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Pastor Grabau’s Pastoral Letter & Refutation of the Missourian Faction

English Version Revised & Improved

By M. R. Dom Enrique Ivaldi, HonThD

* * * * * * * 1. TRANSLATOR’S NOTE. With pleasure I introduce the readers to this new effort that sets-up another historical

landmark of Christ Our Righteousness Congregation, bringing before Lutherans & believers of

Hispanic language, by the first time, the Brief Biography and Writings on the Doctrine of Church

& Ministry of venerable founder of the Buffalo Synod, the Reverend Pastor Joh. Andreas August

Grabau. The German original text (Gothic) was rendered to English, around a year back, by Susan

Kriegbaum-Hanks, of the Reu Brief Library, Wartburg Seminary, Iowa; since I did find some

difficulties in the English draft and certain hardness or inaccuracies in the theological-doctrinal

lexicon, I put it right the documents, bringing a doctrinally sure Spanish version. (Given that

Grabau mentions the Symbols from an old Latin version, I supplied, in each case, among

brackets, Triglotta references; this is not found in Hanks’ English text.) Anyhow, it is fitting to

give tribute to the work made by the mentioned translator, when placing within reach of

researchers in divinities these materials of priceless value. They are especially inestimable for

us that, joining a handful of Lutherans in the entire world, have been working by years for the

restoration of a genuine Lutheranism (if not of Lutherism, the original Luther’s doctrine,

according to Lucien’s Fébvre lucid observation,) whose last exponents were August Vilmar (not

available bibliography in English neither Spanish,) Wilhelm Loehe, & Johannes And. Au. Grabau.

The residues, practically extinguished, of what was known as ‘Lutheran orthodoxy’ in the 20th

century, are still closed in the peculiar vision of Waltherism, to wit, the theological notion

imposed by Carl W. F. Walther to the ex Synodical Conference in the United States; this is what a

number of people still estimate as orthodoxy, being that, paradoxically, the leaders of the

vanished Old Missouri Synod, were resisted as liberals (to Lammenais style) by men as Loehe &

Grabau. These American Synod errors, escorted in alternative version by the Wisconsin Synod,

gave place to an ex Catholic neo-Lutheranism; both synods heads & writers looked as people sick

of schizophrenia by their own ideas on Luther, Lutherism, Lutheranism, & visible features of

Methodism & American Episcopalians making up the picture when ending the nineteen century

& beginning the twenty. Currently, a few autistic relics, yea, grow fainter, as long as the Mega

Bodies, careless heirs of the old Synods, as the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod and the neo-

Reformed and crypto neo-Baptist Wisconsin (so complex it is try to classify these deviated and

apostate bodies, under the boot of the Global Religion Agenda, beleaguered by anti-traditional

pseudo-doctrines) aping to other ‘religious’ organizations in ex Christendom, usurped and

demolished by the Enemy starting the second half of the nineteen century, deceiving to the

world, to their members, and themselves; taking names over and holding them, besides these old

names and titles now do not belong genuinely to them any longer, and have not valid

representatives with real influence in this end of time. In this frame that depicts a situation

already outlined in other opportunities, Pastor's Grabau brief and singular writings, I say it

again, are of great value to us, because they confirm that our revision, and, as corollary, our

doctrinal positions in the topic, possess the antecedents that legitimate them. At the same time,

they prove that the stand of all truth has not another backup that complete knowledge, or at

least the more that is possible to obtain of each question, fact that, in this case, allows to recover

the marrow of Doctrine and History, putting aside the propagandistic legends and the writings for

unsuspecting people offered by many religious societies of the nineteen century that, conformed

to the spirit of their time, speedily used pearls of the past in favour of texts that would remain

anonymous, written in Latin or Gothic, claiming to be rightful heirs when they only were making

a juggler’s passing-off. As our dear Lord & Saviour says, ‘For there is nothing covered, that shall

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not be revealed; neither hid, that shall not be known.’ It is thus as Pastor Johannes Andreas August

Grabau, detested and calumniated by old Missouri Synod populists (and a few even worse that

them,) for the will of God, has come, in these last two years of the twenty-one century, to be

indemnified and honoured for this act of relief; one that, somehow, is extended to those that also

fight in the same field he fought, with a same purpose, and a same faith.

SOLI GLORIA DEO

+ Enrique Ivaldi B.

Buenos Aires, March 2007.

2. THE LIFE OF A LUTHERAN CONFESSOR & WITNESS

Johannes Andreas August Grabau was born on March 18th in the Year of the Lord 1804 in

Olvenstadt, a large village near Magdeburg in the province of Saxony in the Prussian Empire.

On June 29, 1829 he passed his candidates to the Holy Ministry exam with praise from the

Royal Consistory of the Province. On the 13th and 14th of May 1830 he also took his finals for

the education degree and was deemed ‘well qualified.’ After working so long as a private tutor

he was appointed on October 14, 1831 teacher to the upper high school for girls by decree of

Lord Mayor Frank of Magdeburg. After he had been there about three quarters of a year as a

teacher, in June 1832 he received an appointment from the Rector of the public school in

Sachsa, of Saxony.

On January 10, 1834 he received a call from the magistrate of the City of Erfurt to take up a

probational posting at the St. Andreas Church along with 2 other candidates. The congregation

on March 2rd of the same year chose him and this choice was confirmed by the magistrate. On

June 17, 1834 the rite of his Christian ordination took place in the Barfüsser [barefoot friar]

Church presided over by Senior Minister and Consistory Councillor Möller of Erfurt.

On July 15, 1834 Johan Andreas Grabau entered the bonds of holy matrimony with Christiane

Sophie, neé Burggraf. The marriage was celebrated at the Barfüsser Church presided over by

the Consistory Councillor Möller.

The steadfastness of conscience with which Pastor Grabau continued to read and study the

Word of God, the great love of divine truth, and the earnestness and conscientiousness

inherent throughout his Ministry could not keep him any longer from recognizing that the

unionising of the Lutheran Church with the Reformed by the Royal Prussian Decree,

pronounced in 1817 and enforced in 1830, was unacceptable to God and indeed contrary to

Him and His Holy Word. Reformed Christians were different from Christians of the True Old

Catholic & Apostolic Church of God. Such ever-intensifying light of conscience forced him to

openly declare in 1836 that he could no longer in good conscience support the united agenda,

especially in regard to the alignment of reform teaching on the Sacrament of the Eucharist

whereby the true profession of faith is completely eliminated from the church of God.

Additionally he felt bound through the vows of his ordination to conscientious loyalty to the

Lutheran Church. Thus, he refused, based in the Word and the Symbols, to use the new

liturgical order forced by the Union Church. His congregation supported him, but seeing that,

the men at control started persecuting him, until he was taken prisoner by the police and put

in prison by his faithful confession of loyalty to the Word and the Symbols. Admired by his

example, many Lutheran Pastors and laymen followed him, and a general persecution arose

against the faithful in Silesia, Saxony and Thuringia. Many clergymen were suspended,

prosecuted, banished & hunted down. Amid all this suffering however he held steadfastly to

Christ's Word and Promise and comforted himself with the Word of Christ: ‘Blessed are they

who suffer slander and persecution for My sake. They shall find their reward in heaven.’

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Soon later, the Andreas Church, shepherded by Grabau, saw his temple taken over by the

gendarmerie and the police and a united consistory councillor seized the pulpit. Bitter and sad

moments followed, but finally one of the members, Herr Fils, made available the upper floor of

his mill, called Storch's Mill. From then on the Christian Assembly held its church services

there. The Christians, who attended the Lutheran church services there, were subsequently

punished with fines and confiscations of property. Also those Lutheran Christians, who would

not send their children to the United School, were plagued with financial penalties.

Then Pastor Grabau submitted his withdrawal from the United Church in writing to the

Consistory. A large portion of the Andreas’ Congregation withdrew with him.

Since attendance at church services in Storch's Mill had been hindered by police force, services

were held at various houses at night, especially in the so-called Brühler suburb. And although

the police ferreted out these church services in the homes and executed their orders to

suppress them, many of the police were ashamed of such sinful conduct. The persecuted

congregation however grew in ever greater membership until it numbered between 70 and 80

families and around 20 unmarried persons.

On March 1, 1837 Grabau was summoned before the magistrate, supposedly to give further

testimony. When he appeared, Magistrate Wagner informed him that the Erfurt government

had ordered his removal from here because he would not submit, upon their order, to cease

his Ministry. He was deported on that same day.

As the time for departure from Erfurt drew nearer, Pastor Grabau prayed with his wife and

ordered her, the congregation, his child, and himself to commend themselves to the protection

of the triune God. The magistrate and the police withdrew to another room. When it got dark

the special post wagon, which was to take Grabau away, drove into the courtyard of the

magistry. He was turned over to a constable. He put his sabre in the wagon then the pastor had

to climb in and the commissioner sat next to him. So that no human eye would see that Pastor

Grabau was being taken away, the leather curtain was securely closed over the wagon.

Andreas Grabau became deathly sick in the wagon, succumbed to the cold against which he

had no protection. He had violent stomach cramps and frequent bouts of vomiting. The

constable finally realized that the pastor's suffering might kill him. In an effort to make sure

that his patient made it to the prison alive, the constable offered him warm beer, which Pastor

Grabau would not accept from such an evil-doer. On March 2nd they arrived in Heiligenstadt.

Here they wished to shut Grabau up in a criminal prison, a dark, impenetrable place with thick

bars on the windows. The Pastor protested and he was brought to the inspector room until a

cell was cleaned and provided with a suitable bed. The food consisted of the same soup served

in the morning, at midday and at sunset and was the same as the fare served the criminals. For

a frail man this was revolting. His congregation, as also other Lutheran churches, were deeply

encouraged seeing the inhumane treatment which Andreas Grabau has been forced to endure.

Some time later, the Prison inspector, a man that had received Lutheran instruction in his

childhood, was moved to help Pastor Grabau’s situation in the jail. The inspector soon resigned

of the Union, allowing Grabau to preach to the prisoners and even instruct his own children.

Then by the efforts of the Public defender, a legal plea was presented to the Courts; and as last

result of it the exile of Pastor Grabau to Münster (Westphalia) was decreed. Around this time

there were approximately 20 Lutheran pastors, who had either been imprisoned or exiled.

Thus came the call to Grabau's prison cell for help from many Pomeranian Lutheran

Christians, who had been robbed of their shepherds. The time following, two faithful

Lutherans friends of Pastor Grabau, Captain Rohr and Herr Friedrich Müller, later a Minister in

the Buffalo Synod, took the decision of accompany their dear friend to led him to freedom.

Rohr, which was deposed by the government by his faithful Lutheran profession, had sold all

his furniture and did buy a wagon. Müller went to Grabau and told him they were waiting out

there with a wagon to leave the prison. Pastor Grabau recognized this as the work of God and

went with the guard for his customary stroll. When they reached the gate Pastor Grabau took

his leave of the guard with the words: ‘Today I leave for wherever God wishes me to go, as you

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have so often advised me.’ The guard bade him farewell and Andreas Grabau ran to the wagon.

As the wagon started on its way, the old guard called to him: ‘Pastor Grabau! Come back!’

The group found lodging with a Lutheran family at Sangerhausen in Bennungen. When they

arrived in Gräfenhayn (where Paul Gerhardt was born) they sang: ‘Show us your path,’ and at

night they sang by starlight as they arrived at the castle church in Wittemberg: ‘A Mighty

Fortress is Our God.’ Now in freedom, Pastor Grabau began ministering Lutherans lacking a

shepherd in the region. He served a large congregation in Versin, baptizing and consecrating

the Body and Blood of Christ and distributing them among the faithful. Pastor Grabau soon

moved to Gramenz, Stettin and Brüssow and fortified the congregations with the grace of God.

When he left Hackenwald he left behind Pastor Kindermann, whom he had introduced to the

Pommeranians, and he went to Berlin, where he met Pastor Wedemann. At that time the fellow

Pastor Kavel had emigrated to Australia. In Pommerania many had thought of emigrating and

had already exchanged letters with their friends in Ohio (USA.)

In the while government police imprisoned Grabau again. In Ilmenau there was a woman, who

betrayed him through her carelessness (not out of malice.) He was taken by the second mayor

of the district to an aptly named stinking prison (September 21, 1838) and transported to

Erfurt at night. From there he was taken back to Heiligenstadt, to his old prison, where he was

quietly greeted and taken into custody by the old Inspector. Pastor Grabau fell ill and

remained in prison for 17 weeks, sick, helpless, uncared for except by a wood thief, who was

placed at his disposal and who gave him medicine. Lest he place himself under suspicion for

any secret sympathy, the inspector took on the aspect of a brute as if possessed by a despotic

nature.

On October 5, 1838 Grabau sent a petition to the Royal Government in Erfurt: ‘Since it becomes

ever more apparent that the King no longer wishes to tolerate the Lutheran Church and its

teachings in this country, he most humbly asks for a letter of permission so that he, his wife

and child may emigrate.’ Since no response was received by October 21st, he repeated his

request a second time before the Royal Government and he sent a letter to the High Royal

Ministry of the Interior and the police in Berlin in order to let them know that he had

petitioned the Royal Government in Erfurt for permission to emigrate. On November 9, 1838

in prison he received a letter from the Lutheran congregation of Magdeburg, which proposed

that he accompany them on their emigration as their spiritual caregiver. He joyfully accepted

in a letter written on November 10th.

Finally on November 26th Pastor Grabau received the decision from the Ministry of Police and

the court proceedings in Berlin that he could emigrate. In reality they were allowing him to be

deported as a criminal to be thrown out of the country, separated of his congregation. He

immediately shared the news with the loyal church members. Just as it had been for the holy

Apostles, who were persecuted by the authorities and who were under the guidance of the

Holy Spirit, so it was now for the persecuted Lutheran priests. Despite he in a first instance was

not disposed to this unfairness, the church counselled him bear it with patience, since the

honour of Christ would not be harmed by the evil deeds of powers that be against the Gospel

and the true church. Amid all this he became severely ill in prison.

At the beginning of February, 1839, after a request to the government his wife was provided

with a house in Heiligenstadt so that he could be with his family and convalesce. On March

11th the authorization for release arrived. The authorization was based on the provision that

as soon as he was recovered he was to emigrate. Soon later the king by a letter addressed in

response to a Mrs. Grabau one, let them know that he will not tolerate the Lutheran Church in

Germany anymore. Many congregations, who had petitioned the King, received this answer at

the same time. From this letter came the impetus to emigrate, not Pastor Grabau's persuasive

orator, as has been falsely attributed. The congregations united themselves with Pastor

Grabau partly through delegations and partly through correspondence because they had to

prove to the authorities that they had a pastor. Without such proof they would not be allowed

to leave. Thus it came to pass that all wished to give themselves over to the spiritual caregiving

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of Pastor Grabau. On April 26th Pastor Grabau received a report that the emigration consensus

was in place. Thus the date for the departure was set for June 7th.

About 100 Lutheran souls assembled in Hamburg having come from various provinces, cities

and villages in order to emigrate under the leadership of Pastor Grabau and among these

people the long persecuted and tormented Minister found loving reception. The old Pastor

Mutzenbecher helped to arrange a public reception by the citizens of the city for Pastor Grabau

based on Isaiah 40. 9 and he arranged for the penitents to receive confession.

