# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1854 07 29_S190
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

190

to take upon ourselves the unspeakable shame and distress which always followed such an acceptance, and which we foresaw. Secondly, however, we have received only such entire communities as could no longer bear in their conscience to make themselves partakers of the false doctrine and unjust practice which not only prevailed in their former communion, but was also to be forced upon them. For woe to him who let "Missourian" principles be heard aloud! To him, as to a Judas among the disciples, the severest punishment was at once sworn, the most dreadful ban. What were we now to do with the poor souls who were, to no small part, manifestly upright, godfearing, regenerate Christians and children of God, and anything but worthy of the ban, and who recognized our doctrine as the right evangelical doctrine, when they begged us, for God's sake and for their salvation, to take them in? With the Buffalo Synod they could not remain for conscience' sake, and the Buffalo Synod itself would not tolerate the doctrine which they had recognized as God's eternal Word, but declared it godless heresy, fanaticism and Unionism: if now no Lutheran ministerium took them in, it was to be foreseen that they would either fall into all sorts of separatistic disorders, or into despair, or become a prey to the fanatics or unbelievers of this country. To this was added that it was represented to the Buffalo Synod how the rifts that had arisen could soon be healed again and everything restored to the old order, if it, the Buffalo Synod, would only agree to a peaceful religious colloquy and would at least cease to condemn our doctrine. Should the latter now believe itself injured by us in its parochial rights, we held ourselves to the apostolic decision: "Of our power which the LORD hath given us to edification, and not to destruction." 2 Cor. 10:8.—

Let it finally be permitted us to explain ourselves on a few points of your brotherly letter:

1. If the dear brethren decline to give a decision in our doctrinal controversy with the Synod of Buffalo, this grieves us heartily; for we would gladly submit to such a decision, if it convicted us of error by God's Word and according to the testimonies of our churchly Symbols. We ourselves, however, as we are certain, in obedience to Holy Scripture and in harmony with our churchly Confessions, have had our doctrine, that is, the voice of the Church on Church and Ministry, as is surely well known to the Reverend Conference, printed 2 years ago during the presence of our two deputies in Germany; and certainly every impartial reader will find that and how we have therein vindicated for the holy ministry its divine institution and dignity, and regard it as the actual source, remaining till the last day, from which every local mediate call of this or that servant of the Church flows, so that we are far from the improper, fanatical extension of the general priesthood of all true Christians, according to which every Christian, as such, would have office and call to the pastorate, or as if this office and service were necessary only "for the sake of common order." Nevertheless we assert just as decidedly on the other side that every Christian as such, therefore also every relative majority in smaller or larger assemblies, be they 3 or 3000, as those who before God are already kings and priests, have also the evangelical fundamental right and the power to administer the holy ministry, even if no one of them dare use this right in a public assembly, unless his fellow Christians renounce their equal right and transfer it for public administration to an orthodox, apt and blameless brother from their midst or from anywhere else, so that the one thus called is just as much the servant of the LORD as of the Church; for by virtue of the command and according to the order of the Householder, the housewife and beloved spouse, as joint possessor of all spiritual and heavenly goods and gifts, offices and powers, has called the steward to his service and office.

Accordingly we avoid just as much the papistic as the fanatical deviation from the straight line of wholesome doctrine; on the other hand, let Mr. P. Grabau show where he has ever expressly and explicitly retracted the assertion set forth in his so-called "Pastoral Letter" of 1840, that the holy Sacraments are efficacious and effective only through the ministry, which you rightly designate "as bordering on Romanism," though he has later silently let this and that drop. This is, briefly spoken, the doctrine of our Church, which we have further testified in the above-mentioned testimony, "The Voice of Our Church on the Question of Church and Ministry"; and one might reasonably expect and presuppose of a Lutheran Conference consisting mostly of theologians that it is not in suspense in this doctrine, but is well enough grounded and skilled to decide in the doctrinal controversy now pending between us and the Buffalo Synod, respectively Pastor Grabau.

2. When you further say, "that the topics of the Church and of the churchly office and what hangs together with it are without doubt such as our Symbols, even if they contain the foundation for their development correctly and completely, have yet not carried to full theological elaboration and completion, and that this last seems rather to constitute the task of our days," we should be very glad to be informed further on this, where the gaps and defects, or the crooked and one-sided conceptions, in the detailed dogmatic systems of our orthodox fathers, such as, for example, of a John Gerhard, Quenstedt and others, are evident; we for our part have not yet been able to discover them, and have likewise found as little in more recent writings that deal more or less nearly with those two articles of doctrine a historical and dogmatic connection with the already existing development of the doctrine, but have on the contrary had to observe with regret how this and that brother, certainly sincerely minded, in the most honest good intention yet hardly seek the right thing in their endeavors "for the common good" of the Church; for instead of holding fast inviolably to the quia in the acknowledgment of the churchly Symbols, and not forsaking their derivation, for the knowledge of the wholesome doctrine, from and in Holy Scripture, instead of having first organically appropriated the dear, precious, noble doctrinal treasure of our Church, and, if God would, of looking at Holy Scripture with the enlightened eyes of our anointed orthodox fathers, it seems to us rather as if these brethren search the Scripture only through the colored spectacles of special favorite notions and private opinions with regard to the Church and its outward appearance; and what wonder if they then fancy they find it in the Scripture; and while they suppose they are making new exegetical discoveries, it may easily happen to them that they fall into Romanizing errors which the enlightened fathers of our Church long ago recognized and overcame. For we are of the conviction that the questions of Church and Ministry, what both are and how they cohere, are no longer open ones, but have long since in the 16th and 17th centuries found their thorough answer and settlement; and indeed they were two cardinal questions about which the grand doctrinal conflicts of the Reformation largely turned, and which, through the twofold antitheses of the papists and fanatics, were already carried through in manifold ways by Luther, and the pure scriptural doctrine of them was already victoriously maintained by him.

But should these two doctrines not yet, say like those of justification and of the Sacraments, have experienced their full theological development, as one is fond of expressing it in Germany— there would nevertheless be need of two things. First, namely, that one point out the existing defect, where it actually lies hidden, and if one could really prove it, that one skillfully and organically at the same time take up again the already existing dogmatic development and, with suppression of modern individualism and subjectivism, from which also on