# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_August 1862_S253
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Church and Contemporary Affairs. 253

the well-fed, the lukewarm, the discipline-hating are glad to find in such a
congregation a refuge for their tender flesh, and, while pretending still
to remain Lutheran, to steal themselves away from a Missourian pastor's
Lutheran congregation and escape his discipline.

Unionism. Of how thoroughly the sects here are permeated by a
unionistic spirit, Dr. Sprague gives a remarkable proof in a speech about
the Presbyterian Seminary at Princeton, N.J., known to be the most
important and most attended in America. In it the presbyterian-orthodox
doctor discloses, as the Evangelist informs us, that among his students
there are 42 Episcopal ministers (of whom 3 are bishops), 92
Congregationalists, 56 Dutch Reformed, 32 Baptists, 11 Associate and
United Presbyterians, 7 German Reformed, 5 Lutherans (?), and 5
Methodists. Now let him guess who can, what sort of theology may indeed be
taught at Princeton.

The Buffalo Synod. The negotiations of this synod's ministerium with
Pastor Habel, of which we already made mention in the previous number,
have entered a new stage. They are too characteristic of the direction of
the Buffalo Synod for us not to claim our readers' interest. After Pastor
Habel, in Milwaukee and Freistadt (Wisconsin), in a colloquium before a
special synod convened by the Senior, could not be brought to concede
"that the members of the church owe the ministerium, for conscience's
sake, obedience in all indifferent matters that are not against God's
command, and that the congregations have no power to reject an ordinance
of the ministerium or to make their own congregational ordinances," etc.
— Pastor Habel accordingly received the following letter from Freistadt,
dated the 3rd of July of this year:

"With heartfelt sorrow we notify you that, since you 1. have expressly
declared that you committed no sin through that addition to the
constitution of the congregation at Kirchhayn, made without the knowledge
of the Präpositur and the Church Ministerium, and which runs directly
counter to our Pomeranian church order and abolishes it; and 2. since you
have declared, both in writing (in the minutes) and orally, that no
sentence (finding) of the ban may be carried out by the pastor unless the
local congregation has given its consent to the ban, whether orally in
words or tacitly; and 3. have also thereby declared that you reserve to
yourself the right to preach this false doctrine, and cannot promise to
refrain from preaching it —

that you thereby compel us hereby, and from this day forward, to
suspend you for three months from the holy preaching office at
Kirchhayn.

We wish, with a faithful heart, and for Christ's sake, that during this
time you may be converted from the error of your way through God's help
and grace, so that we may be spared the still sadder work of your
deposition.

In the name of the Church Ministerium of the Synod of Buffalo,
Joh. Andr. A. Grabau, Senior Minister.

On the same day, however, Pastor Habel had already renounced them with
the following words:

"I. N. I. Since it has now become manifest that the synod of the
Lutherans emigrated from Prussia, of whom Mr. Pastor Grabau is Senior
Minister, holds false doctrine concerning the office of the keys and the
points connected with it, and persecutes right doctrine: I hereby declare
my withdrawal from your synod, and wish you God's grace for repentance
over your false doctrines and the grievous sins that have arisen from
them. Ludw. W. Habel, Evangelical Lutheran pastor at Kirchhayn."
whereupon the latter received the following reply from the Senior
Minister:
Freistadt, the 4th of July, 1862.

"I. N. I. I find myself moved by your letter of the 3rd of July of this
year to attest to you, with regret, that your Missourian delusion drives
you, and will drive you, from one sin and untruth into another. For the
rest, your notice is entirely useless and cannot change the proceedings
of the Church Ministerium and of the Synod against you.

J. A. A. Grabau, Senior Minister.