On May 28th the assembled congregation in Hamburg to finish the negotiations for the

contract of ship passage elected Mr. von Rohr and Martin Krüger deputies. Mr. von Rohr

travelled with Dr. Gustiniani and Mr. Frenzel via Hull to Liverpool and in Liverpool they signed

a contract with Becket & Son to transport the 1000 souls in 5 American sailing ships to New

York. On Friday, June 28th the first transport of Lutheran Christians began via steamship over

to Hull and then Liverpool. The second and 3rd group went on June 30th. The 4th group went

on July 4th & the 5th on July 27th. Pastor Grabau and his family were on the last ship. From

Liverpool the congregation was transported on five sailing ship to New York. Once-again

Pastor Grabau was on the last ship, which departed on August 14th. By this time the first ship

had already landed in New York.

Miraculously the ship transporting Grabau and the last Lutheran contingent, surviving a

terrible sea thunderstorm, landed in New York at September 18th. On the 20th of September

they were allowed to leave the ship. On September 26th they went by steamer from New York

to Albany and then on to Buffalo via canal boat. Thus, Pastor Grabau arrived in Buffalo. There

was great joy amid the entire congregation. Their first concern was now the provision for

Lutheran church services and a Lutheran school. In a room on Main Street where a small

congregation belonging to fellow Pastor Krause had found lodging, the new arrivals gathered

for their first church service on October 5th. Helped by brethren that remained in England,

that sent them a 300 dollars offering, the poor Lutherans in Buffalo could begin building a

house to God. The construction of what became the Trinity Church began. On December 2,

1839 the congregation had incorporated under the name ‘The Old Lutheran Church.’ On March

1840 church construction began and on the first day of Pentecost of that year the first church

service was held there. On that same day their persecuter, King Friedrich Wilhelm III of

Prussia, died.

In 1840 a congregation from the Town of Eden in Erie County near Buffalo and in November of

the same year another congregation from Canada, approximately 16 miles from Buffalo joined.

Besides his congregation in Buffalo Pastor Grabau took care on the congregations of the

Genesee Canal, Eden & Canada. The roads at that time were new and often difficult to traverse.

At times he made the longer journeys in heavily laden wagons without spring suspensions,

which were drawn by teams of oxen. Often he had to return in wooden or rack wagons. But he

did all this gladly and with joy for the honour of Jesus and the service of His church, shying

away from no exertion or danger so that he would remain true to the Office to which he had

been appointed.

The time following some troubles arose by the activities of a group of Silesian delinquents

connected with Grabau’s church. They started with charges against Pastor Grabau saying the

old Lutheran Dresden Catechism was false & they assailed it with the grossest of blasphemies.

Two school teachers, Zion and Dreier, joined in with them. These two had often made similar

declarations openly in front of the children. They were warned about this and finally when the

warning did not work they were dismissed. Eventually this so-called Roggenbuck gang had to

be excommunicated from the congregation and they received written notice of this. A

Missourian Pastor, named Bürger, finally helped this group of mutineers. He took this gang

under his protection and both the Buffalo and the Eden mobs allied themselves with the

Missouri Synod, which had organized in Chicago in 1847. The Pastors of the Missouri Synod,

who had previously defended and protected the mobs in Wisconsin, sent ministers to them

and had thus proven themselves destroyers, persecutors and enemies of the church and to this

day they persist with their sins.

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When in the year 1840 the lack of a sufficient number of Ministers brought about general

disorder, certain congregation members took it upon themselves to fill the duties of

ministerial office in contradiction to the 14th Article of the Augsburg Confession. Pastor

Grabau felt called upon to issue a Pastoral Letter warning against such unsanctioned ministry,

for there were elements necessary to proper ministry, which were bound together with the

Word of God and the Symbols of the Church.

He also sent this Pastoral Letter to the Saxon Pastors in Missouri in order they may apprise

their Christian churches. Criticism arose concerning this Pastoral Letter and the published

tenets of church hierarchy, doctrine & fundamental principles. Pastor Grabau had to reject this

criticism as contrary to the Word of God. These, joined to a useful Letter sent by Pastor Grabau

to Pastor Brohm, are the documents we are posting below, to the instruction of involved

readers. The Missourians, as we have been denouncing in our website, far to come back to

genuine Lutheranism afterwards the dismissal of Bishop Stephan, felt in a awful number of

heresies, among them their mistaken & false doctrines on Church and Ministry; Receptionism

(against the true doctrine of the Sacrament of the Altar;) Personality worship (Walther and

Pieper;) Universal Objective Justification; a non-Lutheran doctrine on Predestination;

‘Everyone a Minister,’ to wit, the seed of current heresy of Church Growth Movement (‘Every

shoemaker's apprentice and dairy wife could distribute the Holy Eucharist’ [Professor

Walther's claim before the Buffalo Collegium;] the Waltherian delusion of a triune church [a

merely invisible literal church; a visible figurative actual church (the Lutheran;) a figurative

visible all-sect church] idea that led Walther to affirm that all sects were counted among the

‘symbolic’ visible church by virtue of their adherence to the true faith’ […?] {Re this we send

you to our papers on the hidden – not invisible, a Reformed concept – and the outward church.}

The good Pastor Grabau could not remain silent amid such false doctrine & church-destroying

principles as they invaded the congregations and created such confusion and mutiny. Even less

could he condone them. In his conscience he found it necessary to bear witness against them

and to give warning. Much hatred, derision and slander he freely bore because of it, but his

heart was steadfastly grounded through God's Grace in the evangelical truth that nothing,

neither respect nor insult and scorn would dissuade him. Neither human fear nor human

complacency could keep him from rejecting them. Decisively & fearlessly he acknowledged

and defended true doctrine against all; he remained true and steadfast unto his own pious end.

Another major Pastor Grabau’s concern was provide proper teaching & Ministers to the

scattered communities as well as maintain proper church service in the open profession of

Lutheran doctrine for the generations to come. To this end he established by 1840 a

preparatory seminary where he instructed some gifted older and younger people desiring to

become ordained Ministers, so they could properly and proficiently serve the Word. In 1845

he, in the company of Pastor Krause & Pastor Kindermann, who had come over in 1843 with a

large, mostly Pomeranian congregation, established the Lutheran Buffalo Synod. In 1854 was

dedicated the building of the seminary, under the name of German Martin Luther College. In

1853 Pastor Grabau was elected Director of the college and he remained in this office until his

death. He delivered his many true and diligence courses of instruction for 37 years without

financial compensation for the sake of God's Church. He did not neglect his duties as Pastor of

the congregation or Senior Minister; rather he worked and studied from early in the morning

till late in the evening. Scarcely a minute of his time was left unused. He toiled and cared for all

the congregations to which he was Senior Minister and especially for his own congregation and

individual members. He did not fail to conscientiously deliver warnings to sinners, instruction

to the weak and confused, and comfort to those in mourning. He especially sought to preserve

the Christian church culture and keep the church of God pure in the face of all worldly and

sinful ways. And since he did not fail in his Ministry with regard to doctrine, punishment,

warning against the worldly spirit of the age, sinful behave and falling away from God's truth,

he was in his comportment a role model for the young and old.

His love of Christ's Church, his desire to preserve and broaden the pure doctrine of the

Lutheran Church allowed him to perform a lot of difficult and arduous works and suffer much

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troubles and hardships all through his life, wholly consecrated to Christ, and he did it with joy

in and for those who wished to stand by and reside in the truth.

Despite the mentioned afflictions Pastor Grabau did bear both in Germany & America, and

while he had often suffered from serious illness, – he had been led to the brink of death, – the

Lord God allowed him to reach a ripe old age for the sake of his church. He had the high &

wondrous spiritual gift, which God had granted him, and clear theological understanding,

living completely in the Word of God and the true teachings of the Lutheran church. He

practiced and fortified himself in these things, remaining true to the service of the Church of

God until the Lord called him back from his true work by sending him his last serious illness in

February 1879. Despite he continued ministering in his Holy Trinity congregation,

accompanied by the assistant Pastors, around the middle of April his health condition

worsened. Thus, on the Second Day of Pentecost, June 2, he calmly and blessedly passed away,

enclosed by his dear wife, his daughter and husband, and his two sons in the Holy Ministry,

Wilhelm and Johan. His end was truly edifying. No pain, no fear or misgivings, only full faith in

the will of God and blessed peace. This was the end of a holy man of God, who was sincerely

righteous & was faithfully certain of the forgiveness of his sins and his justification in Christ.

Most of the Buffalo Synod Pastors travelled & assembled for Pastor Grabau funeral. Two

wonderful & spiritual sermons were preached by devoted Ministers of the Lord, one in the

parish house, the second before the altar of the Holy Trinity church, and a further one in the

graveyard. There were a large number of people, who could not find a seat in God's house and

who stood outside densely lining both sides of the street. It had been a long time since the City

of Buffalo had seen such a large and ceremonious funeral procession. The whole assembly

faithfully escorted his venerable Pastor to his last rest place up to the Resurrection day.

3. PASTORAL LETTER

To all brothers and members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Buffalo, New York, Milwaukee, Eden and little Hamburg, Albany, Portage, Canada.

May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the father and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all!

Dear brothers in salvation and to all the members of your houses!

The mercy of God has delivered us as a part of the true church of God on earth to a good land where no one hinders the communal edifying of our souls in the Word and the sacrament and where no one may hinder us. This religious and church freedom, obtained through the help of God, wants to be properly used by us and not misused because it is a gift of God. Such misuse of church freedom in opposition to any article of faith or any part of godly service would deprive us of our reason for our immigration out of the land of church suppression. For us all there is one Lord, one faith, one baptism; thus the church seeks to maintain its spiritual unity because it cannot exist without true unity and communion in the spirit, which in itself is spiritually tied to the body of Christ. Here in America it seems so easy to choose one's own way and direct one's own course yet because of this the church may easily suffer harm, therefore the servants of the church bear the burden of defending its continued existence in the testimony of spirit and the power of non-physical weapons. To this end may I be of assistance through this humble lesson.

An important article of the Augsburg Confession, which is recognized and misinterpreted by many here in America, is the 14th, which states: Concerning church hierarchy (de ordine ecclesiastico) it is taught that no one in the church may publicly (publice) teach or preach or administer the sacraments without a right call (nisi rite vocatus). Yet there are still some among us who have been allowed to teach and preach and appoint themselves to the ministry among the Methodist and rebaptising sects, including some adolescents as well as a married couple, a master farmer and two journeymen in the trades. It's also been said of a journeyman tailor named Amereyn, who revolted against the church, that he preached and that the farmer Roggenbuck, as the head of his gang, gives many people private instructions which then become public among his gang since he holds discussions concerning text.

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There's always one or more spokesmen in every gang. Now if the members of the church recognize the great importance of public preaching and ordained vocation with regard to teaching, isn't it similarly the case with the recognition of the priestly part of Office concerning the proper administration of the holy sacraments. The letter to the Hebrews states: ‘No one shall take upon himself the honour of the priesthood unless he is called by God, as was Aaron.’ Thus I ask you all, beloved of God! You wanted to weaken this voice of yours yet he believes you wanted to hear seductive shepherds.

I warn everyone for the sake of the peace of his own conscience and the peril of his soul that he may not take upon himself the public administration of the holy Sacraments without proper and complete church appointment as it has unfortunately occurred in several districts. If you still want to be the church you must also believe that the 14th article of the Confession is truly and deeply rooted in Holy Scripture. To demonstrate this will be my task and I humbly and fraternally beg you to examine my explanation as to whether or not you still hear the voice of the apostolic church? If you believe that I am in error, may you show and reprove me with brotherly words so that we may understand each other. This deals with the public administration of the holy sacraments, about which the Confession maintains and orders that it should not be administered by the unappointed & the unordained. The Confession names someone unappointed or unordained who has not been appointed through the ritual (rite;) that is, appointed in accordance with old church orders. The Apology of the Confession says to this (fol. 90): ‘We have heard several times at the Imperial Diet about the issue that we are inclined to hold to the old church order.’ Thus it is elucidated that they understand under the term rite vocatus or right call the manner of appointment which was used in the old apostolic times, which is also maintained by the Lutheran Reformation of the church in Wittenberg and all other true-faith places. The same is discernible even today in the old Lutheran Church Orders. The old church orders are here the main source from which the manner of right call must be recognized, assuming and provided that they not only understood the 14th article of the Augsburg Confession but also properly employed it. Indeed old preachers of the true teaching may be consulted concerning the Augsburg Confession, for example Stenger’s, Pastor of the St. Gregory Church in Erfurt, Sermon on the Augsburg Confession, 1648, especially with regard to the 14th article.

Concerning the right call, which is regarded and believed divine in the church, hear now:

1. That anyone, who shall administer the holy Sacraments, shall not merely understand how to imitate the administration with a certain dexterity, as the Egyptian dilettantes understood it, adroitly imitating the wonder of Moses; this was not from God. Rather he shall study and gain a fundamental understanding of God's Word under proper guidance as to what the holy Sacraments are, to what purpose they have been ordained by God, why they are so important, and how each should come to the Sacrament of the Altar, in confession or otherwise to be examined and managed; how and when he should impart absolution in the name of God and what this office means. He must have clear understanding of teaching concerning the holy Sacraments, of confession and absolution so he may defend & manage himself against sectarians and the ignoble. He must be able to preserve and defend a comprehensive doctrine concerning sin, repentance, dictum and gospel, righteous assurance in God, the Person of Christ, Office, status and service, &c. He, who shall take souls to the Sacrament of the Altar, must be well grounded in the entirety of church teaching.

2. To be considered for a right call he must not only diligently study the Word of God under the guidance of a righteous-faith teacher but also possess certain gifts of the Holy Ghost, which will put him in a position to use the true knowledge properly to the sanctity of those around him and the church and thus to avert any harm against them. If he is thus powerful in the Holy Ghost as warned in Titus 1. 9, in order to defend teaching amid all peril to the church so that people may seek the law out of his, a priest's mouth; then he is an angel of the Lord Almighty, Malachi 2. 7; he is also a housefather, who should know where the treasures lie in his house and who shall bring forth the new and the old from his treasury, Matthew 15. 52, whenever it is needed.

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3. To be considered for a right call, he not only must have knowledge and gifts of the Holy Spirit but also his knowledge must be examined and tested in the so-called tentamen (test) by previously appointed true servants of the church; see Stenger's sermon previously cited; thus Paul says in 1 Timothy 3.10: ‘They shall neither serve nor administer the sacraments before they have been tested’ (bi autem probentur primum;) this means until they have characteristics 1 and 2, and until it is pronounced that their testimony concerning education and comportment has been thoroughly examined and they have been observed for a time in their profession whereby they can be entrusted to a particular function within the church, as for example, song leader, reader, et. al. Thereafter they may be allowed to serve, that is, administer the Sacraments and assist in the spiritual caregiving once they are impeccable in teaching and comportment (sic ministrent, nullem crimen habentes.) The above-mentioned testing comes after example 1, whereby they are examined to see if they possess the mystery of faith in pure knowledge (habentes mysterium fidei in conscientia pura;) that is whether they stand in purity within both teaching and sanctity, whether they are capable of being true householders over the mysteries of God, not just servants to men and their own impure hearts. They do not conduct themselves in Office according to their own whims but by the rigours of true faith and proper sanctity with God.

