# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_M rz 1862_S77
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Critique of the Report of the Seventh Synod of the Emigrants from Prussia, etc.    77

as hearers are bound, and let no one follow his own will and private affections."

At the framing of this thesis Grabau feels deeply wounded. He answers: "This article has turned out almost badly; it wants to be wiser than our fathers' church orders, and even attempts to steer us onto Missourian paths." The wise Senior explains what Luther meant by the word "co-judge": "Luther wishes the sinner to be, 1, punished and convinced by witnesses and by the pastor; 2, likewise also in the congregation (not: congregational assembly), so that it hears and knows how he has earned the ban and come into it. This latter he calls being a '"co-judge,"' in the sense that it need not believe a papal official's slip of paper! Luther therefore demands only that the sinner also be admonished in or within the congregation (not by a count of all the heads) but according to the standing order." — So, by Grabau's supreme-ecclesiastical-court decision and enlightened exposition of Luther, being "co-judge" means as much as, 1, being a "witness" before whom someone is punished and convinced. But that "witnesses" are not "judges," every man knows — only not Grabau. 2, "hearing and knowing" how someone has earned the ban. But that "hearing and knowing" is not "co-judging," everyone sees who is not benighted in the Buffalo manner. 3, "being admonished within the congregation." But that "being admonished within the congregation" is no co-judging by the congregation, Grabau can hardly make anyone believe except his own brethren of the synod. Luther himself, too, explains himself quite plainly when he says in the well-known passage: "And I say all this for this reason: for the congregation, which is to hold such a one as banned, shall know and be certain" (this "be certain" Grabau leaves out; it is enough for him if it is made known and given to understand to "the heads," as dumb peasants are told by the bailiff) "how he has earned the ban and come into it, lest it be deceived and accept a lying ban, and thereby do wrong to its neighbor. For then the keys would be blasphemed and God dishonored, and love toward the neighbor injured, which a Christian congregation must not suffer. For it too belongs to the matter, when someone among it is to be excommunicated, says Christ here, and it is not obliged to believe the official's slip of paper, nor the bishop's letter — indeed, it is obliged here not to believe; for one must not believe men in God's affairs. Thus a Christian congregation is not the official's serving-maid, nor the bishop's bailiff, that he might say to it: Here, Greta, here, Hans, hold this one or that one under the ban for me. Oh yes, indeed, welcome to you, dear official. In worldly authority such a thing might have some meaning, but here, since it concerns souls, the congregation too shall be co-judge and co-mistress." Luther thus warns that a congregation shall "accept" no lying ban, and therefore it shall not believe, without further ado, the bishop's letters, nor generally human pronouncements and judgments, and shall not be obedient,