# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1846 11 17_S35
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

[Translation continues mid-sentence from the previous page.]

bishop, has no power to impose upon his church any ordinance or ceremonies without the consent of the church, given in express words or tacitly. For the church is free, and a mistress (a lady), and the bishops may not lord it over the faith of the churches, nor burden and trouble them against their will. For they are only servants and stewards, not lords of the churches. But if the church, as one body with the bishop, is agreed, then they may impose upon one another whatever they wish, provided only that godliness does not suffer thereby; they may likewise again let such things go, as they see fit." (Ibid., XVI, 1207.) This teaching — that church authority, and thus also the power to introduce ceremonies, lies not in the hands of the pastor alone, but in the hands of the whole congregation or church — we find also in the writings of the later Lutheran theologians. Among others, Johann Georg Walch, who prepared the invaluable Halle edition of Luther's works, writes in his Philosophical Lexicon: "If the church finds itself in the natural condition of consisting of such persons as (being Christians) live outside of a civil society (as in America, where the church exists separated from the state), then the whole congregation*) holds the government, which it may either administer itself by the collection of votes, or entrust the oversight to a few, or appoint a church governor." [See the article: Church Government, p. 1563.] Further, the same author writes in his Church History of the First Four Centuries: "From what has already been said, it is on the whole easy to judge what the character of the government in the apostolic church was. This was nothing other than the authority, in the external ecclesiastical matters (in partibus sacrorum externis), to arrange what belonged to the maintenance of good order and to the easier attainment of the church's purpose. This authority was of such a nature that it was common to teachers and hearers alike, and removed from all domination; that not merely the apostles and church ministers — although these had their authority before others — but also the hearers possessed this authority, we read in the books of the New Testament, and we recognize from this that, when something was to be deliberated and decided, the people also gave their vote." (Ecclesiastical History, p. 431.)

*) By the whole congregation or church, the Lutheran theologians understand not merely the people or the laity, but the hearers together with their pastor, the flock with its shepherd. Luther says: "The Christian Church is called the number or company of the baptized or believers who belong to one pastor or bishop, whether in one city, or in an entire country, or in the whole world." (Works, Halle edition, XIX, 1192.)

Preliminary Reply.

After we, the undersigned, not long after our arrival in North America, had entered into correspondence with the Reverend Pastors Grabau in Buffalo and Krause

35

in Wisconsin, we rejoiced not a little in the hope that we would be able to stand, quite especially with these our fellow believers, in a fellowship of faith and confession that was at once ecclesiastically resolute and brotherly-trusting.

But this hope has, unfortunately, more and more vanished from us since then. The occasion for this was a so-called "Pastoral Letter" which Pastor Grabau issued to his congregation in the year 1840 and which he also communicated to us for our evaluation.

However much we had to acknowledge the purpose of this Pastoral Letter and the greater part of its content, we were just as much astonished, not only by certain developments in the whole wording of the letter, but also, in particular, by the principles expressed in it concerning the mutual relationship between pastors and congregations, as well as concerning ordination, church orders, and so forth.

At first we expressed our misgivings only in brief hints; but then, when these led to no understanding, we expressed them also in a more extensive discussion dated St. Louis, July 3, 1843, all the more candidly and confidently the more we were urged to do so, both from within and from without, and, as we have already noted, by Pastor Grabau himself.

But to our no small astonishment, our entire line of argument was thereupon not only returned to us as improper and unjust, but a whole long series of enumerated errors was also set against us, of which we were supposed to have made ourselves guilty in our letter.

It was not difficult for us to justify ourselves against these alleged errors; but because Pastor Grabau, in the long and detailed rejoinder in which he sought to demonstrate these same errors against us, at the same time defended his Pastoral Letter throughout, and in doing so asserted, for the most part only the more decisively, those very principles against which we had had to warn him, while misconstruing our words in a bad light and expressing the bitterest suspicion against us — the prospect that we would ever arrive at an understanding and a right fellowship among us indeed diminished more and more.

Nevertheless, we defended ourselves and our first refutation of the Pastoral Letter, dated January 15, 1845, both from Holy Scripture and from the Symbols and most tested testimonies of the Lutheran Church, as thoroughly and emphatically as we were able, and we called upon Pastor Grabau to retract the errors falsely attributed to us and the unjust accusations which he had made against us. When, however, all of this proved fruitless, and, on the occasion of a synod held in Wisconsin, an answer dated June 25, 1845 was given to us, in which, without refuting us, we were only once again called upon to recant, and ever new accusations and threats were hurled against us — we then declared once more, in the most definite terms, that we would persist in our well-founded declaration, that we would preserve the liberty of our consciences, and that, regarding the manner in which the former Candidate Geier had accepted the call as present pastor at Watertown in Wisconsin with our approval, we would justify ourselves only once our opponents confessed their wrongdoing, retracted the reproaches made against us, and thereby showed that it was really still their concern to have fellowship with us.

Instead, however, we suddenly found, to our greatest astonishment, a highly distorted, untrue, and partisan report of the actual course of the matter here related, which that synod held in Wisconsin had publicly issued in a synodical letter dated Milwaukee, June 25, 1845.

Since we had thus been so unjustly attacked and defamed by that entire synod before all the North American churches, we would naturally have had to defend ourselves publicly as well, and would have done so at once, had not two of our number, in these very weeks, traveled to Fort Wayne in the State of Indiana for a fraternal ministerial conference, and had we not all been of the mind to attempt once more, on this occasion, the utmost that we could attempt, in order, so far as it lay in our power, to still avert the offense that would necessarily arise if it should become evident before friends and enemies that even those who appeal against all manner of sects and enthusiasts to one and the same pure confessional ground of the Lutheran Church nevertheless stood opposed to one another in open conflict.

We therefore agreed among ourselves that we would likewise invite Pastor Grabau to Fort Wayne for a personal understanding with us, and we would have rejoiced heartily if God had been pleased to let this last attempt at a peaceful settlement of the disputes prevailing among us succeed — in defiance of the devil and for the comfort of our congregations. But we heard in Fort Wayne that Pastor Grabau had indeed duly received our invitation, but, having only just returned from one journey, had not been able to undertake a second one at once. And so we now see ourselves compelled to the following declaration: if, in the course of a year, nothing is done on the part of our opponents in Buffalo and Wisconsin to come to an understanding with us on the basis of a sincere confession of the truth, and to retract, just as publicly, all the unjust accusations publicly made against us, then we feel ourselves bound in conscience to lay out fully and publicly the whole controversy that has taken place between us and that party concerning Grabau's Pastoral Letter, so that a Christian reader may then judge for himself whether we could have yielded on the points mentioned, or not.

32

[Continues on the following page.]