4. After said executed tentamen they are still not church servants but rather men considered as able to serve up the church and thus administer the holy Sacraments. Only when the church elects such a tested man to administer the holy Sacraments or serve in some other capacity within the church may he be permitted to do so by the already appointed church Ministers, as according to 1 Timothy 5. 22: ‘(You, Timothy) lay hands suddenly on no man!’ By giving frivolous permission the previously appointed church servants would participate in the sins of others. The laying on of hands by previously appointed church Ministers happens only in the following way:

5. The congregation, which has no Pastor, shall pray for it to God as an assembly joined on Lord Days: until it comes upon one and names the incumbent, – then they must present him to the previously appointed church servants. These servants in turn must examine him in the presence of the congregation, not to establish the degree of his knowledge since that must happen in the tentamen, but rather so that the congregation hears what he holds for confession thus proving he is no novice. In 1 Timothy 6.12 St. Paul states that he should provide many testimonies to his good conviction and that he has learned from the Master holy words of faith, 2 Timothy 1. 13. If the entire congregation has nothing against it there must also be a sufficient number of ordained within the congregation to establish that the confession has produced many good testimonies and that everyone is convinced that hands are being laid upon no one too hastily. Secret ordinations are to be avoided according to God's Word.

6. When this has happened, that is, when said confession has been presented by him, then the formerly appointed Ministers may perform the laying on of hands, meaning they ordain him as is customary according to the liturgy of the church and hand over to him the Holy Office in the name of the triune God, as the Lord Christ himself was ordained in His youth Matthew 28, Luke 24, 2 Timothy 1, 6; 1 Timothy 4, 14; Acts 6, 6; 2 Timothy 2, 2; Titus 1, 15. (Compare with Stenger's Sermon concerning the Augsburg Confession, Article 14, pages 602, 603.) See the form of ordination in the old church orders.

7. After the ordination has occurred according to divine order, it is practice that the ordained be publicly presented to the congregation he will serve. Here he is invested or confirmed; that is, he will be installed to the congregation as a truly called Pastor of God and the congregation will deliver itself over to his care as a shepherd of Christ. He pledges himself to the congregation with his loyalty to teaching and service and the congregation binds itself to him with its loyalty and obedience in all things, which are not contrary to God's Word.

COMMENT - What is contrary or in conformity to God's Word is not determined by an individual member of the church but by the church itself in its symbols, church orders & synods.

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This is the divine order of the rite of vocation (rite vocatus,) to which, Dr. Luther says, that the Apostles and their students thus held and to which they so must remain until the Final Day.

II. On the Great Necessity of a Right Call 1. This is readily apparent, that St. Peter and all the Apostles always drew upon this relationship to proper right call at the beginning of their letters, as when St. Paul says: Paul, servant of Jesus Christ called to be an Apostle by the will of God, &c. He would not have mentioned this if a right call had not been necessary or pertinent to the discussion. For the Apostles this call came immediately from Christ; for Timothy, Titus, Ignatius, it was mediated; however that changes nothing concerning its necessity. 2. The Lord Jesus gave himself over to a right call from the Father and proved that the Father had sent Him and He was doing His Father's will; thus the Father also calls Him His Loving Son, in Whom He was well pleased and to Whom people should listen. Matthew 3. 17. And it also states in Hebrews 5. 5: ‘Even Jesus Christ did not bestow the honour upon himself of becoming high priest but rather this was placed upon Him; You are My Son, today I have called upon You.’ Thus only a right call is suitable to God's Will for it is necessary, 1 Corinthians 14. 40, and just as necessary as ordination is, so is lack of ordination dangerous; where a right call is not properly established, says an old teaching of the church from 1649, there could easily be unlearned and foolish people (as unfortunately there are now in 1840) insinuating themselves into matters and thus creating general disorder. Stenger's sermon cited above. 3. God wishes to deal with us on earth through Public Church Office [that comes-along together with the Word, coexisting with it,] instruct us through the same, absolve, commune, &c. Therefore the church must have a certain infallible proof that the person in Office is a certified officer in the divine order and according to God's will so that God many deal with us through him. The Apostles in Acts 15. 24 rebut sectarians who would present themselves as teachers without ordination and say: they have ordered nothing unto them; that is, no Ministerial Office has been handed over, they have not been ordained. Back to the oldest times the church has believed that the Word alone is not enough for the proper administration of the holy Sacraments and the communication of absolution but rather a proper divine call and mandate must be in place; even if the person in Office is evil, the words of investiture are powerful because of the Office in which the Lord is ever recognizable; for in the Office lies the testimony of Christ, His once-made investiture, (absolution and sacraments) continue on this earth and will continue, real and sustainable, through the Ministry of the church proclaiming His words. Christ does not require the Office in order to lend power to His words of investiture but rather because Christ wishes to impart further assurances to us that the Office He established will serve in grace in order to impart the power of His Word on earth to men. Refer to the 518th question in the catechism: Who delivers the Holy Eucharist? The ordained Teacher & Minister of the True Church. Passage: 1 Corinthians 4, 1. Thus everyone should regard us as servants of Christ and householders of God's mysteries. The 519th and 520th questions: The function of the church servant is to consecrate, & to distribute the Holy Eucharist. Passage: 1 Corinthians 10. 16. The sacred chalice, which we bless, &c. By this we are convinced that a man frivolously chosen by the congregation may neither give absolution nor distribute the body and blood of Christ, rather he gives mere bread and wine; Christ commends himself to His divinely irrefutable order, not our caprice and disorder. However in the case of dire need when no servant of the church is at hand, a Christian may stand in God's place to give instruction, comfort and spiritual guidance to others (privatim) without having been elected by the congregation and publicly installed in office. — However he, who speaks of need when there is a true church and Pastor at his door, is a liar and he, who has sufficient ways and means either alone or within the congregation to go to a distant church servant

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or to have the servant come to him yet does not do this, is a epicurean before God. In particular with regard to the Sacrament of the Altar, need can never be so great that one may be publicly appointed to administer it. — Furthermore we do not become holy through the Sacrament itself but rather through faith in Jesus Christ, which works & is fortified through this Sacrament; the Sacrament itself presupposes & does work saving faith when we approach it. The Lord is not bound to His Means of Grace, rather we are bound to it; thus through the Word, even when they’re lacking, they sustain us in our faith in eternal life through long years of need.

III. Proper Understanding of the Teaching concerning Hierarchy of Church Office in the Smalkald Articles.

Unfortunately it has also been reported that the passages in the Smalkald Articles concerning the Bishop's authority have also been misinterpreted. It is known that Dr. Luther and other Divines and Pastors in Wittenberg & others had ordained new church servants after they withdrew to the [genuine] Lutheran or Old Catholic Church; this was after they had chosen tested men from the congregation and then installed them. The Papist sect rose up against this and said: ‘Only a Roman Catholic Bishop may ordain, therefore Lutheran ordination is worthless and those ordained in the Lutheran church have no right to divine Office.’

To this Dr. Luther and the various divines responded in the Smalkald Articles: As church history teaches, originally there was no difference between a Bishop and the ordinary Pastors, for the words episkopos, meaning Bishop, and presbyteros, meaning Pastor, are used interchangeably in the New Testament. In order to prevent schism and maintain the unity of the church the many Pastors elected one among their number whom they held higher and they called him Bishop not because he held a higher Office but because his Office included the further duty of overseeing the other pastorates. This became a fine human order, which was in no sense contrary to Holy Scripture. This Bishop then had certain privileges within the human order but no exclusive divine rights of Office to ordain new ministers of the church within his diocese or area of authority. It also does not follow that an ordinary Pastor could not ordain a new church servant as long as the latter was capable and chosen by the congregation [Gemeinde.] The regular Pastor, (or Pastors, if there were several,) was duty bound by divine order to ordain a new church servant where the Roman Bishop did not wish to ordain such a capable church servant out of proper declaration. The Roman Bishops refused to ordain those of righteous faith & confession, and they desired papal profession.

Consequently the entire Lutheran, or conceivably Old Catholic, Church found it to be its duty to depart for all time from the Roman Church and its transgressing clergy so it could ordain capable church servants within its own church districts, which previously had existed under a Roman Bishop (see Dresden edition 157.) As to what this means for the individual church congregation, in no way would our theologians say in the Smalkald Articles that by wilful frivolity the congregation should or could single out or install an unlearned, untested and unprepared man into public Church Office by the mere power of majority vote. Such is not the least valid before God but a vainglorious misdeed; they preferred that individual church assemblies go about on their own and act to find eligible, capable people, that they ask God for capable workers in their reaping and make their decisions based on God's order and then provide for the ordination of the tested & chosen ones and allow themselves to be led by them. Dr. Luther called this the calling, choosing and ordination of church servants and he said that this order must remain so until the end of time; this is how the apostles Timothy, Titus, Ignatius, Polycarpus, &c. were installed in Office and so must it remain for their successors, the Bishops. The congregation should never be excluded from the choice, the decision and the prayer, — however the Pope took this right of choice and vote away from the congregations and errantly established by himself the pastoral ranks, thus the Pope became a spiritual and worldly tyrant.

When one is properly called, chosen and ordained, he can find comfort in the righteous, spiritual gifts of God inherent to his Office, which the non-chosen and unordained cannot; how is it they should preach, instruct, absolve, baptize, give communion when they have

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not been sent? Romans 10.15; John 20.21. The unchosen and unordained one is even less able to hold the church together as a church if it is assailed and persecuted, for he deserts it and seeks his own preservation, succumbing to either sectarianism or the world. Legitimate call possesses Christ's irrefutable promise: I will be with you all days until the end of the world. Matthew 28. 20; with this the Lord does not want to say that the right servant of the church might also not fall but that in so far as he remains steadfast, He will protect the integrity of the true church, direct and support it so that there will always be a true Shepherd and a righteous, united church until Judgment Day. No unchosen & unordained one has this comfort. And when congregations install said unchosen and unordained ones they deprive themselves of consoling certainty that God will uphold the true church for them. It would be better for congregations to do without shepherds and ask God unanimously until He hears them and sends properly-created true spiritual caregivers. Dr. Luther says of unchosen and unordained church servants: ‘It is a truly dreadful and terrible thing when conscience says: O, Lord God! What have you created, having done this and that without vocation and mandate! It raises such horror and heartache in the conscience that such an unordained preacher may well wish that what he teaches may never be heard or read in his lifetime, for disobedience makes all work evil and they will see for themselves that however well intended, even the greatest and best works become the greatest and most grievous sins. Here one can compare the good intentions of King Saul and what the Lord said to him through Samuel. 1 Samuel 15, 13 - 25.’

From this one will understand the proper intentions of the fathers in the Smalkald Articles and not believe that the fathers may have established the option for each congregation or indeed each house, which may have fallen away from the true church and honoured itself in the name of the congregation, to install a favoured one out of its own midst to spiritual office.

Thus, Beloved of the Lord, I warn you to consider well what you do concerning church affairs regarding filling vacated ministerial offices and ask you:

1. That every Divine Worship in church prayer you earnestly call upon God to send capable workers for His great harvests in North American even as the false shepherds, who have insinuated themselves here among unknowing Germans, become a disgrace.

2. That you leave your children unbaptized, if they are healthy, until the arrival of the church Minister for whom you prayed to God; if your children suffer a serious illness or are in danger of dying, you may baptize them yourselves as fathers, or if a father feels too weak to do so he may ask one of the brothers to do it for him.

3. That you suspend the celebration of the holy Eucharist until the arrival of a proper church Minister and fortify your faith through the Word alone.

4. That, if it is at all possible, you refrain from the closing of marriage contracts until God's proper circumstances are at hand; it is necessary, before they enter the bonds of matrimony for Christian persons to select one of the properly chosen church brothers, pledge themselves in the presence of witnesses after three public announcements in accordance with Luther's booklet on marriage; upon the arrival of a church Minister the couple takes their vows before him and the entire Christian assembly, their marriage is declared valid according to divine ordering and they receive an official church blessing from the Minister of the church.

5. That the elders or the school master, whoever has the gift, read the printed sermons in the church service and lead the service. However the elders must beware lest a false priesthood be initiated which would call for or institute itself for the administration of the sacraments. These elders are co-directors; that is they are those who maintain the watchfulness over church discipline along with the Pastor. They shall always have the old church orders at hand, such as the Pomeranian Great Church Order of 1690 and the Saxony-Coburg Church Order of 1626. Everything, which is contrary to these church orders must be considered innovation and must not be introduced, for example, that elders should be official watchmen over the watchman of matters of teaching (1 Timothy

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4.16) when it is the daily responsibility of the Pastors to act as shepherds and watchmen over the congregation.

You should, 1. Pay attention to yourselves; 2. Pay attention to what you hear concerning teaching: if you continue to do these two things you will keep yourselves on the path of salvation. Acts 20. 28. If a Pastor becomes confused about teaching, as for example was the case with Pastor Oertel in New York, then it will not remain hidden from the entire congregation and in that case the congregation should still not deliver a verdict but have the elders turn to the church and write to one or many Pastors, reasonably setting down the facts of the matter; this Pastor or these Pastors shall ask the accused Pastor how he sees the issues and shall speak with him either directly or through correspondence; then it will be made public as to whether error has been found in the accused Pastor. Unfortunately we have had the experience that individual congregation members have become self-appointed judges over their spiritual caregivers and with this and that have confused the consciences of the weak minded. We want to put you on guard against this self-appointing so that decisions concerning teaching may be left to those who can consider it according to Article 28 of the Augsburg Confession. Your teachers are not teachers of a false church & they are not teachers of a new age trend, rather they are teachers of the true church, as is sufficiently well recognized. You may also set before them a solid profession of church teaching, indeed as deep a profession as you may understand it and as you have learned to believe, to teach and to preserve yourselves in righteous faith; thus you will be able to believe, preserve yourselves in righteous faith, and be sanctified. Hebrews 13, 17 & 18. Obey your teachers and follow them for they watch over your souls, as they have been given the right to do; it is not good for you if they do it with a smile rather than a sigh. Pray for us. It is our consolation that we have good consciences and we apply ourselves diligently to providing good service to all.

IV

It has also come to light that there are still some weak and disorganized souls among us, who have deserted the church assembly of congregations, because they think that one or other of their friends and countrymen have been unjustly treated in church discipline. Even if that were the case that would still not make the church false, for it remains the right and true church as long as God's Word and the holy Sacraments are pure. It thus follows that these people have not acted as Christians but as regional and worldly beings, leaving the church because they think one or other of their regional neighbours has received injustice. We are bound through God's command to the Holy Church of Jesus and not to our regional friends. All peoples, who come from any region and who fear God and do good, that is, who seek and love the true path to sanctity, are pleasing to Him. This means they have been taken up into His church & therefore we should not ask whether someone is a regional neighbour but rather whether he is a member of the church according to God's heart. And if he has been our countryman and friend for thirty or fifty years but he became a despiser and blasphemer of the holy church, then in accordance with God's Word we should shun such a misleading spirit even as he is warned once and for all or repeatedly (for in Christianity one did not refer to someone from Judea or Greece or any other province, but rather a new being was created.) This shunning should not be done out of hatred but love so that he may be moved to examine himself by our loving distancing from him. But if we are easy going and show ourselves tolerant to such error we intensify the error in a misguided way and make ourselves participants in those sins.

V

In closing, it has also been pointed out that certain souls, who are scarcely aware that they've entered a church, cannot abide the customs of the church, for example the lights and crucifix on the altar, the sign of the cross, the singing of the Collect and the blessings as well as the responses of the congregation, and have thus left. In answer to these points,

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a) Singing is much more edifying that reading. St. Paul didn't say, ‘He who is in good spirits reads psalms’ but rather ‘sings psalms.’ If singing in church assemblies is much more edifying than mere reading then the church is doing what is right when if allows people to chant psalms or sing at the altar and even attach a singing ‘Amen.’ See 1 Corinthians 14. 16.

b) The sign of the cross is no magical or mysterious gesture in the true church but a gesture of remembrance and confession as it was in the Old Catholic Church before the institution of the papacy. The crucifix or a picture of the crucified Christ is not an image to be prayed to or adored, rather an expression of public confession in the church as the crucified Christ is and will be painted in Word and Sacraments before the eyes and as He exists as the church's grounding, leader and hope.

c) The lights stand at the altar because it was night and there was no sunshine when Christ advised and established the Sacrament of the Altar. Through this arranging of the altar a picture of the hard, high priestly Night of Passion on Holy Thursday, followed by Good Friday, is painted before the eyes, in which the light of the world, God from God and light from light, Jesus Christ succumbed to the fear of death for us. Who is afraid of this? Or who scorns it? How could such a perpetual reminder not do our frivolous and forgetful hearts good? Therefore the church does rightly in having its arranged altar although it knows that ceremonies in themselves are neither helpful nor harmful to our sanctity; the light and the cross in themselves are neither helpful nor harmful to me, but the true practicing of such ceremonies, to which God has no objection, can be useful to the soul.

