[2020-07-27: added links at bottom to text of Wyneken's response to Leipzig Conference]
This continues from Part 11 (Table of Contents in Part 3), a series presenting an English translation of Pastor Christian Hochstetter's 1885 496-page book entitled (abbreviated) The History of the Missouri Synod, 1838-1884. — We see in this chapter that Old Missouri fully understood the spiritual situation in Germany at the time of the emigration and in later decades. Walther knew of the remnant in Germany and heaped praise and thanks onto those who supported the American Lutherans. And he "paid" for their support by clearly laying out for Germany what Lutheranism is, especially in and among the congregations. Unfortunately, long before Germany's great military and political fall of the 20th century, it largely rejected the counsel of… C. F. W. Walther. This chapter contains much of the content of Walther's (and Wyneken's) Open Letter to the church in Germany. It is sad that in hindsight, Germany in many respects did not heed this clear plea to return to its roots. The Walther-Wyneken trip to Germany and the early synodical conventions were settings where the true Lutheran doctrines were beginning to be strongly defended… as they were in the Reformation century.
This continues from Part 11 (Table of Contents in Part 3), a series presenting an English translation of Pastor Christian Hochstetter's 1885 496-page book entitled (abbreviated) The History of the Missouri Synod, 1838-1884. — We see in this chapter that Old Missouri fully understood the spiritual situation in Germany at the time of the emigration and in later decades. Walther knew of the remnant in Germany and heaped praise and thanks onto those who supported the American Lutherans. And he "paid" for their support by clearly laying out for Germany what Lutheranism is, especially in and among the congregations. Unfortunately, long before Germany's great military and political fall of the 20th century, it largely rejected the counsel of… C. F. W. Walther. This chapter contains much of the content of Walther's (and Wyneken's) Open Letter to the church in Germany. It is sad that in hindsight, Germany in many respects did not heed this clear plea to return to its roots. The Walther-Wyneken trip to Germany and the early synodical conventions were settings where the true Lutheran doctrines were beginning to be strongly defended… as they were in the Reformation century.
Some quotes from Chapter 8: (217-256)
220: "the Saxon brothers had issued a publication, the Der Lutheraner, and this had become the means of bringing together the scattered, faithful Lutheran pastors"
223: To the Germans: "Come over, see and examine for yourselves, and then judge whether you do not like this active, joyful life, founded on the Word of God and flowing from it"
224: "we will not degrade ourselves to be servants of men"
225: Walther "In our country the pastor does not rule over the people, nor the people over the pastor, but both are ruled by God's Word."
233: "papistical mischief begins with the praise of indifferent ceremonies" [Piepkorn, "Gottesdienst"]
235: "they also asserted that the power to believe lay in the Word of God, not in the person of the pastor; therefore, even when the Word is read, the Word can exercise its power." [Cp. to LCMS teaching.]
235: "The testimony given against Hoefling also refuted the accusation… [that] the Missourians wanted to reject the divine order of the ministerial office." [A common accusation by Scaer and Romanizing Lutherans.]
240: German advice for Grabau, that "he must therefore continue the fight which he waged against Prussian liberalism in America against the Missourians!" [Cp. to later charges that Missourians were crypto-Calvinists!]
241: Wyneken's response to German conferences against Missouri: "'Only those congregations which in their conscience could no longer bear it — have we accepted,' the Missouri Synod responded"
245: "the mere scholarship which most German scholars practice does not lead to the inner certainty nor to the fraternal unity and agreement"
246: "Prof. Walther had taken note of the sad paralysis of the Protestant consciousness in Germany during his journey"
250: "Pastor Grabau and his followers hereby imposed the ban on the entire Missouri Synod"
251: "the congregation… did not place their property at the feet of the Buffalo Synod"
253: "It was a great misery; at last the temptation taught us to remember the Word."
223: To the Germans: "Come over, see and examine for yourselves, and then judge whether you do not like this active, joyful life, founded on the Word of God and flowing from it"
224: "we will not degrade ourselves to be servants of men"
225: Walther "In our country the pastor does not rule over the people, nor the people over the pastor, but both are ruled by God's Word."
233: "papistical mischief begins with the praise of indifferent ceremonies" [Piepkorn, "Gottesdienst"]
235: "they also asserted that the power to believe lay in the Word of God, not in the person of the pastor; therefore, even when the Word is read, the Word can exercise its power." [Cp. to LCMS teaching.]
235: "The testimony given against Hoefling also refuted the accusation… [that] the Missourians wanted to reject the divine order of the ministerial office." [A common accusation by Scaer and Romanizing Lutherans.]
240: German advice for Grabau, that "he must therefore continue the fight which he waged against Prussian liberalism in America against the Missourians!" [Cp. to later charges that Missourians were crypto-Calvinists!]
241: Wyneken's response to German conferences against Missouri: "'Only those congregations which in their conscience could no longer bear it — have we accepted,' the Missouri Synod responded"
245: "the mere scholarship which most German scholars practice does not lead to the inner certainty nor to the fraternal unity and agreement"
246: "Prof. Walther had taken note of the sad paralysis of the Protestant consciousness in Germany during his journey"
250: "Pastor Grabau and his followers hereby imposed the ban on the entire Missouri Synod"
251: "the congregation… did not place their property at the feet of the Buffalo Synod"
253: "It was a great misery; at last the temptation taught us to remember the Word."
Images of some men appearing in Chapter 8: (217-256)
 |
| Loehe —— Wucherer —— Guericke —— Harless —— Hoefling — Muenchmeyer — Ahlfeld –— Kahnis — Gersdorf |
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The following is an English translation of C. Hochstetter's Geschichte… by BackToLuther utilizing the DeepL Translator with minor assistance from Dr. Fred Kramer's translation. All hyperlinks, highlighting and red text in square brackets [] are mine. All internal hyperlinks are active in this embedded window, external links should be opened in a new tab or window.
I found this chapter to be the perfect answer to all the modern Lutheran historians, LC-MS or otherwise, who claim that Old Missouri did not fully understand the spiritual situation in 19th century Germany. Even the high court preacher Dr. von Harless "had little hope for a prosperous development of the Lutheran Church in Germany." (p. 233). One example of Old Missouri's full understanding of the spiritual situation in Germany is demonstrated by Pastor Muenchmeyer. All accounts of him, whether Christian Cyclopedia, Concordia Cyclopedia or Wikipedia, offer no hint of his theological weaknesses, only his strengths.
