# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1854 07 29_S191
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

191

theological ground so many a morbid offspring springs, develop the undeveloped and not entangle it. Such a step backward would in truth be the progress we need now; and in general it behooves us Lutherans, if God will, to regain such a cohesion and union about the dear, precious Confession of the Church as was in our fathers, who lived and moved therein, because it was just the voice of the Church, their spiritual mother, and the answer to the voice of the heavenly Bridegroom in His gracious Gospel;— it behooves us, with the warlike and victorious heroes of the Reformation age, in closed phalanx about the banner of the same Confession, to rally, and to fight henceforth the same good fight of faith for the jewel of the pure doctrine against old and new, outer and inner foes; for only in such standing together, fighting together and suffering together, as by one Spirit, united by the one baptism and in the one faith under the one LORD into one body, can the Church of the future be built.

But if we begin to grow cool and estranged toward our churchly Symbols, and to show them, as it were, only from afar a certain outward reverence (instead of holding fast to them with heart and conscience, precisely because of the quia), because their sober sharpness and wholesome discipline declares itself against this and that which is friendly akin to our favorite notions, then it would be quite natural, indeed, if we more and more lost from our eyes the sound, comprehensive view of the nature of the Church, and even took offense here and there at its cruciform shape, and fell into a certain aesthetic enthusiasm for this and that fair appearance of the visible Church, which is by no means so intimately bound up with its essence and its health as one imagines, nay, possibly endangers both, when one once begins, in a human way, to realize one's churchly favorite notions.

3. You, dear brethren, say further: "Therefore the divergent conceptions with regard to these questions, of which, though only one is the scriptural and symbolical one, yet both the one and the other can interpret single passages of Scripture and Symbols in their own favor, and neither the one nor the other is expressly rejected, as long as the Church has not spoken, should both find room side by side in this Church." Here we must now honestly confess that we either do not understand what is said, or find a strange contradiction in it; for if, for example, Pastor Grabau's doctrine of Church and Ministry is the scriptural and symbolical one, how can his proof-texts from Holy Scripture and his testimonies from the Symbols speak at the same time for our doctrine, where we precisely part from his and must contradict it, and vice versa?— for such force of proof from Scripture and such testimony of the Symbols can relate only to our consensus, so far as it exists, but not to our dissensus. That, however, e.g., this and that passage of the Symbols seem to speak decidedly for our opponents, others for us, as if both doctrines, even in their antithesis to the Church, could exist and find room side by side as well tolerated, that is just appearance, and comes merely from this, that our Confessions, and already the Augsburg Confession, in spite of its mild apologetic tone, combat a twofold antithesis, namely that of the papists and that of the fanatics at the same time, and maintain the pure evangelical doctrine against both. Therefore it seems, e.g., as if Art. 5 and 14, which are chiefly directed against the fanatics, speak for P. Grabau and not for us (though they too altogether express our doctrine), whereas Art. 8, "What the Church is," which testifies chiefly against the papists, is manifestly the foundation of our doctrine, which Pastor Grabau also concedes, yet again subverts this foundation by many of his assertions.

If, finally, the dear brethren think that both doctrines ought to keep quiet within the Church so long, and wait until "the Church has spoken," this too is not clear and convincing to us; for if, as is said, "only one of these doctrines is the scriptural and symbolical," then the Church has already spoken, and it is only a matter of proving from the Symbols which doctrine is the one faithful to the Confession, and another speaking of the Church we cannot, as Lutherans, think of at all; for even if representatives of all Lutheran congregations on the whole earth were to come together in one place, were it possible, to take counsel and to see which of these two doctrines, of which "only one is the scriptural and symbolical," really and truly is so, such a Lutheran council could yet say and judge nothing else than that either the doctrine of the Synod of Buffalo, respectively of Pastor Grabau, or ours is in accord with the old and new verdict of the Church in its Symbols. To arrive at such a decision, however, no such ecumenical Lutheran council seems to us at all necessary, but any Lutheran capable of it, whether a regular theologian or not, could, e.g., by a writing furnish the objective proof of the conformity to the Confession of the one or the other doctrine; and what Lutheran national church or body of such churches would hesitate to confess it? Yes, if it did not sound boastful and had not an evil appearance, we should say that in that testimony of ours, "The Voice of Our Church in the Doctrine of Church and Ministry etc.," we have already furnished that proof, that our doctrine, partly in every single part, partly in the connection, rests on the ground of Holy Scripture and is in accord with our churchly Symbols; and though the form of this our proof may not suit and please the present taste also in theological productions, we are nevertheless divinely certain that we have therein testified the old and ever new truth of the divine Word. Nevertheless, could a Lutheran Christian, and be he even only a so-called layman, show us from Scripture and according to our Symbols an essential error, we would just as gladly and willingly retract at once, as we shall remain unshaken and persist in our doctrine as that of the orthodox Church, even if a plenary assembly of all Lutheran consistories and other church authorities of the whole world, without the right ground of Scripture and testimony of the Symbols, that is, against the connection of the evangelical doctrine, should seek to suppress and reject it by its authority of power.

In general we cannot refrain from declaring ourselves in the sharpest and most definite manner against the expression, "the Church has not yet spoken," and from rejecting it as contrary to Scripture and Symbols, that is, as unlutheran; for the Church of God, as the pillar and ground of the truth, has from the beginning never been in suspense and uncertainty concerning any article of the Christian faith unto the salvation of souls, and has spoken always from God's Word; and as the same sun shines upon us now which shone upon Adam and Eve in Paradise, so their faith and confession of the seed of the woman, by virtue of the divine promise, is essentially no other and no lesser than what we testify of Christ in our churchly Confession. And as it has pleased God, especially at times of great apostasy from the one and pure doctrine, as e.g. over against the fundamentally destructive heresies of Arianism and of the papacy, to let the Church speak through the mouth of individual witnesses raised up from His grace, enlightened by the Holy Spirit out of His Word alone, as precisely through Athanasius and Luther, so we surely need no new speaking of the Church and no special church assemblies, where, as in the pending doctrinal controversy, the Church has already spoken clearly enough from God's Word through the mouth of Luther and his fellow and later witnesses.

So also Luther says: "When they now say, they will wait until it is decided by the Christian Church, then let the devil wait; I will not wait so long; for the Christian Church has already decided everything." (Opp. Hal. Tom. VII, 2345.)

Let it now further be permitted us to remark the following points against the Reverend Conference. The one concerns those 2 passages from Luther's works which are adduced against us in the letter of the Reverend Conference. After the above historical orientation, however, the dear brethren will now probably see for themselves, without more exact proof, that they are not applicable to us; for we have neither in fanatical folly, nor out of evil counsel and will, intruded into a strange office and, in good American but bad Lutheran fashion, done injury to the Synod of Buffalo, but we have, for conscience' sake, taken up only those who, in consequence of the Grabauian doctrine and of the