May God, Our Lord grant that this brief and modest lecture be blessed and become a voice for the Lord's mercy, which provides enlightenment and admonition for many hearts. May the Father of mercy along with His loving Son, Jesus Christ and the venerable Holy Spirit, who proceeds from both, be in your souls and may they preserve you in the covenant of the holy church unto eternal life. Amen.

Buffalo, December 1, 1840.

Your Pastor, Brother and Friend in the Lord, (Signed) A. Grabau That the Lutheran congregations in Buffalo may acknowledge the above tenets as their own, so sign the church administrators: Friedrich Lüdtke, Ernst Krieg, Christoph Schmelzer, Rudolph Krause, Ernst Schorr, Gottfried Schönfeld.

PASTOR GRABAU'S REFUTATION

OF MISSOURIANS’ CRITIQUE ON HIS PASTORAL LETTER

Buffalo, July 12, 1844

Respected and Beloved Brothers!

Your critique of my Pastoral Letter is in my hands for almost a year now and for nearly half a year the response or anti-critique has been complete without my being able to transcribe or send it. I'll get to it now if the cry of new mutiny-minded people doesn't make it necessary for me to put your critique back in the strongbox. Pastor Ehrenström has not yet arrived and I have six congregations to care for and besides these eight candidates to instruct. I know that in your indulgent love you will forgive me.

In general in your critique I perceived the absence of ecclesiastic reasons, which first provide proof of each point coming from God's Word before it is introduced as human testimony. Furthermore you provide nothing but Luther's testimony without showing anything coming from God's Word. Not only this but in introducing most of Luther's

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testimony there is a misunderstood application to the pastoral letter. From 2 Timothy 2. 2 we know nothing further than that a preacher must be capable of teaching. You cite Matthew 15. 9 merely to settle your own case, not that of the pastoral letter. You cite John 10. 2, and 1 Corinthians 10. 15 only to refute your individual interpretation concerning the Pastoral Letter. And again you cite Hebrews 4, verse 12 only in order to reduce the Ministry to service of the Eucharist, which does not lie within the Scriptural passage. John 7. 46—49 is inappropriately cited, for the pastoral letter does not consider the congregation a damned and unknowing people. I also have to point out that you use ‘when or if’ in many of your interpretations, as it thus often states: ‘if this is meant this way or that, then it is not right;’ and you often critique your own interpretations but not those in the pastoral letter. This method could only be disillusioning for you and mislead you from the true content of the pastoral letter. It would have been better merely to ask me questions such as: what does this or that sentence mean?

I shall again write down my responses according to the sections of the Pastoral Letter.

Concerning Part One

Quis rite vocatus sit? Or, who is called to ordination?

§1. We must understand the Word of God, especially in the two epistles of St. Paul to Timothy and the epistle to Titus, because these are the best examples from which to discern what is being discussed. The symbols are not sources of knowledge or proof but rather testimony concerning that which may be proven in and believed of God's Word.

The old church Orders demonstrate the practice or exercise of said profession for Lutherans, and other writings of true teachers could be cited as testimony, notwithstanding cum judicio [with judgment] that one, a) understands they are right in and of themselves, b) is in agreement with and directed by God's Word.

§2. The Holy Scriptures teach of the holy Ministerial Office that there is a particular status ordered by God, to which He ordains certain capable people among men so they may carry on with divine authority as messengers in His place delivering the Lord's Word to others, giving them the Sacraments, thus leading them to Christ and raising them to eternal life. (Thann's Development of all Articles of Faith, Weissenfels, 1680.) This definition agrees sufficiently with God's Word.

§3. The Holy Scriptures teach of the spiritual priesthood that it exists for all faithful, men and women, old people and children so that as righteous faithful Christians they are for other men the glorified, the chosen of God, the holy, beloved and first of His creatures and so that they may daily offer up their spiritual sacrifice, which is pleasing to God through Jesus Christ, and being redeemed through the blood of Christ they may have free and joyous entry to the gracious throne of God. Psalms 16. 3; Colossians 3. 12; Jacob 1. 18; 1 Peter 2. 5—9; Hebrews 13. 15—16; Romans 12, 1;

Apocalypse 1. 5—6.

§4. In accordance with this the spiritual priesthood is invested with the righteousness of Christ [namely, the remission of sins and all the Gospel’s promises,] a holy description of our people reconciled before God. Revelation 1. 6. However this is not a Ministerial Office set before the congregation whereby someone is a spiritual priest, as all faithful are, but he is still not a shepherd or a teacher of the church; rather Ministerial Office has a claim to be one of the righteous order, except for women, who should not become Ministers. While the spiritual priesthood of a person is their link in faith to the forgiving God, so is the Holy Office one created by God with ordained standing in its dealings with the congregation. See besides the passages cited in § 3, Revelation 5.10; 2 Corinthians 5.20; Hebrews 13.17; 1 Peter 5.2—3; 1Corinthians 3.5; Romans 10. 14—15; Luke 10. 16; 1 Corinthians 4. 1—2; 1 Timothy 4. 16; Matthew 4. 19.

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§5. We may not confuse the workings of the spiritual priesthood in the true church with the Holy Office, as that appears in 1 Corinthians 14, embellished with high prophecy and even special & supernatural gifts and languages; this is to mix up the spiritual priesthood with the Ministerial Office and the pronouncement of the virtues of He, the virtues of He, who calleth us and brought us out of the darkness into His wondrous light (1 Peter 2. 5, 9;) we understand it to mean the spiritual offerings brought before God, gathering all the faithful with his heart and voice and life so they no longer muddle through the darkness of the flesh. (See verse 5 and verses 10—12.) We do not understand this as the Ministerial Office [engrafted] within the congregation. Indeed it shows that the right to choose & ordain a Minister proceeds from it; both treatments within the church are of a spiritually offering nature in that they represent God as a Person, who gave the Office and through whom He wishes to expand His honour in believers and non-believers, in Ministers and all other classes of society.

§6. Here is further necessary handling of the true dependency between the spiritual priesthood and the Holy Office of Minister, which I cannot introduce here. I can only mention that in the Pastoral Letter the administration of the holy sacraments is merely called ‘the Priestly portion of the Office’ in so far as it is considered one service under the High-Priestly Office of Christ, who allowed Himself to be crucified for us; thus it is considered since the High Priest, Christ, communicates with the recipients through the sacraments and delivers His seal of grace to them; — in contrast to preaching, which is thought of as a service under the Prophetic Office of Christ; whereas no agreement has been reached that the preaching of the Gospel offers the High-Priestly merit of Christ & thus might be ‘a priestly work.’ — Preaching of atonement & grace in the pastoral letter are together considered a service under the Prophetic Office of Christ, the communion & communication of Christ’s merits in the holy Sacraments however is considered a singular and pure priestly work of grace. I also hope that this division, not of the Office but of the various activities of Office, is not contrary to the Word of God & I could demonstrate it with many more examples. For as the Lord has commanded: teach — baptise; it is only one Office but most certainly two different activities of the Office. The expression in the pastoral letter, however, may be incomplete concerning this issue and I will gladly see you improve upon it. Blessed Luther also does take it serious enough and calls preaching, baptising, holding mass, absolving, &c. public offices although they are all grouped together as one Office.

§7. The Holy Ministerial Office is not given or conveyed by the congregation, as you, my dear friends, say; rather the Son of God, along with the Father & the Holy Spirit, as the above definition states, ‘ordains a particular person to the position;’ this is as it is written in John 20. 21: Just as my Father has sent me, so I send you. Luke 24. 46—47. Christ allows us to preach in His name. Acts 20.28: ‘Under which (flock) the Holy Spirit has established Bishops for us’ (& Ephesians 4. 11.) He has established certain men to be shepherds and teachers. Luke 10. 2. He sends workers into His harvest. Although the church does not bestow the Ministerial Office upon the person, God does not bestow it any differently than through the choice [the examination] & ordination of the church [talking part both the Ministers and laymen;] this is His ordering. Acts 1. 23—26; 2 Timothy 2. 2.

Here allow me to briefly refer to the first part of the letter to Pastor Brohm dated June 26th, where this divine ordering is authenticated out of Holy Scripture and demonstrated with human testimony as teaching of the church.

§8. Rite vocatum esse, (the Apology calls it vocatio ecclesiae p. 150 [236] § 28.) is not the same as the calling of the local congregation. A right call, or rite vocatum esse, in the 14th Article of the Augsburg Confession is the general concept, which comprises electio, vocatio and ordinatio; the call of the local congregation is only one facet of rite vocatum esse. Hebrews 5.4 demonstrates the general concept of call — ‘No one takes upon himself the honour unless he is also called by God, as it was with Aaron.’ The same is true in Acts 20.28 and Ephesians 4.11. Within the general concept of right call is found, a) the choosing by the local congregation of all positions they had to fill, as in Acts 1. 23. They (that is, the people called) were thus placed. One may conclude this from 1 Timothy 3, 2—9 and Titus 1, 6—9. b) the calling of the congregation is only the expression of the past vote to the chosen. This may also be concluded from the passages cited above. c) the ordination by

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the church servants already in state is ordered and prescribed in 1 Timothy 5. 22 and 4, 14; 2 Timothy 1. 6 & 2. 2; Titus 1.5. §9. On the God-given right of the church to choose, call and ordain Pastors. This rests partly on the spiritual priesthood & partly on specific divine law. It rests on the spiritual priesthood of all believers, according to which they have a right to enjoy & employ all divine ordering, Means of Grace, means to serve God's honour and their own holiness; accordingly they also have the right to make manifest through spiritual oblation the grace-filled persona of God in the Office, as He Himself gave it. It rests on specific divine law; the choosing decrees a part of which, & part of which is decreed by the ordination of the Minister in the New Testament. Acts 6,. 3; 1 Timothy 3. 7; 2 Timothy 2. 2; 1 Timothy 5. 22. Here one must discern between the right of the church & the iure divino, the divine order, in which that right is exercised. It is a divine right given by God to the church [in the sum of all her levels] to choose, call and ordain men; the divine order, however, in which the right is exercised, is this: that the choice of a man or men must be issued from the entire church, where the new Pastors will serve, in all their levels but the ordination must be performed by the already at hand church Ministers as proven in the New Testament & established by the Symbols. It is regrettable that many of our sectarian-minded people cannot or will not differentiate the right of the church as such from the iure divino, or divine order, in which it will have been practiced according the Holy Scriptures. §10. What are the particulars of ordination? Not a mere apostolic general ceremony, which one observes in order to be one in external form with the old church; rather a specific priestly handling of the church where it chooses a man according to apostolic decree through the at-hand church Ministers for the exercising of the Office as decreed, established and blessed, whereby it believes that God Himself has decreed, established & blessed it, as we see in 2 Timothy 2.2; see also 1 Peter 5. 1; 2 Timothy 1. 5; Acts 14. 23; 1, 26 — St. Paul had ordered Timothy before God and the Lord Jesus and the chosen angels to hold such ordination and not in haste to ordain those who were incapable, 1 Timothy 5. 21—22. And because ordination is God’s command for the Office, so will He also assure His gracious promise within it, of which St. Paul says in 1 Timothy 4. 14: ‘Neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was given thee by prophecy, with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery.’ REMARK — Our Lord Jesus Christ first chose and called His apostles, then ordained or commanded them to exercise the Office among all the Gentiles. John 20, Matthew 28, Mark 16, Luke 24. 50. (One may see this in the first portion, Number III, of the letter to Pastor Brohm.) This is also acknowledged in the Augsburg Confession, Article 28, § 6, 7. ‘Nam cum hoc mandato Christus mitti Apostelos, Joh. xx. 21. Sicut me misit pater, ita et ego mitto vos, &c. Marci xvi. Ite praedicate Evangelium omni creaturae.’ This was ordained, or the Office commanded, — as 2 Timothy 2. 2 teaches. (See more in the letter to Pastor Brohm.)

§11. Ordination is not an adiaphore in that it is an essential part of the rite vocatum esse. It is an adiaphore as to whether a Bishop or a local Pastor performs the ordination on the chosen one; also whether the one performing the ordination is a good or bad person, whether he lays one hand or both hands or no hands upon the chosen one, et al; but the ordination itself is no adiaphore and non-essential thing. It belongs to the prescribed divine ordering and it has divine and apostolic mandate, as in 1537 Dr. Luther answered the question to the papal legate Bergerius: whether they also [the Lutherans] consecrated priests? The answer: Quoniam pontifex et episcopi nobis omnem ordinationem denegant, ipsi mandato divino consecramus et ordinamus. (Selneccer in oratione de Luthero.)

We know that we do the will of God with this ordering, however we gain nothing by it. We do not propose to establish wondrous things with the external rite itself, rather we are merely obedient in faith to God when we maintain and aspire to this ordering that He may bless His church in this ordering and see to its care through true shepherds. The formula or means to ordination may differ in various lands & church orders; and these things may be considered indifferent things, but ordination itself is still not an adiaphore. Therefore it is not up to the preference of the church servant whether or not he should allow himself

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to be ordained, as such is the case in your own midst and you should have to concede to this. (I means the candidate Fuerbringer.)

§12. The Christian freedom of each faithful individual is to be, to a certain extent, distinguished from those of the churches.

a) Christian freedom exists in that we are unyoked and redeemed from punishment and curse of Law; we are also unbound from the [levitical] ceremonies & civil life of the church of the Old Testament; we have the forgiveness of sins in Christ, which earns us alone salvation & holiness, as St. Paul proclaimed in the letter to the Galatians. Thus it follows that empowered by such perfect redemption & release no one of faith shall seek his salvation in external, legal observances of certain ceremonies, rather seek it solely in the grace of Christ; he does not seek acts and gains before God in external customs but rather remains true to God's Word, be it proclaimed or expressed in the sermon or the celebration of the Sacraments or other ceremonies. Thus no believer among us seeks godly blessing in the external ceremony of ordination but rather in the Holy Order of the Office (2 Timothy 2.2) and the blessed godly promises, which he received through the ordination. 1Timothy 4. 14; see also 2 Timothy 1. 6.

b) The church's freedom exists in that the church, bound to the proper usage of grace-giving power, installs externally good customs, ceremonies and orders in accordance with God's Word, and, also asking for the real need and reasons for them, yet may allow certain practices to cease. However the old church orders shall not be done away with if they are needed and the Christian freedom of the individual must learn to be in alignment with the church's free ordering of the whole, for example with an entire district, or all the churches in a country.