Yet we see in Hochstetter's History the very real weakness that Muenchmeyer had in the doctrine of the Church (p. 238). He published essays which explicitly differed from, and even criticized, the Lutheran Confessions.
One of the greatest benefits of Pres. Matthew Harrison's At Home in the House of My Fathers (CPH 2011) is the portion translating Walther's own report of his trip with Wyneken to Germany as covered in pages 47-106. I am still studying it for Walther's rich content and further history. We read in it more of how Germany supported the Missouri Synod's growth before it later rejected and repudiated it. — After the break below, further comments, then the fine print version. — In the next Part 13, Chapter 9.
Dr. Christoph Barnbrock reported the following on the split between Loehe and the young Missouri Synod: "Hermann Sasse once called this one of the 'most shocking events in the history of the Lutheran Church of the 19th century.'" (Nineteenth-Century Lutheran Theologians, p. 217) Since Sasse's theology was closer to Loehe's than Walther's, his "shock" is not surprising. The break with Loehe was quite a blow to many in the young Missouri, as any church division causes much heartache. But the Lord cannot bless those who would "loveth father or mother more than me." Matt. 10:37. —
2020-07-27: For Wyneken's 1854 response to the Leipzig Conference, see German text here, rough English translation here.
Yet we see in Hochstetter's History the very real weakness that Muenchmeyer had in the doctrine of the Church (p. 238). He published essays which explicitly differed from, and even criticized, the Lutheran Confessions.One of the greatest benefits of Pres. Matthew Harrison's At Home in the House of My Fathers (CPH 2011) is the portion translating Walther's own report of his trip with Wyneken to Germany as covered in pages 47-106. I am still studying it for Walther's rich content and further history. We read in it more of how Germany supported the Missouri Synod's growth before it later rejected and repudiated it. — After the break below, further comments, then the fine print version. — In the next Part 13, Chapter 9.
Dr. Christoph Barnbrock reported the following on the split between Loehe and the young Missouri Synod: "Hermann Sasse once called this one of the 'most shocking events in the history of the Lutheran Church of the 19th century.'" (Nineteenth-Century Lutheran Theologians, p. 217) Since Sasse's theology was closer to Loehe's than Walther's, his "shock" is not surprising. The break with Loehe was quite a blow to many in the young Missouri, as any church division causes much heartache. But the Lord cannot bless those who would "loveth father or mother more than me." Matt. 10:37. —
2020-07-27: For Wyneken's 1854 response to the Leipzig Conference, see German text here, rough English translation here.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Full text of Chapter 8 (fine print) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
The History of the Missouri Synod, 1838-1884, Chapter 8
By Christian Hochstetter
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The delegation to Germany (217), [Loehe’s first public comments on meeting (218); ] and the address of the two delegates Walther and Wyneken to the fellow members of faith there (219-230). [Objections to congregational rights answered (222); Sad state of German churches (224); hindrances to American blessings (229); meeting with Guericke, against Romanizing (232); meeting with Harless (234)] The Open Letters of the Leipzig and Fuerth Conferences and the Breslau High Consistory. [Leipzig (236); Grabau at Leipzig (237); Wyneken’s Response to Leipzig (241); Grabau before Fuerth Conf. (243); Some Germans praise Walther’s Church and Ministry (245); ; The decline of the Buffalo Synod [Grabau hardens against counsel (249); Grabau resigns (254)] and the strong increase of the Missouri Synod. (256)
Since the prevailing doctrinal controversy was about very important truths which, if they were recognized correctly, could also save the Lutheran Church in Germany from imminent disruption, it was finally decided at the fifth synodical assembly [1851], at the request of Dr. Sihler and others, that the Synod should send its own delegation to Germany, whose immediate purpose should be to gain an understanding with Pastor Loehe and other like-minded people. It was hoped thereby to also
dispel some of the misconceptions and prejudices that had spread about Missouri doctrine and practice there. It was also made possible by this to bring the book Church and Ministry [Kirche und Amt] into print in Germany. [Not in St. Louis] Here Prof. Walther, who was chosen for this delegation along with President Wyneken, diligently held discussions with Dr. Harless in Leipzig, Prof. Guerike in Halle, and other theologians, while he was getting his book Church and Ministry into print and published by A. Deichert in Erlangen. The book went through its third edition already in 1875. After Prof. Walther and President Wyneken had been chosen as delegates to Germany, it was necessary to find substitutes for them while they were away; both were located in St. Louis, because Pastor Wyneken had also been sent from Baltimore to the Trinity Church in St. Louis. Dr. Sihler, until now vice president of the Synod, was asked to fill at the same time the vacancy at the pastorate of the Trinity Church.
The delegates of the Missouri Synod had embarked on August 27, 1851 in New York, and wanted above all to prevent the break that threatened between Pastor Loehe and the Missouri Synod. When they arrived in Germany in the autumn of the same year, Pastor Loehe dedicated a special memorial issue of his paper to this visit, in which he reports among other things the following: Amid the prayers and blessings of the Synod of Missouri, Ohio and other States gathered in Milwaukee, the previous president, Prof. Walther, and the current president, Pastor Wyneken, crossed the sea from St. Louis. When they arrived in Hamburg on September 12, they met, by God's wonderful providence, some outgoing emissaries of our love, who also were leading quite a few Franconians to the colonies in Michigan.
The two presidents were preceded by wonderful letters, e.g. from our friend Sihler, which, the more they went into the doctrine of the Ministry, the more we (with Loehe and Wucherer) were able to see that our mutual convictions
were in genuine Lutheran kinship, but that misunderstandings prevailed.
Now we have seen the brothers face to face, spoken, considered what was said, and we may well say that our hopes for peace have not betrayed us. When we had been walking towards each other for a while in the talks, we came together and we did so in peace. We are one in the recognition of a divine pastoral ministry; and the practice of our American brothers is, according to all we can see, so well and good that we are happy to hand over our children to these hands and no other! All the rest will come to pass, we often found that we were basically in agreement.
At the same time, Pastor Loehe regrets “that in the behavior of Pastor Grabau in Buffalo, in the way he treats the Missouri Synod in his new Pastoral Letter [Hirtenbrief] and here and there in his periodical (Kirchliches Informatorium), which we have appreciated”, there is so little effort to come to an agreement with our brothers. — He writes that although the brothers of Missouri did not ask him (Loehe) with one syllable, he must nevertheless declare that he, with all respect for Pastor Grabau, with all willingness to understand him, must nevertheless consider it right to stand more on the side of the brothers of Missouri, as far as he has insight into it. Finally, he reserved the right of freedom of his conduct, but it was his determined will to work with these brothers and through them, as far as they themselves consider it good, for other parts of America; to the best of his knowledge and belief, he would always promote the real work of these brothers in their Synod.
