# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_M rz 1862_S74
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

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

twofold obedience of honor. For at one point it speaks of such obedience as is shown to the preaching office by divine right, insofar as it upholds and defends the pure doctrine of Christ; but then also of such obedience as gladly accepts all the good that follows from the pure doctrine (!), where the circumstances and needs of the church and of the fellow believers bound up with it require it. This latter obedience the Confession calls "for the sake of love and peace," and says that it is fitting for the pastors to show it, while the former is to be rendered as a matter of divine right. — If Grabau still had any shame, he would not have written these words; he shows himself in them to be a thoroughly disgraceful confounder of consciences. One need only consider how he dissolves the fourth commandment. He places the above twofold obedience into the fourth commandment, yet says that only the obedience of doctrine is "to be rendered as a matter of divine right," but not the obedience of love and peace — and yet, by Grabau's own teaching, the obedience of love and peace belongs in the fourth commandment. Is the fourth commandment, then, not "of divine right"? The unhappy congregations and preachers who lie captive under this man, who in a blasphemous manner places matters of church order — which one may keep for the sake of love and peace, but may also omit so long as one gives no offense to others — into the fourth commandment, and thereby, against the express warning of our Augsburg Confession, "sets sin in such matters and thereby burdens the Christians with the bondage of the law." And he who at the same time leads them around so shamefully by the nose. He who says to them: Yes, see, in matters indifferent, in matters of church order that do not touch doctrine, you owe no obedience except "of divine right." Whoever, for example, does not want the cent-fund need not accept it "of divine right." But when the unfortunate people then answer: well then, we do not want it, we do not like it, we will remain with our old order — then the Senior says to them: Where do you think you are going! By no means, not at all, that will not do! You must be obedient; that is "fitting" for you, and if not "of divine right," then still from the "fourth commandment." O woe! How they are led on, how the fox laughs!

On the subject of obedience in matters indifferent, Grabau expresses himself further: "When one says that 'obedience in matters indifferent may not be demanded,' and that 'demand' is understood in the sense in which a civil magistracy demands with the worldly sword, then it is correct that such obedience is neither demanded nor required in the church; but we do demand — that is, we expect and claim out of propriety (!!) — only the obedience which is owed to the pastors in these cases, that is, in Christian ordinances and matters indifferent... In another sense this obedience is no matter of conscience" (So in this sense, when a preacher "demands" in the sense of "expects," then it is a matter of conscience!) O, how clever this fisher of men is, how well he understands how to catch fish! The "demanding" is first