This calls for the nature of the Christian true believer as well as one of true Christian love if we are to be members along with others meeting them every Gottensdienst: The entirety of Christianity on the earth maintains itself in precisely this singular sense; thus it follows that if there is no divine order at all, then each individual may construct and create his own special circumstances in order to demonstrate his freedom and his singular understanding about what Christianity should be, destroying thus all possibly well unity & harmony of church ordering in customs. Therefore it is false, what you say about the harmfulness of the introduction of a particular church order among all congregations. It was God's wish that we all have one good order, as Crown Prince August of Saxony intended in 1580, in Germany, through a fraternal accord of all the churches in the province; however this plan was hindered by much subsequent ecclesiastic & political oppression. ‘Scimus enim (the Apology, p. 204 [314] §24 states) bono et utili consilio a patribus ecclesiasticam constitutam esse.’ See also Augsburg Confession, Article 28. ‘Respondent, quod liceat episcopis seu pastoribus, facere ordinationes ut res ordine gerantur in ecclesia, non ut per illas mereamur gratium, &c. — Tales ordinationes convenit ecclesias propter caritatem et tranquillitatem servare.’ Further: Apology, p. 152 [238] § 33. ‘Et cum gratissimo animo, amplectimur utiles ac veteres ordinationes, praesertim cum contineant paedagogiam, qua prodest populum et imperitos assuefacere ac docere.’ Further, p. 214 [328] § 51. ‘Sine probabili causa nihil mutetur in usitatis ritibus — propter alendam concordiam serventur veteres mores, qui sine peccato, aut sine magno incommodo servari possunt.’ ‘Publicam concordiam — judicavimus omnibus aliis commodis anteferendam esse.’ You, on the other hand, profess your tragic scorn of the old church orders to many districts and call us hypocrites since we maintain them. In 1841 you even sent us a new church order, for the most part not in keeping with the old church order; and because you subsequently declared in another letter that these new principles had not yet been applied and executed, we developed a renewed confidence in you; we see now that we were deceived. What else could we do but warn you in a heartfelt and brotherly fashion about these new church orders, which since 1822 have completely corrupted and plagued Prussia.

§13. It can never be necessary according to God's Word that a local congregation must choose from its midst or anywhere else an unprepared, unlearned, untested and therefore incapable man to be its Minister. Proof: He, who believes and is baptised, shall be saved. Mark 16: Baptised, faithful Christians are made holy even when through

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misfortune they have no preacher for half a lifetime. However any Christian may give baptism, according to the Word of Christ: ‘let the little children come to me;’ and as it has been said to all Christians, also the old. In faith each believing housefather may raise up his children and his servants if he will only diligently deliver God's Word and ask God for the grace to do so. If he perceives that he suffers harm to his soul due to the lack of a Minister and souls are in danger, this is so because he demonstrates what the Holy Office is and what power resides in it, as it is, for example, with the immigrant Prussian Lutherans. If he is prevented from doing this or incapacitated, he may commend his soul and those under his care to God, and hold to the written Word of God, which is even written to teach him so he and his can be forgiven by faith, and turn into sanctification. Psalms 91.14—16. It therefore follows that he does not need to install any incapable man to be his Minister.

God demands in His Word thorough ability, thus He forbids the choosing of an inept man; that is, one who is unprepared, untrained and untested. But if this should happen, according to St. Paul's prohibition in 1 Timothy 3. 6 and 5. 22, he should not be ordained and all close true church servants should protest against it. If the consistory ordains an incapable man and sends him to a congregation, the congregation should not accept him, according to Matthew 7.15 and Galatians 2. 5. Again, this non-acceptance and refusal must remain and be conveyed in the church orders. According to God's Word the congregation may neither chose an incapable man nor accept one from another source. It is not permitted to choose or accept incapable men and thereby cause an error or commit a blunder. The right to choose church servants, to call and ordain them, is not given to the church by God so it may commits errors or blunders but rather so the church may provide capable people in office and according to 2 Timothy 2. 2, the ordaining Minister must be unconditionally and thoroughly convinced of the ability of the man unto which he is conferring the Holy Ministry.

§14. In the Augsburg Confession, Article XIV, ability is confirmed in the rite vocantus, however rite vocatus is not ritus vocandi. In the ritus the ability of a person cannot be confirmed, but in each case the vocatus is a man, who is not thought of in the rite vocatus without ascertained ability, and he shall publicly administer church teaching & the sacraments, as the Article says: the rite vocati must therefore be men who are ‘previously tested;’ thus the man receiving a rite vocatus is understood at the same time to be idoneus [appropriate, fitting], as the Smalkald Articles, p. 323 [496] states: ‘Qua propter idoneos ad hoc officium ipsi ordinare debemus et volumus.’

§15. Whether the old Lutheran church orders have been right in their representation of the Word of God? — And whether we may say in truth that we must allow these here to fall? —

a) They have been right and they are similar in their consistories, synods, superintendents and church boards to the models in the New Testament writings. Acts 15; 1 Timothy 1, 3, 4, 5: 19 - 21; Titus 1, 5; 1 Timothy 3, 15 and 4, 14; 1 Peter 5, 1. — The of late endured [State] tyranny was only an impure political accident, which does not belong to the essence of the old Lutheran church orders. The regrettable dependence of the old Lutheran church on its nutrices [wet nurses,] the magistrates [Electors & Princes] was later transformed into a coupling of the spiritual and worldly regimen. —

b) We cannot say with truth that we must let fall these old orders entirely, for we have sufficient freedom to maintain them and we also will have a heartfelt inclination towards their preservation when we can first properly see the ‘new independent freedom’ of the individual congregations in its bad and good aspects! May God open all our eyes! ‘Quapropter (say the Smalkald Articles, p. 314, [472] § 9,) ecclesia nunquam melius gubernari et conservari potest, quam si omnies sub uno capite, quod est Christus vivamus, et episcopi omnes pares officio (licet dispares sint quoad dona) summa cum diligentia conjuncti sint unanimitato dontrinae, fidei, sacramentorum, orationes et operum caritatis, &c., sicut S. Hieronymus scribit, sacerdotes Alexandriae communi opera gubernasse ecclesias. Et apostoli idem fecerunt, ac postea omnes episcopi in toto orbe christiano.’

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TO THE SECOND PART

OF THE PASTORAL LETTER

THE NECESSITY OF PROPER ORDINATION

§1. The Holy Office of the Ministry is a divine means of service and causa ministerialis to faith. God's Word and the holy Sacraments are Means of Grace, media gratiae. The Word and the Sacraments are indeed powerful within themselves, even when they do not proceed from the exercise of the Ministerial Office, especially in cases of dire emergency and need; but God has established the Holy Office as the ordained means to serve so that His Word may be fortified with and in us through the preaching. Thus God's name will be sanctified among us. — And so the holy Ministerial Office serves and produces faith not just remotely (remote) like a mere administrative machination, but also by proximity (proxime) in that it has the power and force imparted by God, [since it is Christ’s Office, who instituted the powerful objective sacraments] which is manifested to the hearts of men with the Word and with the sword of the Spirit; thus it is a ‘causa ministerialis fidei, quae ipsam fidem operator —et concurrit praedicatione verbi et administratione sacramentorum ad unum apotelesma efficiendum —’ (Carpzov in Isagoge ad Lib. symbb. A. C. Article V.) St. Paul thusly teaches: ‘How should you believe without preachers? Faith comes from the preaching’ Romans 10. Why not simply from the Word of God? Because God established the Means of Grace. Thus the Holy Scripture calls the Shepherds and Teachers of the church. God's coworker, theou synergous, 1 Corinthians 3. 9 and even salvatores, Obadiah 1. 21 and thus saviours, 1 Corinthians 9. 22; 1 Timothy 4. 16; Romans 11. 14; Spiritual fathers, 1 Corinthians 4. 16; Galatians 4. 19; Ephesians 3. 8, 9. And Ministers through whom we become believers, 1 Corinthians 3. 5. In this same way our Lord ascribes authority in the Holy Scriptures to His Ministers to forgive sins in His stead, as He would deal with us Himself. John 20; Matthew 18. Wherever this mediating servant of God is, attesting to the power of God's Pure Word and Sacraments and producing fruit, there God certainly plants and maintains His church. Among other things it is called the Office of the Word, Acts 6, as compared with the service of the table, but not in the sense of being a mere duty and privilege to speak and deliver the Word but rather to convey and deliver forth the power of the Word through a living, mediating servant, ordered by God. In Greek this is called diakonia tou logou [Service or Ministry to the Word,] by which the Word of God is ministered so that it may evince its power in us and with which our salvation through the Word is offered. It also provides doctrine, and thus St. Paul calls this service an Office, which renders to the Spirit diakonia tou pneumates and, thus he calls it the holy or faithful work of the Office, ieros diakonius [a sacred service] in a letter to Christians, prepared through the Holy Office, & written by the same in them with the Spirit of the living God. 1 Corinthians 3. 8; Ephesians 4. 12. From this it is proven that God will deal with us in an orderly way through the Holy Ministerial Office in Word and Sacrament. [Since the Word: Christ; and the Office, come-along, co-exist together.] The Lutheran church does not merely believe that the Office is an Order, which God establishes for the proclamation of His Word, but that it is also a divinely empowered interceding service through which the holy sense and understanding of the Word and His plenum of grace is established and planted in our hearts. St. Paul also says: He planted, Apollo watered, 1 Corinthians 3; and James says: Take the Word with meekness which is engrafted in you, 1.21, namely through the Office of the Holy Ministry. Here is their [the Missourians] meaning, that the Office is only a mere acquiescence for the proclamation, merely a semi-religion, to which no enlightened Lutheran concedes, for he remains steadfast to the complete order of proclamation: Word-and-Sacrament by means of an ordained Minister, which seems to be out from memory.

§2. It also remains that the words of the Sacrament of the Altar are powerful only in the Office of the Holy Ministry, in which the Lord will have them used. As St. Paul states in 1 Corinthians 4. 1: ‘Therefore let each one of us consider ourselves Christian servants and householders of God's mysteries;’ and ‘the sacred chalice, which we bless, is this not the communion of the body of Christ?’ (See the Catechism, Q. 518 to 520.) This ‘us’ and ‘we’ (hmeis in eulogoumen) are nothing other than the properly ordained Ministers of Jesus Christ, who in accordance with God's command administer the Holy Sacrament in the

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true church from within, applying the forgiveness of sins. Whoever merely stands outside of this Order of the Ministry and householding and will tolerate foreign or uncertain influence In any part of the administration, is nothing more than an actor on the stage who, when he takes and distributes the Eucharist, plays his role. Even though he might speak the words of the consecration a hundred times over the bread and wine, that bread and wine will never become the Body and Blood of Christ, even less than the priests in the stained [because the simony of unlawful lucre] Masses of Popedom. Thus it follows that Christ's words in the Sacrament of the Eucharist are indeed splendid & powerful beyond all measure; however their use shall occur within the Office of those whom He appoints as householders. Thus Christ's words in the Sacrament have power within themselves, without human activity, yet this still does not prove that they are outside the Holy Ministry of the church.

COMMENT: This cannot be compared with Baptism; this is a completely different sacrament because,

1) The person, who receives Baptism, was not a member of the church previous to it and did not yet stand within the order of divine householder; this is just the first step to it.

2) The person, who performs Baptism, is not referring to any words of consecration, rather this is unmediated and given by God Himself with the words: I baptism you in the Name of the Father and the Son, &c. Since baptism is itself already happening in the Name of God, then it occurs, especially by the cases of necessity that it does not ever require of the man in the Office as yes it happens with the Eucharist. The person who receives it thus enters into all privileges of the divine church home, in which all baptised Christians participate. Baptism is the gateway to heaven, which may in time of need be performed in God's Name by whoever will do it. However Christ's Most Holy Sacrament is the eating and drinking of God's Body and Blood and requires the Office and thus the call to service, in order to consecrate and distribute said heavenly eating and drinking.

If, for example, the last will and testament of a man is valid and powerful in itself, this proves its power in the established inheritance, in that it proceeds in an orderly fashion through the hands or power of attorney of the authority established by God. All this was made clear to us already in 1835 and 1836 in the dispute with the United King's Church; for there were no longer the Offices of Minister and householder of Jesus Christ, rather there stood the earthly authority and by decree of a visible lord the servants of the church were only royal servants of State. Whether they repeated the words of consecration twice (before and during the administration) or more often, they did not perform the Sacrament in faith and Office under Christ’s right leading and in the divine Order of the Ministry, rather devoid of Christian Office in such strange contingency and in a confessional disposition of doubt. — Therefore those church servants distributed nothing but bread and wine. Were they merely unworthy people this would have had no ill effect on the administration of the sacrament. ‘Minime enim adimit sacramentis efficaciam, quod per indignos tractantur, quia repraesentant Christi personam propter vocationem ecclesiae, non repraesentant proprias personas, ut testatur Christus, Luk 10. 16. Qui vos audit, me audit. Cum verbum Christi, cum sacramenta porrigunt, Christi vice et loco porrigunt.’ Now here they are not merely unworthy people, who still stand in proper Office and in Christ's stead but hominis imperantis servi, earthly regents and people in secular office, thus they neither represent the Person of Christ nor minister to Christians present. And because of it their Sacrament is nothing. Apology, p. 150 [236] § 28.

COMMENT - Concerning the manifesting of the presence of the Body and Blood of Christ through Office, nothing is offered in the Pastoral Letter except that a man, not in Ministerial Office & all his assumed functions, may neither give absolution nor administer the body and blood of Christ; on the other hand, a man rightly called is a Christian witness on the Sacraments administered by a properly ordained man; and as such he may deal with us. Therefore:

a) The Presence of the Body and Blood of Christ is manifested by Christ himself as the almighty head of the church.

b) The word of consecration is the manifesting means.

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c) Ordained Office is the means by which it occurs, the causa ministrans, a Deo ordinata. Thus it agrees which that stated in the Pastoral Letter: ‘We are convinced that a man arbitrarily chosen by the congregation may neither give absolution nor administer the body and blood of Christ.’ — In his writings on the chapter in Wittenberg, Luther in no way says that the Holy Office & its right call are indifferent, rather only that the worthiness of the man in Office cannot be ascertained, the person might be unknown, evil and hypocritical; however since he stands in proper Office he may [if he were a wicked man] have slithered into Office through cunning. If this becomes apparent he must be taken from Office according to God's Word. Augsburg Confession, Article 8. Similarly if the person in Office is evil and hypocritical, the Office still remains a divine means of service in its right and power and the words of consecration are still powerful in this divine ordering, because it is Christ's Office and not a personal office and is in Christ's name that the words are spoken. Thus still lies the entire celebration of the Sacrament within the divine ordering. Apology p. 150 [236] § 28.

COMMENT 2 - This is also the original reason why Luther did not advise every housefather to administer the Eucharist to his household; the housefather does not hold Office and by such a presumption it would stand outside of divine stewardship. However, according to your [Missourians] opinion Luther could have advised every housefather to administer the Eucharist; he could have extolled the praises of the splendid power of the words of consecration & said: you see, the Word is so powerful, even without Office, that you may give the Sacrament to your household!

TO THE THIRD PART OF THE PASTORAL LETTER

THE TEACHING OF THE 5TH ARTICLE ON ENTERING CHURCH OFFICE

§ 1. The right of true independence of Christian congregations in the election of a preacher is not an issue dealt with in the Pastoral Letter, this having more to do with protection from papal measures to wilfully use the Pastor's situation and to force the people to take a preacher they do not want. However, the true independence is different from lack of restraint and choice, because proper Christian independence rests upon an unavoidable binding to the ordering of the New Testament, which, praise God! has been established and still stands within the Lutheran church. This ordering is,

a) The free choice of the congregation to have a capable man, along with the expression of the choice in oral or written vocation.

b) The proper ordination according to 2 Timothy 2; 1. 6; 1 Timothy 5.21–22 as well as the 14th Article of the Augsburg Confession (the same) being established and appointed as an article of faith and teaching.

