# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_M rz 1862_S76
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

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

but that it nevertheless belongs to the fourth commandment. Here now yet another new piece of wisdom comes to light. Obedience is not to come from divine right, but from the divine light of the Gospel and its fruit. This obedience, this fruit of the Gospel, is, however, not to be an agreement in free love, for that would be an "external work of the law." Thus with Grabau the matter stands so: the fruit of the Gospel is obedience, as opposed to free love; but the doing of free love is a work, an external work of the law. So blind, so benighted do the false teachers become. These perverse drivers of the law hate the kingdom of Christ, the free kingdom of love, because they themselves, not having been seized and illumined by the Gospel, understand nothing of the true nature of Christian love and Christian freedom. They do not feel at ease until they walk once more in Jewish statutes, and they are the most implacable enemies of the church of the New Testament.

Thesis 4: "That, in accordance with the Formula of Concord, the right and proper understanding and meaning of the Augsburg Confession, in disputes that arise over its sense, can and must be taken from no other source than Dr. Luther's doctrinal and polemical writings."

Since Luther is an evangelical Christian and Grabau a law-driving false teacher, the two do not love one another. That is quite understandable. — Grabau lets himself be heard thus: the matter stands so for the Lutheran church: "If one does not have enough in the words of the Augsburg Confession, provision has already been made that one may turn to the Apology. If that does not suffice, one may turn to the Smalcald Articles; if that is not enough, as it might seem, one may turn to Luther's Catechisms and to the Formula of Concord. For our part, in our case we already have enough in the clear words of the Confession. These already give the right and pure model of doctrine. Should anyone wish to go beyond what is in Luther's doctrinal and polemical writings, he sets himself the task (the all-knowing Grabau, that searcher of hearts!) of drawing out of them a different sense than the clear words of the Confession, etc., have, and of grafting it onto the Confession. This path we do not wish to tread!" — This effusion needs no further elucidation.

Thesis 5: "That although those in the preaching office finally pronounce the sentence, that is, the judgment, upon the sinner, yet no pastor and no church ministerium has the right to carry out a ban without the concurrence of the congregation, since the Lord gives the highest and final judgment over a sinner (who is to be excluded) not to one estate alone, but to the congregation (that is, to the hearers together with their pastor); and that the congregation, therefore, as Luther says, must also be co-judge and co-mistress in the matter of the ban — that is, just as much as their pastor must have proof, before the sinner's exclusion, of his impenitence, so must the congregation also be heard as to whatever scruples of conscience it may have, per Matt. 18:17. Preachers as well