Pastor Loehe proved the latter already by including the "Address to the fellow members in the faith in Germany", which the delegates Walther and Wyneken issued during their stay there, in Nos. 1-3 of the 1852 volume of his
Mitteilungen and by agreeing to receive gifts for the college building in St. Louis by joyfully joining the challenge and the request related to it, with which that address ends.
This address ties into the fact that the appeal which Pastor Wyneken had issued nine years earlier in Germany [see p. 99], was not in vain. Just as it could not have been otherwise according to 1 Cor. 12:26, so the sorrow of those who suffered on the other side of the ocean was felt; “to the glory of the Lord, in defiance of the devil, and to the intimate joy of all Christian hearts, help has been given to us, our strength has been stimulated; with the Bavarians at the forefront, Saxony, Hanover, Mecklenburg, and even the brothers living far away in the Russian Baltic provinces have rushed to us. We can and must confess that the Lord has done great things for us, we are glad of it, the name of the Lord be praised!”
It is reported here [by Loehe] how the brethren sent to America, starting in the year 1842 onwards, did not find what they were looking for in the synods they found there. Just as those brothers had found what they were looking for there, so too the brothers who had been alone in and around St. Louis for some time had let their groaning rise up to the Lord and Head of His Church. In the first part of that address, it is said that they had, by God's grace, returned from their former separatist and Romanizing aberrations to the good way of our Church from the heart after serious purifying inner and outer tribulations. And the Lord, who hears the cries of the wretched and turns to the sighs of the abandoned, heard the prayer of his servants here too; …… for a testimony of the sincere return to the Lutheran Church, the Saxon brothers had issued a publication, the Der Lutheraner, and this had become the means of bringing together the scattered, faithful Lutheran pastors. — It is then reported how, trusting in the almighty and true God and Lord, they met with congregational delegates on April 24, 1847 in Chicago for a Lutheran synod, which was the banner of the pure
confession as laid down by the fathers in the symbolic books, freshly and joyfully planted and unfolded in the distant West, to gather the scattered members of the Church around this banner, and for the glory of their heavenly King and His almighty grace to strike new wounds and win new victories against the prince of this world. — At that time there were 22 pastors, some of whom met with congregations, but now (after four years) the Synod counts over eighty pastors and twelve teachers who, in the most intimate harmony of doctrine and heart and in communion with young and old, bear witness to the divine truth for salvation — under manifold great hardships and bitter struggles, one victory after another, so that in the cities, forests and prairies everywhere congregations are becoming more and more solidly grounded in truth, and are joyfully springing up in the certainty of their eternal salvation. Through their lives, their zeal for the Kingdom of God, and through the sacrifices they make for it, often in great poverty and meagerness, these congregations prove that the Gospel has indeed proved itself to be a force of God for the salvation in their hearts. — Confidence in our Synod is growing daily on the part of the congregations, which are always asking for more pastors than we are unfortunately able to send them for lack of teachers, and even the synods, some of which up to now have even been hostile to us, cannot escape the influence of the truth we know, so much so that the position we occupy not only commands their respect, but also pushes them more and more to the foundation of our confessions. Two theological seminaries, at Fort Wayne and St. Louis, the latter connected with a secondary school, are constantly bringing new fighters into the field, some of whom came over from Germany in a Christian zeal of love, and some of whom are gathered from the American congregations.
Your hearts, dear German brothers, must surge with joy and intimate thanks toward the Lord, when you see that your gifts of love have not been in vain and that the Lord has not
only accepted your sacrifices of thanksgiving, but has also blessed them so, that in the midst of the swarm of deceptive sects and the racket of atheistic rabble, the glory of His name in the confession of the full divine truth has spread beyond the sea, but also His power has been manifested to many thousands of souls, whom He has gathered anew into His holy Church for their salvation which, although the figure, still seemingly contemptuous to the world, nevertheless represents by the vibrant life that is manifested in many congregations, for those who seek the saving truth in simplicity, a city set on a hill [Matt. 5:14], and cannot remain hidden there, but proves to be a firm refuge, where souls eager for salvation flee from the terrible turmoil of this last afflicted time, and under the wings of the Almighty can take refuge and trust joyfully.
But here doubts will stir up in some hearts that shake their heads and say: “How can you speak of your fellowship as a refuge shining brightly into the land in today's ecclesiastical turmoil, when it is well known that Babylonian confusion prevails over there in America and among you, especially in your congregations and communities, and that according to your own teaching and the constitution and practice based on it, it must prevail, if not, as is often the case, practice is better than theory. For we have heard that you hold strictly to the teachings of the symbolic books, and that you are to persist in struggle and strife and tolerate much blasphemy. But we are no less conscious of the fact that, on the whole, the pastors are a plaything of the congregations, who often in unbridled ferocity assert their supposed rights, which have been forced from them by the conditions prevailing there and which you have granted, albeit reluctantly, and who call and depose you at will, so that nowhere are stable conditions formed, but everything is in a state of constant fluctuation. Quickly, as soon a church comes into being, it disappears again. No sooner is a relationship established between congregation and pastor
than it is dissolved by the arbitrariness of the unstable, freedom-swilling mob, so that the preacher can count more on the wandering life of a missionary than that of a settled pastor. How is it possible that a healthy congregational life can develop and endure in such fluctuating confused conditions? [Cp. to Rast and his “Demagogue” essay.]
We would prefer to answer: “Come over, see and examine for yourselves, and then judge whether you do not like this active, joyful life, founded on the Word of God and flowing from it, this so lively and yet regulated according to firm, eternal principles, moving within divine boundaries, if you are at all delighted and pleased with the life and activity of Christian freedom in love.” But since for most of the beloved readers such a coming over and looking lies outside the realm of possibility, they must be content with another answer.
