# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_November 1863_S331
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Some Remarks on a New Apology for the Reformed Church. 331

Let one now compare the public ecclesiastical confessions with what Mr.
K. ascribes to our Church, and one will clearly see that the dear man is
a stranger on the field of Lutheran doctrine, and therefore regards as
representatives of Lutheran doctrine those Romanizing opponents of
Lutheran doctrine who happen to hold professorships within our
Church, such as a Löhe, Münchmeyer, Diedrich, Grabau, and others!
To be sure, the difference in the doctrine of the preaching office in
abstracto which obtains between the Lutheran and the Reformed
Church is a fundamental one; but since Mr. K. makes no mention
whatever of this difference, and thus either does not know it at all or
regards it as a trifle on whose account he did not decide for the
Reformed Church, we have no occasion to discuss this important
difference here.*) Suffice it that we have shown that Mr. K.'s
accusations — that the Lutheran Church Romanizes in its concept of
the office — go up in smoke when compared with our symbols. Were
we, on the other hand, to wish to prove how, alongside a thoroughgoing
destruction in principle of the preaching office in abstracto, a strong
leaven of hyper-Roman views of the holy preaching office in concreto
ferments within the Reformed Church, we would lack not proofs, but
time, to record them all. To give but one small sample here: Calvin
writes in the year 1559 from Geneva to Menso Poppius, in a responsum
to questions concerning church discipline: "Since the freedom to
baptize, which women arrogate to themselves, is nothing else than a
crass superstition,**) that foolish act, undertaken in levity, is to be
reckoned void. It is therefore the duty of the pastors to keep them in
check, and meanwhile to consecrate the children by a lawful baptism,
inasmuch as through a foolish and disorderly aping they have been
nothing but defiled."†) What a notion of the distinction between a
preacher and a layman the patriarch of the Reformed Church must
have had, that such a decision could be forced upon him! — Surely a
hyper-Roman one! — ‡)

(The end of the conclusion follows.)

—◆◆—

*) We have done this in detail in the "Lutheraner," Jahrg. VIII, pp.
201–205.

**) To a Calvin, who taught an absolute predestination to salvation
and to damnation, and who held that the effect of baptism was merely
a confirmation of grace already previously received, emergency
baptism [Nothtaufe] could naturally appear as nothing but a
superstition.

†) "Quoniam baptizandi licentia, quam sibi foeminae arrogant, nihil
aliud est, quam crassa superstitio, stulta illa et temere suscepta actio
pro nihilo ducenda est. Pastorum ergo officium est, eas compescere;
interea legitimo baptismo consecrare infantes, qui stulta et
praepostera aemulatione nihil aliud quam polluti fuerunt." Epp. et
respons. ed. Th. Beza. Lausannae. 1576. p. 454 sq.
In another place Calvin calls emergency baptism performed by a
"private person" a "manifesta baptismi profanatio," a manifest
profanation of baptism! The same, p. 539.

‡) This time too, lack of space compels us not to give the conclusion
of this article in full.