# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_M rz 1862_S73
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Critique of the Report of the Seventh Synod of the Emigrants from Prussia, etc.    73

whether one may have a magistracy, but whether it is ordained of God.
That is as different from the other as heaven is from earth.
The one is divine, the other human.

Thesis 2: "That neither the individual pastors nor the ministeriums have power to demand obedience from the Christians, as from their subjects, and that they may not, particularly in matters indifferent [adiaphora], require that the congregations accept their proposals, ordinances, etc. as obedience owed to the fourth commandment, even should the congregations fail to see the usefulness or necessity of the proposal made."

Gr. answers: "We have long been convinced, on the strength of the Augsburg Confession, Art. 15 and 28, that it is not only permitted but incumbent upon the Christian bishops and pastors, synods, etc., not merely to set down good church ordinances on paper (!) but actually to make them, that is, to introduce them (ordinare), and that it is fitting (convenire) for the churches and pastors, in such cases, to be obedient to the bishops and pastors for the sake of love and peace." — Here the Herr Senior again answers something nobody asked him. The question is not one of peace and love, but of the obedience owed by subjects. Can the Herr Senior really not see that? The question is whether the Christians would know themselves bound to be "obedient" to the pastors, etc., in such matters as "their subjects" are. So it is not for the sake of love and peace, but for the sake of conscience. For subjects owe obedience to their worldly magistracy because that magistracy is ordained of them by God, and so likewise for the sake of conscience. But the Augsburg Confession expressly rejects such obedience in these matters; it teaches: "Such order is fitting for the Christian assembly to keep for the sake of love and peace — but so that consciences are not burdened, as though they sinned by breaking such ordinances without giving offense to others." Article 28 warns all lord bishops and seniors most earnestly to take good care and not "set sin in such matters, and thereby burden the Christians with the bondage of the law."

Concerning "obedience to the fourth commandment," Grabau again makes dreadful exertions and retreats. His dear brethren of the synod had, to be sure, pinned him down rather firmly there. One need only see how he twists to slip the noose: "As for the fourth commandment," he says, "it is not mixed into this insofar as it demands an obedience of subjects such as is owed to a magistracy; rather, the preaching office is set, by its own divine nature, into the teaching and among the persons named in the fourth commandment — that is, comprehended and understood along with fathers and mothers, parents and masters (2 Cor. 12:14) — inasmuch as it is a divine order of its own kind belonging to the fourth commandment. This office is to stand in honor and love with its hearers, not merely in itself, but also according to its evangelical activity as instituted by God (e.g., making laws and ordinances!!)." Here now the Confession speaks of a