Thank God it is completely different than what you imagine it to be, and far better for it. It is true that what the Lord says to the apostles also applies to us: “I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves” [Matt. 10:16] — there is much struggle and need, especially at the beginning, in congregations that are to be newly founded. The wild licentiousness of the God-adverse old Adam often breaks loose and breaks through the barriers of divine restraint. There, as here, the natural man does not want to and cannot submit to the divine Word, and since we pastors over there have neither the desire nor the power to feed the flocks with the clubs of the police and to hold them together with difficulty by coercive laws of a high authority, we must put up with it, to have the apostolic walking staff at hand, to shake the dust from our feet and to move on when the obduracy of the congregations is revealed in the determined opposition to God's Word and His holy ordinances, and God's Word commands us to go ourselves, even when forcible expulsion does not take place. [Cp. to Walther who often counseled to wait to be forced out.] But these very struggles of the pastors in new congregations, which now and again
end with their expulsion, should in themselves give you a sure guarantee that we will not degrade ourselves to be servants of men, although they are at the same time a sure proof of the sad state of the congregations on this side of the ocean, which (and no other) provide us with the material from which we must build our congregations on the other side of the ocean. If it had not been for the fact that rationalist pastors had sown the seeds of rationalism for so many years, if there had not been such a terrifying ignorance of doctrine, such a complete lack of knowledge of any church discipline, however small, it would no longer be the secular police bailiff in Germany with its civil penalties, rather than the Christian pastor with his evangelical discipline, who also rules in church life and suffocates all Christian, church consciousness, so the people could not and would not, when they come over, consider the doctrine and discipline of our Lutheran Church to be something foreign to their conscience, and against which they would have to defend themselves. The reason for the above-mentioned phenomena in America is not to be found in our doctrine and the constitution based on it, not in the conditions there to which we would have to adjust for the sake of a little piece of bread contrary to God's Word and ordinance; but the reason is to be sought in the indescribably wretched condition of our people, who are unaccustomed to discipline in doctrine and life, and do not want to bow to the Word of the Almighty God, which the servants of the Word cannot and must not give anything away.
It is true, we do not know any sacred, consecrated, order of priests above the common estate of Christian; we dare not deprive the Bride of Christ of her adornment and the household honor of her dominion, and to claim them for us and thus rule over the people of the Most High God, to whom even with the keys all dominion and power over all the treasures, goods and offices of the Church has been given by her Lord and heavenly Bridegroom. We know that we are but servants, stewards and ambassadors of Christ, to whom only
in the name and on behalf of Christ and his congregations, the public administration of these offices, goods and gifts is entrusted by a regular call. It is our desire and joy to make our congregations aware of the high dignity and glory of their spiritual priesthood, and to encourage them through thorough instruction to know and diligently exercise the rights and duties of their glorious vocation; and we are quite content to be helpers of their joy and guardians of their freedom which was dearly acquired by Christ, to teach and warn them with all due care not to fall again under the shameful yoke of a priesthood, since they themselves have been purchased by the blood of Christ to their God as kings and priests.
But just as firmly and decidedly we teach from and according to the Word of God that the office of pastor and preacher is appointed by the Lord Himself, whose holders, as representatives of Christ, the congregations owe absolute obedience in all things, honor and love as commanded by God, and do not suffer the slightest interference with the rights of the office on the part of the congregation, since it is not ours but that of our Lord and King.
In our country the pastor does not rule over the people, nor the people over the pastor, but both are ruled by God's Word, and by this alone, and the obedience is not that of a legalistic, slavish heart, but that of a evangelical, childlike heart, which is broken by the Law in its defiant self-will, and is drawn by the sweet Gospel into the will of its heavenly Father through the knowledge of Jesus Christ, and so becomes more and more completely one with Him.
Therefore, thank God, in our more advanced congregations there is the sweet appearance that they watch with the same jealousy over the safeguarding of freedom and the rights of the ministry as the pastors watch over those of the congregations, who are loved and honoured all the more as fathers, teachers and shepherds, the less they want to be dreaded and feared as discipliners and masters.
So confidently dismiss the sad picture of our congregations which may have taken root in your heart, according to which everything is topsy-turvey, where the pastors and the shepherds are hired out every year and then, at the pleasure of the congregations, are driven away and driven out again, and instead of an orderly congregational life and conditions regulated according to God's Word and respected in mutual love and devotion, there is a desolate confusion, a continuous dispute of the pastors' presumption against the congregations contrary to Scripture, and of the congregations against the pastors, and where that part wins and asserts dominion which has the greatest impudence, rawness and shrewdness.
In other synods, but not in ours, the abomination of annual hiring and deposing prevails. Our congregations know, or at least learn, that the ministry of the Gospel, as well as the call into it, is the same for the whole congregation, i.e. that is, the people and the ministerium, but that the one who is called to the office, and indeed through the congregation, is appointed to the office by Christ himself, and no congregation has the right to remove him from the office until he has made himself unworthy of it through persistently false doctrine or unchristian life, despite all previous admonition, that is, until he has received his leave from the Lord Himself according to the Word of God, which the congregation must now pronounce and carry out. Of course, the conditions prevailing in Germany must not be taken as a standard against our own.