§ 2. Your opinion, that the congregation conveys the Office, is false as cited above, & Part I, § 7 proves.

§ 3. It is false that, as you say, ecclesiastic misconduct will be rectified or made good by the choosers testing the spirit, calling upon God or assuming other noble similar tasks; the misconduct is also not made right by the choosers having the intention and the will to hear God's Word, for all this can be done by the most wicked mutineering and sectarian spirit in his own way. Ecclesiastic misconduct would thus prevent all congregations, who will be Lutheran, from holding truly to the divine ordering of the New Testament, which is contained and acknowledged, to faith and teaching, in Article 14th of the Augustana.

§ 4. Whereas the Pastoral Letter upholds the right of the congregation to choose its preacher within the New Testament ordering, it is useless to speak of the mere votum negativum by which the congregation must submit to the decision of the Ministry and the old church orders. Among other things the congregation, as well as the entire church, has to submit to the ordering of the New Testament, which exists in the Lutheran church and its church orders. The old Lutheran church orders do not just contain ‘rules for good human conduct’ but also specifically represent the divine order concerning the place of the church Ministry in practice. A congregation, which will not submit to such divine

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orders, would cease being Lutheran & would be called nothing other than a gang of mutineers. The Pastoral Letter merely intended to show how church vocation or right call was maintained in most of Germany without insisting that each act in itself belongs to divine order, where it is derived, for example, that even in the choosing as in the installation of a Minister within a local congregation the deeds are to be done in the presence of [several] Christian Pastors or Bishops as nutrix ecclesiae [the Office as the ecclesiastic tree whose fruit is the church;] I gladly concede that it might have been better for the sake of clarity not to merely take excerpts from the church orders but to immediately separate them into human and divine order and put each in its place under a proper heading.

§ 5. It is incorrect and false that you call the old Lutheran church orders ‘printed ministerial tutoring,’ for they have never been this in and of themselves and I would rather have them rightly called: conscientious, evangelical, fatherly provisions, as St. Paul says of his nurture in 2 Corinthians 11.28; the abusive, suppressing and police-like dominating organism came later, especially since the raising of the German Kaiserdom, subsequent to which a political transformation of Germany occurred. Then each land in the German war confederacy attempted to come to a particular political apex & because of it at the same time the Lutheran church was forced to be silent in political-ecclesiastic submissiveness to one or other State authority; the church committed its own sins in that since 1770 preachers and congregations allowed non-believers to gain ground. Just as the Lutheran church of Germany was forced into slavery to the State, so now the devil in America attempts to do the same thing by contrary way, with the individual congregations through lack of restrain in the churches, and the free political composition of our country assists in this because it is misused. Here in America for more than 100 years one sect or gang has risen after another, therefore it is good and necessary to preach the correct Christian freedom but it is just as necessary to point out the limits of the individual's Christian freedom with regard to the entirety of church orders and especially to warn of the abuse of biased freedom because here it is so easy for anyone to establish his own standard. There are no congregations of Lutheran-faith churches known to us, which have stood in slavelike fear before their spiritual caregivers and there are no such congregations and church members among us. Only the gangs and the confused souls fear our teaching because it is grounded in God's Word; it is for this reason that much effort is expended to cast suspicion upon it.

§ 6. We extol the praises of no man, even Luther, and much less Sts. Peter and Paul; rather we hold to the Word of God as norma fidei & give faith that we remain within the order of the Holy Office, as it was maintained by the Apostles & their learners and the congregations of the New Testament, and for our part we give properly care to His church without forgetting that God Himself may and will care for His church. We are not inclined to allow ourselves to take only a certain portion of the old orders even if we might be reprimanded by you and by our sectarians as if we wanted to protect the church beyond the realm of pure Gospel, but we do it still within the scope of the Holy Office and not outside of the divine order, or dressing the congregation in iron corsets; God's Word is written and remains with us through teaching in all things; it doesn't just teach Law and Gospel and righteousness by faith in our Lord Jesus Christ but it tells us, based on this gospel grounding, which order concerns to God's order in the institution of the Holy Office and what God thus finds as pleasing. Through this order God wants to give His church capable preachers and protect it from incapable ones. By disregarding this order the church has become full of tainted and incapable shepherds. Our faith concerning other external orders, which may be categorized as mediated things, is found in the 15th Article of the Augsburg Confession, and we may gladly concede that each congregation may use the old and valid church orders according to the circumstances in which they find themselves; however we consider it dangerous to pay too little attention to the old orders and to consider oneself skilled to introducing innovations.

TO THE FOURTH AND FIFTH PART OF THE PASTORAL LETTER

ADVICE AND ADMONITION

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§ 1. Concerning emergency baptism the church has always taught that one should not rush this. May it always remain within the power of a father, in the absence of a church servant, to administer it after a few days or a week or a longer period of time: it is still correct that the church unto the time of profession in which we currently live, recommends, if possible, waiting for the arrival of a church servant, as we Lutheran pastors have never avoided travelling even under the greatest danger of persecution; and the true members of the church in Prussia have maintained this attitude and God has sent the parents with this attitude much grace and comfort and to the children God has sent many gracious proofs, thus the harmony of the baptismal rite & the oneness of the entire church is maintained

§ 2. The postponement of wedding is only advised in the Pastoral Letter under the condition that it is possible. If according to our old church orders it's supposed to be possible for a widower to wait at least half a year before remarrying, then why shouldn't it be possible in most cases for the wedding to wait another month until one can expect the arrival of a church servant. However the church blessing given through the Holy Office before the full congregation after the betrothal has already taken place before witnesses is not recommended as a binding matter for conscience but as an expression of the profession of faith of the church in opposition to existent gangs. It is also written that the Lord will bless pious couples from Zion, not from the activity of sects. Psalm 128. May the faithless sectarians have their ‘couplings’ as they will; true and righteous faith Christians stand by the church.

§ 3. Concerning Attentiveness to Teaching and Deliberations on It. Each true Christian has and acknowledges his universal vocation, to distinguish false and true teaching; and thus for the sake of his salvation he should watch for false teaching; our preachers should also do this for the sake of their salvation. The Pastoral Letter does not discuss this. Besides this universal Christian vocation, which we all have received in holy baptism, there is, according to God's ordering, a right call, which church Ministers receive from God so that they, as called and ordained Shepherds & Teachers within the church, shall pay attention to pure doctrine & not fall to false teaching. See 1 Timothy 1. 3–4 and 4. 13 - 16; Romans 12. 7; 1 Timothy 6. 3 – 5; 2 Timothy 2. 25 – 26. 14 and 15 and 4. 2–5; Titus 1. 9–10 and 2. 10; Matthew 7. 15; John 10. 4, 5; Acts 20. 29–3.

Universal Christian vocation will be honoured and esteemed just as much as the Holy Office.

In the case of a heresy arising or if there is at least some difficulty concerning teaching:

a) Each Christian is responsible for guarding himself against false teachers, not believing in any spirit that comes along and not allowing himself to become involved with varied and strange doctrine; on the other hand.

b) Each servant of Jesus Christ's Ministry is a shepherd called by God and a watchman of the church in his district and area; he is responsible for the discovery of strange teaching from God's Word and its public disputation, the defending of proper teaching from God's Word without the use of physical weapons. 1 Corinthians 10. 3–8.

c) Now if turmoil and dispute spread so far around you that other or many congregations are endangered by it, thus involving the needs and the welfare of the entire church, the teachers of the church, and other enlightened and trusted people assembled in the name of the entire church, may discover the general error out of God's Word and defend true teaching and warn all congregations to remain true to the same, as, for example, the apostles & the preachers did in Jerusalem in Acts 15.

The Pastoral Letter only handles the case, which was introduced by us, namely that Christians go too far in the first named general vocation, that is, becoming presumptuous & impertinent. The letter only shows that this vocation, if it will stand in honesty, must proceed in the proper church order, as it is described in the 28th Article of the Augsburg Confession, where we find that a statement must first be shown as incorrect from God's Word, by means of holders of the Office, before open measures can be taken against it by individual members of the church. Such measures occurred, for example, among our mutiny-minded gangs against the old Saxon catechism (which was used in the schools,) before any consented decision was reached & the supposed errors of the catechism

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should be proven from God's Word within the church ordering. More than anything they wanted me, as their Pastor at the time, & the church board to immediately accept their opinion as true. The Confession says: if the Bishops establish something that it against the Gospel, the church shall not follow them. Now this has come to mean: ‘if they establish something, it apparently follows that it must first be proven by ordinary means whether they are establishing something, which is contrary to the gospel.’ Thus when a church member, as for example Roggenbuck, Dreyer, Zion &c. upsets this order, presume as consequence to become self-appointed judges, not merely to declare the teaching of the church false but at the same time to raise up their own deep understanding of a point of doctrine, which is contrary to salutary church confession, there is no better advice to give them & the entire alarmed congregation than to hand-over the decision, that is, the investigation, deliberation and decision to the servants in the Holy Ministry, concerning the teaching, as it is stated by the 28th Article of the Augsburg Confession, whereby the entire matter proceeds in the church ordering. In any event a Shepherd & Teacher of a congregation must, where such a presumptive atmosphere arises, retain the right to earnestly warn of this forwardness, demonstrate the truth from God's Word and provide proof of it in the symbols of the church & the church orders, in order at the very least to maintain the unseduced portion of the congregation in the ways and beliefs of the church. A Lutheran preacher, who would give up this right, would be objectionable to God! Hebrews 13.17. It is all the more tragic when there are Lutheran preachers who would assail their brother in Office in such divine commitment & duty, to taint him with suspicion and instead of advising him and offering the comfort of encouragement for happily continue in the defence of the truth, they act discouraging him, unashamedly expressing the opinion with words and pen that their brother in Office is going too far. That is deeply distressing & proof that the holy zeal for the house of the Lord is being poorly heeded with such people! that they have still not found themselves in the right battle, and indeed do not yet know what a shepherd and teacher has to do in the church of Jesus Christ! Now whoever in our congregation would quarrel with his spiritual caregiver and will not suffer heard that he has transgressed God's Word, the symbols & the church orders, indeed has trampled under feet on God's Word, the symbols, the church orders, the catechism, even Luther's writings, at the same time praising them although he has twisted them in his head in order to correspond to his own affairs; let one observe how he answers for it: we have nothing to do with them, and whoever takes such people under his protection, see if he doesn't ultimately protect the poor devil himself.

For this reason, my worthy gentlemen & friends, permit me this indulgence, so that I, as a brother in Christ with whom you, as you yourselves say, still wish to stand in similar office and work of the Lord, might observe that up to this point you still stand off course in your un-Lutheran direction, especially with the false perverting of Luther's writings. However in my efforts to be helpful, I will show in the following first Appendix the true sense of all of your previously introduced passages from Luther's writings; in the second I will count up and draw together all your mistakes.

First Appendix

Concerning the proper and true Sense of all introduced passages from Luther's Writings

§ 1. The proofs for Part I, a, b and c are from Luther's letter to the councillors and the congregations of Prague in Bohemia and state: He who has the preacher's office also has the office to administer the sacraments; however he may restrict himself to preaching alone and leave baptism and other under-offices to others. Holy Luther thus does not call baptism an under-office as it were lesser than preaching, but merely because Baptism and the Eucharist are based upon the Word of God and through the power of the Word become sacraments; since they are sacraments through the almighty Word of God, they are no less the same office as the Office of the Word. — If the sacraments were such and in themselves less, then one could leave them to others, who are not preachers; but Luther did not want to say that. Concerning Psalm 110, is in this sense that Luther declares: gospel-preaching is the proper priestly office, for it is a preaching of God's grace and the forgiveness of sins, as

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it was hard-won by the high priest Jesus Christ. This is called the proper Priestly Office of the New Testament, the command and office for which is given, owned and delivered by Christ as opposed to the papal priests' offering by lucre. Here Luther does not mainly discuss Christian Preaching Office [German, Predigtamt; one in concert with the preaching of the Word & the administration of the sacraments,] as the Pastoral Letter does, but merely the preaching of the Gospel; the preaching of Law is also not thought of here. For that you may wish to consult what Th. 1, § 6 says. —

§ 2. The proof for No. 2 is from Luther's text ‘Example, to be ordained by a proper Christian Bishop.’ Here Luther maintains:

a) That it is not determined by the good morality of the one performing the ordination.

b) That it is not determined by proper choosing by the church.

c) That the ordination, when the choosing by the church is correct, thus remains right and powerful regardless of whether the person performing the ordination is an angel or a devil - ‘and thus the ordained remains properly ordained.’ Luther in no way teaches that ordination may, in and of itself, not be necessary.

§ 3. No. 3 is from Luther's text ‘Ways to hold Christian Mass.’ Here Luther states: It may not be fitting to burden Christian conscience with laws and commands. The text arranges nothing conclusive concerning these things; it permits the freedom of the spirit to anyone determining its meaning & employ of the Mass and its orders according to time, place & people. With texts and examples of the fathers one need not prove this or that ordering (to hold Mass,) for there are things not known and what is known or somewhat known is not sufficient to draw conclusions and we certainly do not know whether these things were of one sort or another, whether they were applied through law or necessity, and whether we should follow these examples.

§ 4. Luther wishes it known that the church orders, as good as they might be, should be quickly abolished if through misuse there results a disadvantage to faith and love. All this also finds no application in the Pastoral Letter;

a) It does not concern the misuse but rather the total non-use of the church orders, and

b) It requires no misuse of the church orders, rather only the proper attention and righteous love of them. Furthermore in our entire church existence no ‘if’ or misuse has yet to enter the picture. We shall remain steadfast to the proper customs in which we, praise God! currently stand. You, however, stand far away from the proper customs.

§ 5. No. 5 is taken from Luther's interpretation of the 8th Psalm. Here Luther states: it is God's calling when a call to Ministerial Office is sent out and received, which runs beyond, and indeed contrary to, one's will, and is then confirmed by the authority of the superiors, be they spiritual or secular. People should not despise someone who seeks the Office out of godly and good intentions, 1 Timothy 3. 1. Here Luther does not discuss the order of the installation into Office but the life conduct leading to it.

COMMENT - In the words of Luther I used at the close of the third part of the Pastoral Letter, Luther discusses above all else the means of the calling, which the apostles and disciples had themselves maintained, and said that it must remain so. This is a) proper election by the congregation, b) Christian ordination. With these two things what is still required is c) internal and external ability.

§ 6. No. 6 is taken from Luther's works on the council in Wittenberg, abolishing godless ceremonies. Here Luther in no way teaches that nothing is important to the Office, rather only that the morality of the person in Office is not important and he wants men to separate the Office from the person in the administration of the sacraments. Thus the Office remains Christ's Office even though the person could be evil, deceiving us with his hypocrisy. Augsburg Confession, Article 8.

§ 7. No. 7 is taken from Luther's work ‘To the Councillors and Congregations in Prague.’ Here Luther states that housefathers may indeed baptise but in their lifetime they may not administer the Eucharist to those under their care; thus perhaps even in their lifetime they might have and did receive nothing. This is proper and speaks for our opinion of

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Office but not yours. The basis for this is laid out in Part II § 2.

§ 8. No. 8 is from Luther's answer to Melanchthon concerning human laws. Here Luther states: the Bishops are Ministers and householders of the church, but not lords of it, therefore they may impose no teachings or laws without the public or implicit consensus of the church; however the church can issue resolutions in agreement with the Bishops and abolish them, as it wishes, provided divine blessedness does not suffer because of it. Herein you will find proof that there must be no slavish fear or domination of the Preacher within the congregation. However this doesn't apply in the least to the Pastoral Letter: it does not teach about slavish fear or domination but rather admonishes to remain in the old church orders and this is appropriate to the profession of the church. Apology p. 152 [238] § 33. The Pastoral Letter knows of no lords of the church, only Shepherds & Teachers; and Christian obedience in the church, as is required by God's Word in Hebrews 13. 17, is not produced by lords but by Shepherds and Teachers.

