# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1854 07 05_S182
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182

of the case. What we declined yesterday (in the preliminary consultation), namely to be judges in this matter, this honored assembly will just as little wish to take upon itself. I mean, on the contrary, that we should leave the arrangement of our answer to the specifically American circumstances entirely to the inquiring brethren, and must decidedly decline any suggestion that we had declared ourselves, by our answer, for the one or the other of the contending parties. We wish only to take the objective questions into view, and are thus also able and bound to give an answer to them." Protocol, p. 74. The same was confirmed by the president, Prof. Philippi, as well as by the other members of the preliminary committee.

Right at the beginning of the proceedings Pastor Niedner of Langenchursdorf felt himself "constrained in his conscience" to reproach those of Buffalo with their unchristian conduct in general toward the Missourians, and then withdrew from all participation. That ought not to have been passed over in the minutes. Thereupon the Mecklenburg and Bavarian pastors in particular expressed their misgivings about the wording of the three theses. It was repeatedly pointed out, however, by the committee, that they were to be answered only as doctrinal questions in genere (in general).

How was I and those like me to conduct ourselves in this? We had to tell ourselves that the conference was about to trample upon the audiatur et altera pars (the other party must also be heard). On the other hand, the leaders of the conference assured us that it was not a matter here between pars and pars (party and party), but of a general principle of church discipline, as might be exemplified approximately in this way: Because the Mecklenburg and the Hanoverian Church are in dispute over the right doctrine of the Ministry, may therefore the one receive into church fellowship, without further ado, adulterers who have been excommunicated according to Scripture by the other? And to this every Christian must of course answer in the negative, provided that "without further ado" means the same as "without their having repented." Nevertheless the crooked, constrained manner of putting the question made me greatly doubt whether the conference committee was interpreting correctly in the sense of the questioners. I therefore asked Pastor Diezel to move that either simple questions be put instead of the entangled ones, or at least that an unambiguous explanation be required beforehand of what is meant by "makes the Church false" (Question 1), "in the order of Christ excommunicated," "at once and so long as" (Q. 2), "counter-altars" (Q. 3). But in the restless confusion it came to nothing further than a renewed repetition of the above explanation of the committee. To hold that same explanation to be the right one, corresponding to Grabau's meaning, I was unable to do against better knowledge and conscience; yet I did not trust myself to regard all the members of the committee as being in palpable error, and to ascribe to myself alone the understanding. In such circumstances nothing remained for me but to abstain from any vote. And so it went with several of my friends.

Had it been a matter of an open denial of the Confessions, we would have been bound to explain publicly the ground of our abstention. The present case was not of that kind. Therefore we refrained from this further step. But if we are especially called upon for testimony, we render it with joy: as we wish to have done herewith.

III.

I shall scarcely now need to justify in particular my third assertion, namely:

that many members assented to the general judgment of the conference not in consequence of a false doctrine of Church and Ministry.

For I have already related in what precedes how people were almost forcibly endeavoring to interpret Grabau's meaning in a good, harmless sense. How it has come about that individuals, in this unsuspecting confidence, as though Grabau's meaning were thoroughly simple and free of ulterior motives, have simply been unwilling to become doubtful, I do not know how to explain. But this I know for certain, that men such as Prof. Philippi stand up with all their power for the pure doctrine of our Church; from his writings I cannot possibly judge otherwise. And yet the three questions which those of Buffalo had put might perhaps never have come before the conference for deliberation and answer if he had not recommended them. He seems not to have held, as Harleß does (preface to "Kirche und Amt"), that it concerns here "not merely principles, but also the manner of putting them into effect in individual cases." But could it escape Prof. Philippi, how much less other members of the conference, who by their calling had hitherto been less directed to it, to obtain exact knowledge of the controversy of the German Lutheran Church of North America?

By this I least of all wish to have intended to conceal that false doctrine concerning the article of the "Church" and the related points exists among us. Unfortunately it is very widespread, and was also asserted at this conference (Prot. p. 66, 70, 50). But I wished only to testify to you—and before the judgment seat of Christ I could not do otherwise—that in Germany, as far as my eyes see, the pure doctrine is confessed alongside the false doctrine and against the false doctrine. That it stands so is a misery; but a misery which gives us no right to abandon the sick body of the native church, but rather the courage to try upon it both the sharp and the gentle medicine of the divine Word, healing. So long as the LORD only preserves this His Word, it does not become us to know beforehand whether the sickness is unto death or unto life.

Yet it still stands so, God be praised! that the false doctrine itself has the feeling that it is unjustified on the soil of our Church. If you demand a proof, I refer, for example, to Ehler's preuß.-luth. Kirchenblatt, 1853, No. 18, p. 224 sq., compared with No. 24, p. 289 sq. Likewise we are to this hour in epistolary controversy with our younger friends who serve the Prussian-Lutheran Church, and are readily heard when we press the Confessions. If our Church has only just awakened from the sleep of death of unbelief, let no one excuse that she still takes many staggering steps; but he can understand it. Those startled from sleep one does not merely shake, but has also patient waiting with them until their eyes grow clear. Mr. *** perhaps gives me the testimony that my gifts are not directed to Calixtine irenics; but of one thing I will be mindful until death: that mercy has also befallen me.—

Our position toward the Leipzig conference we have testified to you. Allow us still to add a word about the letter sent in its name by Münchmeyer, Kaniz and Besser to your Church. In it we hold

it wrong that it is possibly feared that within your synodical body a doctrine might prevail which derives the churchly office from the spiritual priesthood;—for this is expressly rejected as false in your book (Kirche und Amt, p. 15);

it erroneous that in the Confessions of our Church the right doctrine of Church and Ministry is present only in germ, and not determinately and freed from all ambiguity;—for a Reformation which, for the sake of the salvation of souls, renounced obedience to the tyranny of the papacy, of bishops and of priesthood must have had a clear knowledge of the right doctrine of Church and Ministry;

contrary to the Confessions (of course by reason of that error) that equal toleration is demanded for the contrary doctrine in these articles, so long as no new, conclusive pronouncement has been made on this by the whole Church;

for the pure doctrine cannot exist without the reprobamus secus docentes (we reject those who teach otherwise).

The "Correction."

In the tenth number of the current volume of our paper we communicated the Christian decision of the Lutherans in and around Breslau concerning our controversy with the Synod in Buffalo, as the same was published by Pastor Ehlers himself in the Prussian-Lutheran Kirchenblatt