the fundamental concept of ordination, I make no scruple to repeat the essentials of his proof. Hooker lays great weight from the beginning on this, that the whole parochial relation and the concept of the parish” (a delimited parish, for which someone is called and ordained) “has no place at all in the Apostolic age(?), whereby then the error of those who set up the assertion that a church servant must be bound absolutely to a certain parish is at once struck down. ‘The presbyters, says he, and deacons are ordained not to a definite pastorate, but to functions’” (that is, in order to be able to perform certain official acts) “‘consecrated.’ As Hooker by this latter definition gives a hint how he conceives the ‘character’ of ordination, so he now further summarizes the whole in the following main points. ‘It is, says he, of the greatest importance, 1. to distinguish exactly between the nature of the church office and the use, the exercise of it;*) 2. to recognize that the one true and peculiar act of ordination consists in this, to invest persons with the power which makes them church servants, through the consecration of such a person to the service of God in holy works for his lifetime, whether he exercise this power or not; †) 3. that the transfer of a pastorate to them, in which they can exercise their’” (already received through ordination) “‘church office, is only the appointment of the’” (already made, by ordination) “‘servants of God.’”

*) Herewith the Episcopalian comes straight into conflict with the doctrine of the Lutheran Church concerning the Ministry as an office of service, as a ministerium. Compare the testimonies to the fourth Thesis of the second part of: “Die Stimme unserer Kirche.” D. R. d. L.

†) By this proposition, as by the doctrine already mentioned above, adopted by Dr. Rudelbach, that ordination must precede vocation, and that only through ordination a body of consecrated persons is created and then from this body alone persons are taken and called to the particular offices, the whole doctrine of the Papists of a priestly order, into which one must first be received in order afterward to be able to obtain a pastorate, is taken up again. What faithful Lutheran is not alarmed that even a Rudelbach's consistency could lead to such a result? D. R. d. L.

As an appendix Dr. Rudelbach mentions further, concerning the Swedish Church, that in it in certain periods many, as soon as they had completed their theological studies, were ordained absolutely, that is, without regard to any vocation received. It is, however, also reported by the writer himself that great evils have come of this. Thus the Professor and Provost Nicolaus Bothniensis of Upsala declared at the celebrated Council of Upsala in the year 1593: “The abuses have risen so high that one heard in everyone's mouth the vexatious proverb: ‘If one strikes a bush, nine priests creep forth at once!’” - -

However lamentable it now is that Herr Dr. Rudelbach has himself publicly made known, in consequence, that he no longer wishes to be reckoned among the theologians who confess without reserve and restriction the whole doctrine laid down in the Confessions of our Church, yet God is to be praised that this dear man, from whom perhaps all the more important theologians of our Church have learned, has kept his ever-proved uprightness and sincerity, and has therefore scorned to twist the sense of our Symbols by dishonest artifices of interpretation, to read his views into them, and so only to bring about ever greater confusion.

Correction.

In No. 20 it is stated in a communication, which we unfortunately, in the press of business, had not looked over beforehand, that prayer belongs to the Means of Grace. This is quite contrary to all churchly usage of language. Means of Grace are only such means through which either God offers, presents and seals to us His grace, and that is alone the Word and the holy Sacraments, or such through which we appropriate this grace to ourselves, and that is alone faith. Our theologians do indeed also speak of means of salvation in a wider sense, but then they understand by them death, the resurrection and the end of the world, as such means, namely, through which man is brought into the full salvation, or as conditions without which an entrance into glory is not possible. Prayer can therefore in neither of these two meanings be called a means of grace.

Received

a. for the Synodal Treasury:
from Hrn. Past. Werselmann $1 00
from his congregation in Auglaize Co. O. 2 56
from the congregation of Hrn. Past. Detzer in Fulton Co. O. 2 75

b. For the Synodal Mission Treasury:
from the congregation of Hrn. Past. Fick in Bremen Mo. 25
from the congregation at St. Louis 14 50

For the purchase of land for the Lutheran Indians in Michigan:
from an unknown person in the local Dr. Einigke. Church, laid down 2 00
from the congregation of Hrn. Past. Link at Neu-Bielefeld, St. Louis Co. Mo. 12 35
from N. N. through Hrn. Past. Albach 3 00
from Hrn. Gottfr. Züngler through Hrn. Past. Eisfeldt 1 00
from Hrn. Conrad Eckert near St. Louis 1 50
from Hrn. Ed. Bertram the same 4 00
from Hrn. Adolf Hermann „ 1 00
from Hrn. Dr. A. Haynel in Baltimore through Hrn. Prof. Biewend 10 00

c. for the maintenance of Concordia College:
from Hrn. Past. Werselmann and his congregation in Auglaize Co. O. 1 44

d. for poor students and pupils in Concordia College and Seminary:
from Hrn. Past. Hattstädt in Monroe, Mich. 84