COMMENT – The 28th Article of the Augsburg Confession, p. 39 merely contains a comparison because the functions of the proper Christian Bishop's office, especially the Christian jurisdiction of the potestas gladii or power of the sword, are set side by side and this latter power is given to those functioning as Bishops as a human right. However it does not follow that in the Confession the Bishop's office is seen as one that should have put down the obligations of conscience in each district, and makes a comparison; the Confessors just want to prove that the Bishop's Christian jurisdiction was not of the variety which must force the congregations with the sword to get them to accept something. Subsequently the congregations are placed in relation to the proper and the false jurisdiction of the Bishops. In order to recognize this, you need to read only from § 19 to § 28, from si quam to sentiunt in context. In this perspective, a) something was denied to the Bishops according to divine right, namely the power of the sword, and, b) Something was denied to the Bishops according to divine right, besides the power to ordain – whichever jurisdiction, but the proper Christian jurisdiction to forgive sins, bind sins, examine teaching, reject false teaching, confirm proper teaching from the Word of God, excommunicate the publicly godless from the church community. c) By divine order and right some things are given to the church, namely the necessary obedience towards the Christian jurisdiction of the Bishop, according to the Word of Christ in Luke 10, 16: ‘Whoever hears you, hears Me.’ d) However, because Christian jurisdiction works in the truth of divine Word and must proceed from it, it follows that when the Bishops teach or establish something which is contrary to the Gospel, then the local churches have God's command from Matthew 7. 17–23, which hinders obedience to erroneous or misused jurisdiction. Thus the Bishops & the local churches with their preachers agree; and it is taught that God's Word shall be over the Bishops as well as over the local churches; in the case of dispute between the Bishops and the local churches things must be directed according to the Word of God as to whether the Bishops or local churches are establishing something false; now if the Word of God shall publicly direct & determine, then it cannot appear out of thin air or with quarrelling in the houses but in the ordering which the Holy Scriptures and the Symbolic Books show us. Acts 15. Smalkald Articles.

§ 9. Is from Luther's text ‘Against the King Henry VIII of England.’ Here Luther defends the right of all Christians to judge the teachings of their priests (preachers), from Matthew 6, John 10.1, Corinthians 2; 3; and the word of St. Paul: ‘Test everything;’ the spiritual man judges everything. Everything is yours, be it Apollo, Paul or Kephas; that is, you have the power to judge over all words and deeds. — All well and good! In accordance with Christian vocation & spiritual priesthood, all Christians have the right and also the duty to distinguish between proper and false teaching; the papist Henry VIII wanted to take that right away from Christians. Luther spoke against it, but he did not discuss the holy Order, in which this right is wholesomely used. The right is not disputed in the Pastoral Letter, rather it is defended: if a Pastor comes to erroneous teaching then the congregation will not be indifferent so far as it is credible; and the Pastoral Letter doesn't contradicts this, it better shows that’s by the Order that the right to correction may be wholesomely practiced, thereby guarding again all sinful impertinence & resultant confusion. Luther does not say here that for the sake of this right all Christians are equally talented and capable of determining in all cases, especially the difficult ones, and decide how to base

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the determination without question of doubt from the analogies of Scripture and faith. Thirdly, he also does not say that along with this right of all Christians comes the right to be a tribunal to judge the doctrine of the Shepherds & Teachers of the church, Article 28 of the Augsburg Confession; [the faithful are wardens,] and this remains with them and belongs to the God-given jurisdiction. Whoever does not believe this is a fanatic and he strays in contradiction to the 28th Article of the Augsburg Confession.

§ 10. No. 10 is from Luther's text ‘Example, to consecrate a proper Christian Bishop.’ Here Luther teaches that each sheep has within himself the power and the right to flee from the wolves whenever he must. John 10: ‘My sheep flee the strangers.’ This is quite correct; however with it we still do not have a healthy ordering, in which the right call shall be exercised; we have no proof that Master Roggenbuck, &c. has the sufficient ability to judge preachers and catechism; we also have no proof that with it the jurisdiction of teaching, given by God and bestowed by Office, has been taken away from the shepherds and teachers of the church.

For this reason all these allegations from Luther are inappropriately applied to the Pastoral Letter. —

SECOND APPENDIX

OVERVIEW OF YOUR ACCUMULATED ERRORS

I. You treat Luther's writings (unfortunately as the reverse of what they are) as norma fidei; in another place you call them the source of church teaching.

II. You declare the holy ordination of church Ministers a human precept.

III. You reduce the old church orders to mere antiquated facts and create ecclesiastic disunity and sinful independence out of Christian freedom.

IV. You erroneously maintain that the congregation transfers the Office upon the Pastor.

V. You erroneously maintain that the introduction of one particular church ordering for all congregations in agreement will be harmful.

VI. You erroneously maintain that we must allow the old Lutheran church orders to fall here.

VII. You erroneously maintain that in the rite vocatus, Article XIV, the incumbent’s ability is not addressed.

VIII. You erroneously teach that, contrary to God's Word, the congregation may make an unqualified man a preacher.

IX. You erroneously deny that the congregation is obliged to be obedient to its spiritual caregiver in all things which are not contrary to the Word of God; whether it remains obliged to him, according to Hebrews 13. 17, to accomplish and carry out individual tasks such as the necessary building of a school, is another matter. The obedient execution of a matter might often be postponed according to circumstance, yet obedience itself is still not suspended.

X. You commit error when you hold discernment of Christian Doctrine within the general Christian priesthood calling it equally important to the judgment or deliberation of Ministers on points of dispute.

XI. You commit error when you maintain that God does not deal with us through the Holy Office of the Ministry [that’s one co-existing with the Word, since it is Christ’s Ministry.].

XII. It is contrary to God's Word and the teaching of the church that you would [furtively promoting everyone preaching publicly] reduce the Ministerial Office to a means of service to the Sacrament and enclosing it into a mere few words of the applicant’s installation.

XIII. It is false that you declare the old Lutheran church orders as ‘oppressing ministerial guardianship.’

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XIV. It is false that you turn the Shepherds and Teachers of the church, who have been installed by God, into mere helpful friends of the congregations, who should be grateful for this beneficence; this proofs that you do not have the proper idea of Holy Ministerial Office.

XV. It is erroneous and sinful that you do not truly and earnestly refer your congregations to the old & reverent orders of the Lutheran church; instead you conceal them & the congregations have to develop new church orders derived out ‘of their own lives, needs and activities.’ The old church orders are derived from God's Word and they truly serve the life of the congregations.

XVI. It is erroneous and sinful that you reduce the Ministerial Sacred Office over God's mysteries to judgments of teaching and almost completely deny it its rightful status, retaining God and His Word off the congregations under the pretext that Christians must discern the difference between proper and false teaching; and it is sinful that you misuse the writings of blessed Luther for this purpose.

XVII. It is erroneous and sinful that you still have not rescinded the new, false church orders of 1841, in which it states: ‘decisions in matters of conscience belong to the congregations when the application of the Word of God is doubtful in certain cases and operations. In cases of dispute, decisions concerning the use of absolution and binding also belong to the congregations and the congregations also have a right to enact public professions of faith and a right to lay down norms for teaching and orders for services to God.’ If the congregation is charged with all these things instead of their spiritual caregivers, yet you still intend prove it with God's Word, are you demonstrating that you are still shepherds and guards of the church to the salvation & holiness of the souls, or slaves to your congregations? One must be shocked at the prospect of such a newly developed church order; it is, in fact, born out of folly rather than God's Word. What would we want with such rubbish, when we already have the old church orders, firmly established by the Word of God! It would be my heartfelt wish that you come to your senses concerning what you're doing!

Finally, I assure you that I cannot recognize you as Lutheran Pastors who still seriously hold to God's Word and the Symbols and I recognize that the spirit, which prevails in your critique of the Pastoral Letter, is a lax and non-ecclesiastic spirit.

May the Lord have mercy on you again, as He did the first time when He drew you from Stephanism; one can not fail to recognize that you currently steep yourselves in a non-ecclesiastic, a liberalism proper of the Revolt, which is the extreme opposite of Stephanism; it is for this reason that your anti-ecclesiastic critique finds so much approval with our mutiny-minded members. You will have to answer for the harm you have caused if at some point you do not recognize your confusion with proper penance. God help us, that we may openly and joyously oppose your false, anti-ecclesiastic spirit with the power of our Holy Ministerial Office if you do not repent. Then, it seems, we will have to repeat much in public battle against you, which we already carried out against the unionist, anti-ecclesiastic revolutionary liberalism in Prussia. With this I commend you to the grace of God through our Lord Jesus Christ and the worthy enlightenment of the Holy Spirit in His Word, in the Name of Jesus, Amen.

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Postscript

To the Pastors Kindermann and Krause in Wisconsin.

Honoured and Beloved Brothers in Christ!

I pass this anti-critique on to you with the request that you carefully examine it and with the authorization to condemn it or to strike out anything, which is not correct within it. Make a copy and forward it to Pastor Löber, Reverend; Altenburg, Perry County, Apple Creek, Post Office, State of Missouri.

Your Brother in Christ

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Joh. Andr. Aug. Grabau.

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Freystatt, Town Nine, August 5, 1844

After receiving the critique of the beloved brothers in Office, the reverend Pastors of Missouri, and the Pastoral Letter of beloved Pastor Grabau and comparing the critique with God's Word, the symbolic books and Dr. Luther's writings as well as the old true proofs of the Lutheran church, and holding it up to the content of the Pastoral Letter, I can give my most complete agreement concerning the in sight anti-critique of Pastor Grabaus and can declare myself totally of one mind with this, his anti-critique and at the same time wish with him, that in this emergency as well in all offered debates and instructions to the ministerial brothers in Missouri may produce a non-sectarian reconsideration and a renunciation of their un-Lutheran point of view. May God dispose!

Lff. Krause, Ev. Luth. Pastor

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Kirchhayn, Town Ten, August 21, 1844

‘Long Live Truth and Peace!’

As much as my heart would have peace in the church of God and particularly within the doctrinal profession, for the sake of peace I cannot forget the truth. Since I find pure truth humbly and discreetly expressed in the anti-critique of Pastor Grabau, I heartily agree with it and hope that it may be as instructive to others as it was to me.

Kindermann, Ev. Luth. Pastor

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A Letter from Pastor Grabau to Pastor Brohm in New York

Enclosed with the Refutation.

Buffalo, June 26, 1844

Grace and Peace in Christ!

Beloved Brother in Office! I thank you for your kind response of May 30th. You think ill of me that I have not yet sent you the Missouri critique of my Pastoral Letter. Despite my best intentions this was impossible for me and I bear the guilt in so far as I have not yet received your pardon. I had to retain the original since I still needed it. — On to matters!

First. The main point of our dispute is in addition to other points on the proper distinction between the spiritual priesthood of all believers and the Office of Shepherd & Teacher in the church. In your letter you, however, narrow the issue and limit yourself to an individual church procedure, namely the ordination of the church minister. — I will gladly follow you here and state from God's Word concerning ordination.

You place Christian ordination under vocation or choosing of the local congregation, declare the later necessary to Office, the former unnecessary but useful. To this I must respond that within the ordering, one is as necessary as the other. Since 1) In Acts 6 the Apostles command: Beloved brothers! look for seven men, who have good reputations and are filled with the Holy Spirit, &c. Thus they command the choosing or vocation of the congregation. 2) Then it follows: What we may order, &c. that was the ordination, as verse 6 shows. For evidence that ordination was the Apostle's command, see 2 Timothy 2. 2 where St. Paul states imperatively: ‘the same entrust thou to faithful men, who shall be able to also teach others.’ Said command is about the Office and its exercise is ordination. When St. Paul required that Timothy must give the Office through ordination it was the same as an order by St. Paul. However all the Apostles likewise order whatever St. Paul orders; thus ordination was an order of the Apostles. Whatever the Apostles have commanded be done in the church is necessary. Since ordination is commanded, it is necessary. Whatever is necessary may not be discontinued under ordinary circumstances;

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I say ordinary circumstances because the truly necessary and misfortunate circumstances lie beyond the possibility of ordinary matters. As said necessary and misfortunate circumstances compelled our ancestors in the times of pestilence and siege within a city or other tragic events. Then our great God bound Himself freely, gracefully and paternally to a peculiar order. In such cases, as for example when the war's devastation of 1806 and 1812 was with us, where many Pastors were driven from their parishes by force and had to set up headquarters in foreign parts, then some of the cantors and sextons were found reading the Word of God aloud to the people in the villages and giving a portion of them the authority to baptise, absolve, administer the Eucharist *, performing marriages, &c., even through they were neither called to the vocation nor ordained. Compare here Acts 8, 4. Also found in 1 Corinthians 16. 15 no call in the local congregation. It could arise when there is pressing need, that both operations are lacking. However this does not nullify the divine order, grounded in the New Testament, when the need is past and the order must be reinstated. There is no passage in the Holy Scripture where the ordinary means of the calling by the local congregation is declared indispensable but Christian ordination is declared optional; rather in ordinary circumstances they are equally important and necessary, however in times of dire misfortune they are equally dispensable; indeed in the last case it is always better that at the very least a calling from the local congregation may occur and then after the misfortune has passed an ordination can and may follow, provided the person is found capable — **. In Acts of the Apostles one encounters more general ordinations than

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* Of which (administering the Eucharist) I do not approve, since it was not necessary for salvation, as is baptism.

** However a speedy ordination could occur with an individual, whose ability has already been determined, without the choosing of the afflicted local congregation and thus he may help it.

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callings by local congregations, as you can see in Acts 14. 23; 1Timothy 4.14 and 5. 22; 2 Timothy 1.16 & 2. 2; Titus 1.5. This was based on the genetic relationships of the new congregations as they came over out of heathendom. It does please me that you at least say that ordination is not to be discontinued without need, however I am not pleased that in general you say that it is less necessary than the choosing by the local congregation. To other points. You say: ordination is very useful and holy, partly because it assures the properly called of the divinity of his call and even this knowledge strengthens him in future attacks upon his Office, and partly for the sake of faithful prayer, which is bound to the laying-on of hands and certainly does not remain ungranted, for through it the Lord of the harvest equips His workers with the spiritual gifts inherent to the Office. — Admittedly this is already somewhat better and more honourable than our Missouri friends discuss in any portion of their text. Second; But how should one bring it all together so that the called shall be assured in Christian ordination of the divinity of his call and yet ordination is an unmandated thing. Can an unmandated and perhaps not necessary matter assure me of the divinity of my call? — My beloved brother! If you wish to speak honestly, you must say: No! if ordination has no apostolic mandate [But the Smalkald Articles teach exactly in antagonism, ‘wir haben eine gewisse Lehre, dass das Predigtamt wom gemeinen Beruf der apostel herkomt,’ to wit, ‘we have a explicit doctrine, that the Predigtamt is rooted in the Apostles’ Office,’ (AE, Trigl. p. 506) AC. V; AC. 28. 5f.; 21f.; Apol. 12.39ff.; Apol. 14.1,] then it's a mere customary ceremony, which imparts no certainty and no comfort in times of attack; I must rely upon the general calling of the local congregation and from it take comfort in the divinity of my call. However, the most wholesome honesty would be this, that you unconditionally give the Word of God the honour & you recognized that Christian ordination has apostolic mandate; and only for this reason can it impart a true assurance of the divinity of vocation and comfort in time of attack.