In Germany, conditions that have once come to pass are not so easily overturned, here at least new ones are formed in most cases, where it is all the easier to set up and follow God's Word as the norm for formation, since apart from the usual obstacles that flesh, world and devil throw in the way of the kingdom of God, there is nothing to be found in the external conditions that could prevent congregations or pastors from moving freely according to God's Word and
arranging relationships according to it. In Germany the congregations usually consist of a mixed bunch of orthodox believers and false believers, indeed obviously unbelievers and scoffers, of those who adorn the Gospel with a Christian life, and of those who spoil and blaspheme the same by manifest sins, indeed cutting off all hope of improvement by allowing themselves to escape the Gospel and the enjoyment of the Holy Sacrament with impunity; and what is often the worst thing, even among the pastors in one and the same regional church, indeed often in one and the same local congregation, the most diverse tendencies are allowed to make themselves known without hesitation, even down to the level of worn-out common rationalism, and the orthodox pastors and members of the congregation are often not even allowed to assert their good right against the foxes and swine that are rooting out the vineyard of the Lord, much less to assert it. [So much for orthodoxy in Germany, notwithstanding Harless and Guericke] In our Synod, on the other hand, no pastor can be received whose ability to know and live has not been tested beforehand, and who has not promised and been required to be in harmony with the others in doctrine and learning, and to conform exclusively to our public confessional writings. Nor may he accept the call of any congregation that does not likewise promise to submit to God's Word in doctrine and discipline according to the pronouncement of our symbolic books. Through carefully applied caution in the reception of the members of the congregation, through the strict, yet evangelical practice of doctrinal and moral discipline according to Matthew chapter 18, which, when the sinner's obduracy has become apparent and after fruitless admonition, ends with the excommunication decided upon in a public congregational meeting and is then pronounced and carried out by the pastor during the public worship service; through announcements for Holy Communion, without which no one is admitted to the sacrament, but especially by means of mutual fraternal admonition (Bestrafung), for the increasingly general and perfect exercise of which is labored towards by pastors and the more established members, it is ensured, as far as human weakness permits, that no bitter plant
will grow within the congregations, or, where it has been revealed, that it will be taken out of the congregations, lest it ruin the whole garden of God. The regular congregational meetings, to which everyone has access, but every mature male member has the right and duty to advise and vote, and in which the congregation itself discusses, deliberates and decides all its internal and external affairs with its pastor and elders, and where the admission of new members and the exclusion of the impenitent persons (reudigen Schafe) is undertaken and decided upon, prevent the participation of the congregation in its particular affairs, such as those of the Church in general, from slackening or even dying away, but keep it fresh, alive and active, and inspire ever new and greater love for the work of the Lord in particular and in general, the more the pastor himself finds pleasure and joy in drawing the congregation to the maturity necessary for this purpose. [Missourian congregational meetings]
Thus we have at least made a beginning of a genuine congregational and church life, in which all conditions are determined according to the guidelines of the divine Word, the rights of pastors and listeners are respected, and the freedom of the individual congregations, as well as the unhindered activity and effectiveness of the whole, is taken into account and thereby finds its appropriate field; where order reigns in freedom and freedom reigns in order; where the Word governs and rules, and the obedience of faith is established in love, and where finally the life of faith of the individual as well as of the whole can develop and prove itself fresh and joyful in an ecclesiastically healthy form. And although, unfortunately, many things remain to be lamented and desired in the individual as well as in the whole, we still have to praise the dear Lord for the glory of his undeserved great mercy, that in the older and more established churches such a life, even if it is really found in weakness, is striven for in all. And this must also be the case for you, dear reader if
you are otherwise a living member of the body of Christ, that it gives you great joy, especially if you belong to those who up to now have been helping the cause of the Lord in America through prayer and assistance; you see that your prayer has been answered, your gifts have borne fruit through the blessing of the Lord, and you will now also be all the more willing to lend your ear and heart to our request for further assistance, and that hand, and not empty, will soon find its way here.
In the following the two delegates explain that they want to keep silent about all other miseries that still exist under the church conditions in North America, except one thing that diminishes the joy and the thanksgiving in them for the otherwise wonderful blessings with which God crowns the Missouri Synod. One must still see hundreds of thousands of members of the Lutheran Church without Word and Sacrament, without any pastoral care, one must fear that they and their children will sink back into paganism or become the prey of foreign sects. One sees how this misery is further increased by every ship coming from the old fatherland, which often brings over the scum of every abomination, [likely the radical ‘48ers] but so very rarely a faithful shepherd. In addition there are dirty, blasphemous German newspapers, through which the abyss of hell empties out in all directions into the masses of the German population of America, and this ruin, which tears in by force, cannot be countered because of a lack of pastors; indeed, one would like to lament and weep over the nameless misery of his people. — Since the requests for faithful pastors from the congregations are becoming more and more frequent, it is necessary to maintain, in addition to the seminary at Fort Wayne and the pastors trained there, a theological seminary, which also provides a scholarly education for the church servants. Luther had already said: “As dear to us as the Gospel is, so firmly let us hold fast the study of languages”. So thirteen years ago, with self-sacrificing love and faithfulness, on the banks of the Mississippi River, the foundation
was made for a learned educational institution for the Lutheran Church. The Lord had blessed it, the number of secondary seminary and theological seminary students was growing, so that the space of Concordia College, which had been moved to St. Louis, was already becoming too small. The central building and the second wing were to be built, but the funds for construction were lacking, since the mostly impoverished congregations were already exhausted by other sacrifices.
Therefore, may the Lord bless this simple word and make the hearts of the German fellow Christians willing to offer a helping hand to the brethren in North America so they can complete the building of this Concordia College. — This would be a thorough help once and for all and the house could soon be finished as a monument of unity of faith and true Christian brotherly love — for the glory of the Lord, who by His death has brought together the children of God and united them in one body. — This address was dated November 28, 1851 in Nuremberg, and signed by C.F.W. Walther and F.C. Wyneken.
It had to be to God's glory, which was the most important thing, when the German members of the faith learned that these former Stephanists, as the Saxon members of the Missouri Synod were called, had been led by God's mercy out of their former mistakes to the knowledge of the pure, clear evangelical truth, and had been led on “the old paths, where is the good way” (Jer. 6:16), and had become the instrument through which the Lutheran Church had prospered and flourished among so many rabid sects and unbelievers of all kinds. The enemies of the Missouri Synod had tried to cast disgrace on this work of God as if it were an unfair work of deceit, as if the leaders of the Synod had given way in the wrong sense, therefore it was high time to do something to save the glory of God and to reconcile the church of the German fatherland.
In Der Lutheraner, volume 8 [1852] nos. 13-21, there is a travel report by the editor Prof. Walther, which
he wrote after returning from that trip in 1852. [English translation in M. Harrison, At Home in the House of My Fathers, pp. 27-106] He and Pastor Wyneken, it is said there, were happy and confident of their call on that journey, the hand of God had guided them and directed everything for the good, and so they should call out to all brothers and sisters near and far: “The LORD hath done great things for us; whereof we are glad!” [Ps. 126:3]
[Walther reports] First of all, the actual purpose of the journey was achieved through God's help and grace. Pastor Loehe's reservations have faded away. “We have in him again the old intercessor not only before God but also before men, the bond is again tightened and tightened.” In one of the following numbers of Der Lutheraner, as a testimony to this, the explanation which Pastor Loehe published in his Mitteilungen, as already mentioned above, is quoted. However, after the delegates returned twice more at Pastor Loehe's invitation to Neuendettelsau after those first meetings, the final report reads: “We have come even closer to each other.” The individual differences that remained are such that they could no longer be settled. During the mutual exchange of ideas it became apparent that there was a difference in the doctrine of ordination. Only if one understands the whole institution of the preaching ministry is this, as an origination in the wider sense, an institution of God, not however if one understands by ordination the ceremony of the laying on of hands, i.e. ordination in the narrower sense. Although the delegates assured Pastor Loehe that they also held the act of ordination in high esteem, and that it was an outrage to despise this apostolic ecclesiastical custom, which serves to confirm the call and which is carried out with prayer and the laying on of hands, was certainly not without blessing, Pastor Loehe nevertheless believed that he could not give up his conviction that ordination was a divine order. Since, on the other hand, Pastor Loehe again expressed his conviction that all rights and glory
acquired by Christ originally did not belong to any one class, but to the congregations of believers and saints, the justified children of God, it was inevitable that he extended a brotherly hand to the Missouri delegates and promised to do the work of the Lord in fellowship with them.
