# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1849_S97
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

— 97 —

be left to those to whom it belongs according to the 28th article of the
Augsburg Confession. To reinforce this, Pastor Grabau continues:
"Your teachers are not teachers of a false church, nor teachers of some
fashionable trend of the age, but teachers of the true church, as is well
enough known. You (the laity) may therefore presuppose in them a right
knowledge of church doctrine, and indeed a deeper knowledge than you
yourselves can have, since they have learned in order to believe, to
teach, and to keep you in the right faith, whereas you have learned in
order to believe and to be kept and sanctified in the right faith."

No. 2. The Missourians' Assessment of the Foregoing
Pastoral Letter.

In sum, the Missourians say of the pastoral letter that, on the one
hand, with respect to the old church orders so strongly emphasized in it,
it confuses the essential with the non-essential, the divine with the
human, and thereby restricts Christian liberty; and on the other hand
that it seems to ascribe more to the preaching office than belongs to it,
thereby setting aside the spiritual priesthood of the congregations.

They further find fault with Pastor G. for calling the administration of
the holy sacraments the priestly part of the public teaching office, and
for seeming to place it above preaching. They show from God's Word and
Luther's writings that the office of preaching is not only the highest,
but is in fact properly the true priestly office in the church.

They present Luther's testimony, who, regarding the divine order in the
establishing of the office, says briefly: "It comes down to whether the
church and the bishop are of one mind, and the church is willing to hear
the bishop, and the bishop willing to teach the church. Once that has
happened, the laying on of hands blesses, confirms, and attests to it —
just as a notary and witnesses attest a civil matter, and as the pastor
who blesses bride and groom confirms or attests their marriage, that they
have previously taken each other and publicly declared it; whether the
pastor be an angel or a devil, because the act has taken place, the bride
is blessed."

The Missourians point out that ordination is only a praiseworthy and
salutary general ceremony adopted from the oldest Christian times, but no
express divine command. Further, that the conscience of Christians may
not be bound by any church order as though it were necessary and
belonged to divine order; rather, every such order is a matter
indifferent [*adiaphoron*], to which the Christian submits only for the
sake of unity and love.

They fault Pastor G. for counting the gifts of the Holy Spirit as
necessary to the office, in addition to the regular calling spoken of in
the 14th article of the Augsburg Confession.

They further hold against Pastor G.: we owe the congregation obedience
only then and insofar as we preach God's Word to it. But if we were to
demand that same unconditional obedience when we wanted to build a
church or a school — which is in itself not against God's Word — we
would undeniably be claiming for ourselves what does not belong to us
according to God's Word. Further: indeed every sheep of Christ should be
able to distinguish its shepherd's voice from the voice of a stranger,
John 10:5, and Paul says: "I speak as to sensible people; judge for
yourselves what I say." Finally: Luther speaks only of the mediacy of the
call, in place of which, from the apostles' time onward, an immediate

7