# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Juli 1855_S193
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

The Erlangen Journal for Protestantism and Church. 193

Doctrine and Defense.

Volume I. July 1855. No. 7.

The Erlangen “Journal for Protestantism
and Church.”

The March issue of this theological journal, edited by Professors Dr. Thomasius, Dr. Hofmann, and Dr. Schmid, contains an article entitled “On North America.” In sharing this article with our readers, we cannot refrain from accompanying it with a few explanatory remarks.

The article in question reads as follows:

We have before us the Missouri Synod’s reply to the letters of admonition addressed to it by the Lutheran Pastoral Conferences of Leipzig and Fürth. As our readers will know, the letters of admonition concerned this Synod’s dispute with the Buffalo Synod regarding the doctrine of the ministry. We shall say nothing about the dispute itself. Our conviction concerning the question at issue has long been known, and everything that has since been discussed concerning it has only strengthened us in that conviction. The very dispute that has erupted among the Lutherans of North America over this matter shows where it leads and what we in Germany would have to expect if we too were to carry the controversy still further into the practical sphere. We therefore do not wish to take part in this dispute, and we were pleased that Mr. Grabau, when he visited Germany last year, had enough tact not to make any demands upon us. At the same time, we have felt sorry for those of our German brethren who, on the question of the ministry, stand closer to the Buffalo Synod than to the Missouri Synod, because they were unable to avoid taking part in this controversy. For it must certainly have been painful for them to come into contact with a man such as Mr. Grabau, who has made himself so notorious by his synodical and pastoral letters alone, and to find themselves on common ground with him on an important question. We refer to the reports we published some time ago concerning these synodical letters as evidence that we have not said too much; but after the impression these documents made upon us, we are also not surprised if the correction,