COMMENT: Just as seldom as the Office of the called becomes legitimate by virtue of mere

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Ritus ordinationis, so too the Office of the ordained becomes legitimate because of the mere Ritus vocandi. The ritual makes nothing legitimate; as such it is an adiaphore, rather it is the Word and command of God, imparted in the rite, which makes the Office legitimate.

Third. You can, as you say, not understand why I maintain that Christ the Lord instituted Christian ordination, however the Apostles expressly gave the order. — Beloved brother, have you not read John 20, ‘as my Father sent me,’ &c. and Matthew 28, ‘Go forth,’ &c. Did the Lord not command and bind the Office to His chosen apostles? Was this first ordination and command not at the same time the institution of the Office for all times and lands? Was it also not at the same time the installation of the successio doctrinalis or succession of pure teaching? He offered us not by message but by example His command to the Office with the laying of hands upon them (Luke 24.) He called them to the vocatione immediata after He had St. John baptise them, as you can see in Matthew 4, Luke 5, Mark 6. As ones immediately called, they had to help Him in His special work, announcing the kingdom of God to the house of Israel. However, the subsequent command, ‘go forth,’ &c. was the unconditional empowerment to all offices and operations, just as today ordination still is.

Thus I ask you to look at the following passages with proper earnestness.

I. Acts 1. 2, where St. Luke considers necessary 1) to declare that Christ the Lord first chose the apostles, 2) that he placed the Office upon them and this Office is in verses 4 and 8. This agrees with Luke 24. 48 – 50 [and John 20. 20-22.]

II. Secondly, Acts 10. 41–42. Here St. Paul says: God has chosen you (the Apostles) first to be witnesses of Christ and to preach His resurrection.

III. Acts 13. 2. Here the Holy Spirit orders, ‘Set apart for me,’ &c. and verses 3 and 4 that they were sent forth after their commission and ordination by the Holy Spirit. Do these three passages not tell you that the Lord Jesus Christ, along with the Holy Spirit, created and instituted ordination? These proofs of God have been proffered to the church just as seldom as the above teaching was taught, namely that the Lord, 1) Chose twelve men to be Apostles, 2) Gave them the order to work out the Office after His resurrection & ordained them. However the other part, that His apostles stated ordination after His Ascension into heaven with the spreading of the church, without a doubt enlightens you to that fact. Kindly also consult 1 Peter 5.2 (pertaining to nothing other than ordinations held by the Apostles, as in 2 Timothy 2. 2 and Titus 1. 5.) Within it is explained the analogy of Scriptures and faith.

You will still want to consider the following examples from Scripture:

I. Matthias was the Apostle chosen 1. In a lottery, by Christ. 2. After which he was ordained by the eleven Apostles.

II. St. Paul's calling is found in Acts 9. 15. The Lord on the road to Damascus made this choosing known to him. 2. His ordination in verse 17, and Chapter 22. 12—16. Ananias must have performed it. In Romans 1.1 he finds comfort in his calling to become an Apostle of the Lord and his commission or ordination to preach the Gospel. Also in verses 14 and 15; Acts 13. 46--47.

III. Timothy and Titus were ordained by St. Paul to Holy Office without having been called by a local congregation. The ordination of St. Paul per se included the choosing by the Lord, and any local congregation could dispute the choosing and not acknowledge the ordination of St. Paul & the other Apostles.

IV. It is stated in Acts 1. 17 concerning Judas Iscariot, ‘who was counted among us’ (Luke 16;) that is, was chosen to the Ministry of Christ and through said choosing of the Lord had been accepted into the Office with us; however he went and hanged himself and thus could not have been able of exercising the Office in this world. — So someone else took his place. Now you ask, why the Lord and His apostles instituted two ecclesiastic procedures in the call [approval & ordination] as divine order, whereby competent people should be brought to the Office? — Here is the answer: so that hereafter out wits would have little to

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question; it is apparent that it also pleased the all-knowing Lord and Master to assure His Ministers of proper divine call through a twofold ecclesiastic procedure & to help His church through true choosing and through ordination. Indeed a cripple can stand for a certain length of time on one foot; the ordinarily healthy man has two feet upon which he may stand firm and walk.

Finally you may wish to examine the following passages from the Symbols, from which you may see that this teaching was not crept into the church but was considered teaching in the entire church, which is contrary to how you interpret it, as depreciating the value of church ordination and wishing to suggest that it was introduced by deception into the church.

I. The Apology to the Augsburg Confession [XIII (VII,) 12] states: Si ordo (qui habet mandatum Dei) hoc modo intelligatur, &c. — quod scimus, Deum approbare ministerium illud et adesse in ministerio. Do you not see that the Apology discusses the divine mandatum ordinandi here? and thus calls for a mandatum de constituendis ministris and, note well, the Apology does not discuss the call of a local congregation here but rather de ordinatione.

II. The Smalkald Articles, p. 323 [496,] Idoneos ad hoc officium ipsi ordinare debemus et volumus; where debemus et volumus (ought and want to) meaning that ordination is not a daydream doctrine that one must attribute to the papist Bishops rather than one being duty-bound to God's Word.

III. Ibid, p. 321 [508,] Hunc morem Cyprianus vocat, divinam traditionem et apostolicam observationem.

IV. Ibid 353 [522-23,] Quare necesse est ecclesiam retinere jus vocando et ordinandi ministros. Here both laws will be likewise posited. — idque etiam communissima ecclesiae consuetudo testatur &c. Here it is proven that both divine commands have become the most communally shared church custom. Unfortunately you make mere approval or bearing witness to the call out of confirmation of election (confirmatio electi). What moved you to insert the primary substitution word ‘mere’? And is it right to make mere bearing witness to vocation out of confirmation of election; to make it mere witnessing that he is called by the local congregation?

The approval or agreement of the local congregation is in itself divine precept and needs no witness to the call, nor sanction nor confirmation — but the choosing or the calling needs said approval and confirmation according to God's order and therefore accedebat episcopus, qui confirmabat electum, non electionem. [The church first agrees & later gives the Axios, ‘it is right!’ but the Office is engendered by the Office; for this ordination by laying on hands {currently done this way} confirms the nomination of the chosen conferring to them the Holy Order.] V. Dr. Lutherus states in his essay on Ordination Masses & Parish Consecrations: ‘Also listen to how poorly (simply) St. Paul speaks of ordaining in 2 Timothy 2, 'what you have heard of me' &c.’ — Here there is (with ordination) neither chrism nor butter (in the papal manner), only the command to teach God's Word. Whoever has that, is what St. Paul considered Pastor, Bishop, et al. — What might holy Luther talk about ordination, if St. Paul had not spoken of ordination as an office given by God and primarily belonging to divine order?

Further he states: ‘our consecration [as priests or ministers] shall be called ordination of call to the Office.’ — Further he also states, ‘and even if the priest's fingers are not perfumed with chrism (as in papal ordination,) they shall be sufficiently anointed when they had touched the Sacrament.’ These words convey no other sense than that the exercise of the Ministry begins with ordination, which pleases God even without chrism because God's command and His Office are present.

VI. Aegidius Strauch, the Lutheran hero against the Syncretists, says in the sermon on the worker in the vineyard: ‘In holy ordination the blessed Preacher's Office [Predigtamt] is entrusted to God’s Minister & thus the bond cannot be broken by man for it is a matrimonial tie.’ In this it may be seen that Aegidius declares ordination a divine order made indestructible by God's power.

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VII. Blessed Carpzovius introduced from the work of Dr. Hulsemann, a champion against Calvinism, a passage which states: ‘In ordinatione distinguendeum est inter id, quod ad essentiam vocationis necessarium est et id, quod ad capacitatem subjecti vocati declarandum, ejusque segregationem solemnem, a negotiis seculi nec non commodationem apud Deum et coram Ecclesia pertinet.’ The first part concerning essentiam vocationis, referring to the essence of the congregation's calling, does not require ordination; it does not add to the essence of vocation, which is a divine right within itself [since it is the call of Christ himself;] however, ordination is necessary in the later part in that it relates directly to the character of the called man, whose ability is publicly acknowledged, thereby declaring successio doctrinalis, separating the man from the world and handing him over to the service of God. In this part Dr. Hulsemann teaches that it is necessary by divine command and order. — And so it is that even if this essential nature of ordination should appear unnecessary and superfluous to our wits and reason, it remains necessary and shall be acknowledged as such with regard to the subjecti vocati, who is publicly called as a proper minister of Christ according to God's order.

VIII. The blessed Pastor in Dresden & Hamburg, Rev. Krumholz (Versus Catholicismus Protestantium) states in the Sermon of 4th Sunday of Advent: ‘If an evangelical preacher is called, ordained and consecrated, as the Holy Scriptures & especially the New Testament would have it, if he also delivers the souls entrusted to him to Jesus, then one can find no fault with such an evangelical priest.’ — He also teaches that Christ ordained His disciples (John 20.)

Now you wish to demonstrate that He did not ordain them.

IX. The blessed Dr. Mengering (Superintendent in Halle) (Informatio Conscientiae) states in the Sermon of Dom. Quasimod.: ‘thus he who is called (that is, chosen and ordained) to the Preaching Office, as it is prescribed to us in the Epistles of St. Paul to Timothy and Titus, ministers in a right and godly Christian vocation.’

X. From the Golzi Church Order,* praised by the entire church and treasured by all (Frankfurt on the Oder, 1687.) Here it states in the formula of ordination: ‘thus we will ordain and install, with the laying-on of hands and with yours and our prayers for the church and the Preaching Office, to a man, in whom we see no deficiency; all power and authority, which the Lord Christ has handed over and bequeathed to His church & its Ministers, is handed over and completely transferred.’ Hic imponunt ipsi manus. ‘Thus we accept you as a Minister of Christ and a Preacher of His holy Gospel; He gives you, with the laying-on of hands according to the Apostles’ teaching & the first church's practice, complete power & authority to state publicly God's Word and to preach purely and diligently and truthfully; further we hand over to you similar power and authority of the Lord Christ to absolve and bind sins, to administer the Holy Sacrament and to adopt & use other practices in the Office of the Church of Christ, with our true and earnest warning that you allow yourself to be ordered in this Office to the utmost and with complete seriousness, &c.’

From the following prayer - ‘Thus thou hast wished that these, thy Ministers whom thou hast called to this Office through ordained means & whom we accept and install to the Preaching Office according to thine command and order, shall be guided in thy great grace, &c.’ Here at the end - ‘diligently attend your Office as you are called by God to it, that you shall be a true servant of Jesus Christ, to proclaim His holy Name by pure teaching of the Gospel, to which we call and send you through the authority of God, just as God has sent us.’

Has this public formula and the teaching behind it been infiltrated into the church? Surely not. Hasn't the church taught, it wouldn't or couldn't give rise to such a thing. It properly grounds itself with power and humility in God's Word.

In the old Hamburg Church Order of 1726 the ordaining Pastor speaks: ‘I commend you to previously stated pledges and oaths,

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* Do not take it badly that I show you the church orders, to which the friends from Missouri have paid little attention; I do this according to the example of the old church teachers such as Conrad Portae, whose words state: ‘For this reason I did not want to place specific citations concerning ordination, because instruction concerning it can be found in other good books and church orders.’

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from God & because of the Office, to preach as Minister and Teach the Gospel of God, and administer the blessed sacraments, &c.’ — Don't you see what kind of teaching according to 2 Timothy 2, 2 is grounded here?

XII. In the Electorate of Saxony Church Order of 1580 the ordaining Pastor says: ‘And so I ordain, confirm & establish you according to divine order and decree as a Minister & spiritual caregiver to this congregation; with the earnest command that you will preside honourably in true fear of God.’ Don't you see that here the ordaining, confirming and establishing of the man happens out of divine command and order? — The same church order on p. 105 declares the external ceremony of the laying-on of hands in ordination as adiaphoron, but not the ordination itself. However because of the ceremony the impositio manuum or laying-on of hands occurs.

XIII. In the Nuremberg Church Order of 1592: ‘Thus the Preaching Office, which the Lord Himself established, is installed and ordained, always coming one after the other, through the laying-on of hands and communication of the Holy Spirit unto this hour.’ It is also the proper consecration, by which one should bless the priests; it's been done this way everywhere and always and it should remain this way.’ Ordination in itself is declared divine order here, which people should retain for all time and everywhere & which is to be distinguished from ceremonies of human invention.

XIV. In the Pomeranian Church Order and Agenda of 1690 concerning choosing and ordination: ‘The choosing and the calling are done by the Christian church, which we preachers shall serve, &c. St. Paul commanded in ordination that the Christian Bishops and Elders must lay hands on no one unless they had been previously tested and interrogated and then singled out & confirmed to the Holy Preaching Office.’ Further: ‘God the Lord will have said order maintained, as one sees, when the Holy Spirit pronounced the same concerning them in Jeremiah - those, who come and are not sent out, and those, who break in and allow themselves to be installed without ordination.’ Further: ‘Therefore we now want to confirm, according to Apostolic tradition, the men presented for the Preaching Office; consider God's Word over them, invoke God above them and command them with prayer and laying-on of hands to the Holy Office, that they should remain separate from worldly matters and serve our Lord Christ in the Preaching Office.’

XV. In the witnessing of the ordination, which according to the Pomeranian Church Order should be performed on the new Pastors, it states: ‘Manifestum est, pios episcopos in ecclesia profitente Evangelium Domini nostri Jesu Christi, habere jus et potestatem ordinandi et constituendi presbyteros et ministros Evangelii sicut docent haec dicta Christi et Pauli: 'sicut me misit &c.' Et Paulus Tito Superintendenti ecclesiarum Dei in Creta inquit: 'Te reliqui ibi &c.' Et Timotheo, episcopo Ephesi inquit: 'Nemini cito manus impone &c.’

Here it is also maintained that righteous faith Bishops, which according to the declarations of Christ and Paul are commanded, have the right and the authority to ordain church ministers and to mandate and to assign their ministerium tradere or Ministerial Office. Is it also not taught here that ordination is divine command and order? *

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* COMMENT - Often the ancients did think that ordinatio subjecti vocati is a particular expression of successio doctrinalis within the righteous faith church. This is also realized in 2 Timothy 2, 2. Through this, ordination becomes a guarantee of righteous faith and ability to teach; this is continual and requires no repeating, whereas the imparting of full power of authority, which begins in ordination, requires a repetition [in connection to the priest installed in a new place or rank of the Ministry.] Consequently ordination becomes

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an action that relies upon the unity of faith: thus the prohibition in 1 Timothy 5. 22, where, if it is overridden, a heretic could easily be infiltrated.

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Then it states later in reference to the ceremony at the ordination: ‘Ritas etiam expresse ab Apostlis traditus est, ut vocati, facta exploratione doctrinae et vitae, oratione et impositione manuum presbyterii ad ministerium ordinentur, segregati a mundo, ad opus propagandi Evangelii, consecrati Deo et sic Ecclesiae facta publica invocatione commendentur.’

Here even those things, which have been added in the ordination to the customary rite of the Apostles of the church may be omitted since only the rite, not the customs around it, are ordered. I now hope, beloved brother, that you will perceive in all these points of teaching on how the church of living faith has maintained these things in praxis throughout the entirety of Germany -- how ordination is divine order, instituted by Christ and commanded by the Apostles. The external ritual, which accompanies it - laying on one hand, two hands, no hands, &c. -- these are considered works of Christian freedom, which one can maintain and also should, but only as pious practice and not as command of Christ & the Apostles.

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