Since the travel report published in Der Lutheraner, volume 8 gives a picture of the ecclesiastical conditions in Germany at that time, and the different directions in which the regional churches were divided also came to light in the discussion of the doctrine of the Church and the Ministry, we are reporting the following about it in excerpt.
It was a particular pleasure for the delegates to find themselves in complete agreement with Prof. Dr. Guericke. From Magdeburg, where they wanted to establish a connection with the separated Lutherans, but did not meet the pastor there, they traveled to Halle, where they found such a warm welcome from Dr. Guericke that they had not expected. The latter informed them that he had been involved in a very similar struggle on the soil of the German Church within the Breslau Synod; there, too, they wanted to assert hierarchical principles from one side, and already the Lutheran chief counselor, “W.”, had been close to returning to the papacy as a result of his Romanizing, etc. Together with Dr. Guericke also Pastor Wermelskirch fought against the intrusion of these hierarchical doctrines; with joy, so Guericke further explained, he had followed the development of the Missouri Synod; he had therefore let the following, among other things, enter the Rudelbach-Guericke publication:
“In America, both parties are already in a fierce battle. In the actual focus of the dispute, which is admittedly not yet recognized by many, the Saxons are decidedly right, Grabau and his supporters decidedly wrong. No biblical passage dealing with election, ordination and the office of Christian pastors, not apostolic practice, not even the apparent wavering of the old Lutheran Church in
constitutional issues furnishes authority or even a pretext for the establishment of a special spiritual state… … May this serve as a warning, an encouragement to vigilance! Small and unremarkable, the papistical mischief begins with the praise of indifferent ceremonies, and then gradually the succession of the means of grace (the inheritance of the Word and the sacraments from the Apostles), which alone builds Christianity, is overshadowed by the succession of the ministers of the Church, then, in a logical progression, shifts the focus of Christian life from doctrine to constitution, whereby the gospel is forgotten, but human orders and commandments are respected, and finally the papal edifice of the Middle Ages, which claims all divine and human rights for itself alone and makes them serve its interests, is established. Once a reckless hiker has loosened a bit of snow from the top of the Alps, he can't stop the devastating avalanche in its fall later on,” says Prof. Guericke, “in the same way, in the spiritual realm, things move fast on the way down and faster and faster. For this reason, everyone who cares about the goods of Christian freedom and the general priesthood of all believers, which were regained during the Reformation, should keep watch. Prof. Guericke also did not fail, when the delegates took leave of him, to admonish them faithfully and warmly to hold on to the recognized truth. “This admonition,” as Prof. Walther wrote, “was as beneficial to us as it was urgent.”
Since Dr. von Harless was high court preacher in Dresden at that time, the delegates also visited this man, who was at the same time head of the Saxon Consistory. Harless also testified of his participation in the work of the North American mission. He too hoped for all the more blessings from the success of the Missouri Synod, because he had little hope for a prosperous development of the Lutheran Church in Germany. Harless also wanted to do his part to promote the St. Louis college building. As a friend of the Queen of
Bavaria he gave the delegates a letter to the Queen, in which she was asked to organize a general church collection in the Protestant part of Bavaria, which should be gathered for the benefit of the St. Louis college building The delegates gratefully received this letter and, when they arrived in Erlangen, discussed the necessary steps to achieve this goal, which held the promise for a large contribution for the seminary building. They were directed to Munich, where they were first to visit the Protestant Dean Burger and the Lutheran-minded consistorial counselor Böckh. In Munich, everything had already succeeded so far that the letter was delivered to the Queen by a royal servant, and she had already asked whether her pastor, the dean in question, would also approve of the recommendation of the two delegates. Just then, that consistorial counselor Böckh informed the them in confidence that the Bavarian consistory would send out an official order against Pastor Loehe and the Lutherans like-minded with him, in which it was indicated to them that they must either give up their special position or resign their offices as pastors. Since Pastor Loehe protested justifiably against the mixed communion practice which exists in Bavaria and asked the Consistory to remedy this annoyance, the Consistory Councils did not consider such action against Pastor Loehe. This disclosure was so depressing for the two delegates that they were soon determined to withdraw their request for support, which had already been made, because they did not want to accept gifts from a church authority which threatened the determined Lutherans with resignation. Although the chief Consistorial Councillor Böckh detained the delegates one day longer, they still maintained their declaration that they could not now make any request to the Consistory without injuring their conscience and Christian sincerity. The delegates also regretted that among the professors of the University of Erlangen there was only one, namely Prof. Delitzsch, who was
against the unionist practice of the Lord's Supper on the side of Pastor Loehe, just as in Erlangen the university teachers, who were otherwise considered Lutheran, paid homage to different theological trends. On this journey it became clear that the truth goes right through the middle, and that it needs its weapons sometimes on the right, sometimes on the left. In the valley of the Mulde River in Saxony, where Prof. Walther's home is, his friends held conferences in which the doctrine of the sacred office of the ministry was discussed. There, well-meaning Christians claimed that whoever became saved must hear the sermon of a pastor under all circumstances, that the mere reading of the Word cannot have any effect on faith; indeed, as necessary as the earthly element of water is for baptism, the parish office is just as necessary for salvation. The delegates [Walther/Wyneken] objected that contempt for the office of the ministry should not be a damnable sin, [Kramer: The delegates defended themselves against the suspicion that they held that contempt for the office of the ministry is not a damnable sin] but they also asserted that the power to believe lay in the Word of God, not in the person of the pastor; therefore, even when the Word is read, the Word can exercise its power. — On the other hand, Prof. Walther further reported that he had noticed to his horror that Prof. Hoefling and the other theological teachers in Erlangen (with the exception of Delitzsch) denied the divine institution of the office of the ministry. According to Hoefling's teaching, although the general command of God to distribute the means of grace was present, yet that the pastoral ministry was established in every congregation was only out of a kind of moral necessity! Prof. Walther, on the other hand, again asserted that by the selection and calling of the apostles, a special office, a pastoral ministry, was given to the Church, which, as the Apology and Smalcald Articles confess, had God's command to choose pastors! — It is important to note that the delegates of the Missouri Synod protested also against this tendency, which inclines toward the false doctrine of the Socinians in the same way in which the opposite doctrine Romanizes. The testimony given against Hoefling also refuted the accusation of the Grabau party, as if the Missourians wanted to reject the divine order of the ministerial office.
By the difficult position which Pastor Loehe and his friends took in the middle of the state church (which was considered Lutheran after all), i.e. that they declared to the Consistory that it was not up to them to resign their office, as they had been indirectly expected to do, one could already see at that time that these German state churches, in which the external constitution was held in much higher esteem than fellowship in the faith, had irreparably fallen into a state of the “Union”. Even in Northern Germany, where the delegates stayed with Pastor Wyneken's friends before their departure, they were surprised to see that one only wanted a Christian state, and over this goal they completely forgot how much the church had to pay for its connection with the state. The poor people see in the pastor more and more a civil servant appointed by the authorities in their interest, and thus Christianity itself is placed under suspicion.
On December 30 the delegates embarked at Calais for their return journey, on January 16 they landed in New York after a difficult journey, and they arrived happily in St Louis on February 2, 1852. “The Lord God has graciously preserved us on the long journey,” Prof. Walther exclaims at the end of his report, “that we never dashed our foot against a stone.” [Ps. 91:12]
The letters of admonition of the Leipzig and Fürth conferences and the expert opinion of the Breslau High Church Council.
Although the delegates of the Missouri Synod, in their address to their brethren in the faith in Germany, were completely silent about the dispute between the two synods of Missouri and Buffalo, and confined themselves to proving that the Missouri pastors in their congregations are also relentlessly taking the Lutheran Confessions seriously and that their work is not in vain in the Lord,
the Missouri Synod delegates nonetheless decided to give an account also to the German Church of their relationship to Pastor Grabau and his followers, both with regard to the doctrinal dispute and the related practice. Already a year and a half later, when Pastors Walther and Wyneken had completed their journey to Germany, Pastors Grabau and von Rohr appeared in Germany as delegates of the Buffalo Synod. In the printed pamphlets which they distributed there, it was said that they had to show their sister churches (according to the word: “Tell it to the church”) what injustice the Missourians were doing to them, the Buffalo people, by interfering with their office and thereby starting an angry fraternal war in America. With this accusation they not only appeared before Pastor Loehe in Bavaria, but also before the conference in Leipzig on September 1, 1853, which was already then attended annually by many respected Lutheran theologians in Germany. This conference followed on from the Leipzig Mission Festival and after the most important matters had been dealt with, the Hanoverian Superintendent Muenchmeyer appeared with a report in which he announced already in a pre-conference the evening before one had heard from the pastors Grabau and von Rohr how the cause for the deplorable controversy in America was the ban or excommunication exercised by the synod of Buffalo according to the Word of God and its church order, notwithstanding that from the Missourian side the parties (Rotten, mobs) who had apostatized in this way were accepted and provided with pastors without one consulting their former authority, the synod of Buffalo. In this way the ecclesiastical unity among them had been completely disrupted and an even more horrible Babel would have been created in America if the Buffalo people had wanted to take the same procedure. These [Buffalo] delegates now wished to have the advice of the Assembly and said that it would help them in this sad dispute by answering three questions. The first question was whether
a ban carried out in a Lutheran church, however unjustly, was wrong. This question was answered with “No” by the conference, but there were voices which added, “But such a church is obliged to refrain from its injustice.” (Ahlfeld) The second question was: Whether, in the event of an emerging or ongoing doctrinal dispute, such as that between two Lutheran synods over ministry and church, each of them has the right to take in the sinners of the others who have been excommunicated in Christ's order immediately and until the doctrinal dispute is resolved? After Muenchmeyer *) had made the remark that these were such points on which neither God's Word nor the Confessions of the church (?) had given a definite decision (!), this question was again answered with “No.”
The third question was, as the Leipzig Conference explained, already included in the second one, namely whether it is permitted to break into another congregation during an ongoing doctrinal dispute and erect an opposition altar.
Since the first of these three questions shows that Pastor Grabau admitted to having imposed an unjust ban from time to time, the conference would have been well advised to tell him
——————
*) Unfortunately, the Leipzig Conference, in Muenchmeyer, heard a speaker who was anything but impartial in this doctrinal dispute, and who in these relevant doctrines differed from the Lutheran symbols themselves. In a paper on the Church, Münchmeyer virtually declared that the doctrine of the Apology describing the Church was erroneous, and polemicized against the old Lutheran official doctrine in the Erlangen Zeitschrift für Protestantismus und Kirche (Journal for Protestantism and Church) of 1852, until the editors refused to accept more essays from him. He is the author of the letter of admonition sent from Leipzig to the Missouri Synod. The separated Pastor Besser, however, had to learn later that he too was accused of rebellion by Wangemann for the sake of his separation, to which he himself replied: “According to such a doctrine, Luther too would have violated the Fourth Commandment by undertaking the Reformation.”
to make amends for the injustice he committed as soon as he got home, but instead it was finally passed over to Pastor Muenchmeyer, Besser and Prof. Dr. Kahnis to write a letter of admonition to the two synods of Missouri and Buffalo, which appeared in the Saxon Church and School Gazette on October 21, 1853. The undersigned [Muenchmeyer] writes at the beginning that they are certainly impartial, for they recognized friends and brothers in both synods, they also admit that the members of the Missouri Synod were not heard about the accusation made by Pastors Grabau and von Rohr, nevertheless, the verdict is that although the Buffalo people had used the ban far too often, which was only meant to be the last resort, and that it also failed in the way it carried on the quarrel (their ranting), that however the Missouri Synod accepted without further ado (!) those who had been banned according to the ordinance of Christ (!), and wanted to continue to accept them until the doctrinal dispute was ended. The letter declared that the congregations to which the Missourian pastors had gone in this case (after they had long since resigned from the Buffalo Synod for reasons of conscience) were not calling congregations; the Missouri Synod had taken up a foreign ministry here, which Luther (as the Missourians well know and and also cite from Luther in the book of Church and Ministry) rejects; indeed, the signatories of this letter make themselves so pleasing to the Buffalo people that they finally advise the Missourians, even though the passages of 2 Thess. 3:14-15 and Rom. 16:17 do not stamp it as a sin for the Buffalo people to conduct a colloquium immediately with the Missourians, that they should rectify the wrong (of which they were accused by the Buffalo delegates) beforehand, before the colloquium was conducted (i.e. they should call the opposition pastors away from their congregations, as though it were in the power of the synod as synod to do this!), otherwise the words might apply: There is an accursed thing in the midst of thee, O Israel! [Josh. 7:13] It was feared that without this action on the part of Missouri the blessing of the Lord might not rest on the colloquium!
From the very beginning, the authors of this letter
proceed on the false premise that, although they recognize the two parties mutually as standing in the faith and belonging to the Lutheran Church, they disregarded the fact that Pastor Grabau, from the very beginning of the dispute, even before there were any opposition congregations against him, had declared in his anti-criticism to the Saxon pastors that he could no longer recognize them as Lutheran pastors, while through their new congregation rules they to do precisely the same thing that the Prussian government had done in its council orders. He must therefore continue the fight which he waged against Prussian liberalism in America against the Missourians! In the course of the following years, quite a few were then expelled from the Buffalo Synod for the very reason that, as it was said, “Missourian principles” were being proclaimed. When, for example, the above-mentioned cent tax requirement [see p. 200] was imposed on the congregations by the Senior Minister [Grabau], the pastor in the large congregation of Wolcottsville, N. Y. [Hochstetter!], was instructed by the Senior Minister to ask everyone in the confessional, when the men would come to private confession, if they were satisfied with the introduction of this cent tax (including the manner of its introduction); and if this question was denied, the Buffalo pastor refused absolution! Since, as Grabau claimed, the right to make ordinances in the church belongs exclusively to the pastors, while the household (i.e. the hearers) was only to obey, those who thought that matters of means should be submitted by the pastor to the congregational assembly for deliberation and final joint decision were considered rebels and mobsters and, if they remained with their convictions, were banned by the Buffalo ministry. Through the above-mentioned questions presented in the confessional-box, those who, as they expressed themselves, had no interest in the cent tax dispute and remained neutral were also forced out of the Buffalo congregations. One can see from such examples that in the Buffalo Synod it was the intention of the synod to involve all people in the false hierarchical doctrines
and unjust practices, even that it should be imposed upon them. “Only those congregations which in their conscience could no longer bear it — have we accepted,” the Missouri Synod responded, among other things, in its Response to the Admonition issued by the Leipzig Conference. This letter, signed by President F. Wyneken and Secretary F. W. Husmann under July 1, 1854, is found in nos. 24 and 25 Vol. 10 of Der Lutheraner. The Saxon Church and School Gazette [1854, Nr. 91, p. 741 ff.] also published this reply in three numbers, and did justice to the Missouri Synod by stating that, both in doctrinal and practical matters, this letter had thoroughly answered all the objections of Pastors Muenchmeyer, Dr. Kahnis, and Besser. Indeed, one may add: if ever a mistaken letter which fights against a mere phantom has been refuted in all its parts, it has done so by this Response. First of all, this letter proves that the banning procedure in the Buffalo Synod is not done in the order of Christ, for He makes the Church, i.e. a gathering of teachers and hearers, the last and highest judgement, Matt. 18:17, but the Buffalo Synod deprives the hearers or its representatives of the right to be informed and convinced of the facts of the matter, for the sake of which a former brother is to be kept for excommunication; on the other hand, it is proven that under the government of Grabau there were not a few cases of excommunication which were not based on any violation of one of the Ten Commandments but on the false doctrines of the authority of the ministerial office, as if one could force those to apologize and repent who, in the external church matters, i.e. in merely indifferent things [or adiaphora], did not believe themselves obliged to unconditional obedience to the pastor and the ministry. A presumption of Grabau, which goes against Article XIV [XXVIII, § 14] of the Apology, where the much misused passage Hebr. 13:17 is explained as follows: “their jurisdiction does
not extend to sin against their new laws, but only for sin against God's commandment, for the Gospel does not give them (the bishops) a governance except the Gospel, that is clear and certain.” [German version]
Although several members of the Leipzig conference wanted to respond to the doctrinal dispute, also two voices (Pastor Engel and Dr. Marbach, who knew more about the issues in question than the others) protested against the proceedings of the conference, Superintendent Muenchmeyer rejected these on the grounds that it would go too far to want to deal with the doctrinal dispute; nevertheless the conference took it upon itself not only to judge the practice of the Missouri Synod, which must nevertheless follow from the rightly existing doctrines, but it also demanded that the Missouri Synod should let the doctrines of Church and Ministry be left as an open question “until the church had spoken about it; for those doctrines were only now to be further developed theologically. The diverging views on these questions, of which only one is Scriptural and symbolic, but both of which can interpret individual statements of the Scripture and the symbols for themselves, neither of which is explicitly rejected, should be allowed to exist side by side in this Church until the Church has spoken.” The response of the Missouri Synod to this is: “Here we must honestly admit that we either do not understand what is said, or we find a strange contradiction in this; for if, for example, Pastor Grabau's doctrine is in accordance with Scripture and the symbols, then how can his proofs be completely sound? How can Scripture and his testimonies from the symbols speak at the same time for our doctrine, when we have to divorce and contradict his doctrine and vice versa? If, as it is said, only one of these doctrines is Scriptural and symbolic, then the Church has already spoken (in her symbols), and only the symbols can be used to prove which doctrine is faithful to the confession, and as Lutherans we cannot imagine the Church speaking otherwise" — — Already in the first point
of the response it is said that the Missourians are heartily sorry that the dear brothers refuse to make a decision in the doctrinal dispute with the Synod of Buffalo. “We would gladly submit to such a one, if it overcame our error through God's Word and according to the testimonies of our Church’s symbols. We ourselves, in obedience to Holy Scripture and in accordance with our Church confessional writings, have, as we are certain of it, let our doctrines, that is The Voice of our Church in the Doctrine of Church and Ministry, go out in print while our delegates were in Germany.” From this every unbiased reader can see that the Missourians have certainly vindicated the divine institution and dignity of the sacred Ministry, — — — — — — Pastor Grabau, on the other hand, may show where he has ever explicitly withdrawn the assertion made in his so-called Pastoral Letter of 1840 (also repeated in the second Synod Letter) that it is only through the office of the ministry that the holy Sacraments are powerful and effective.
As willing as the Missourians are here to accept doctrines from God's Word, they are nevertheless surprised that a conference consisting mostly of theologians is undecided in these doctrines and declares: “In general we cannot avoid declaring ourselves against the expression ‘the church has not yet spoken’ in the strongest and most definite terms, and to reject it as contrary to Scripture and the Confessions, i.e. as unlutheran.” Finally, Luther's words are quoted here: “When they [those who vacillate] now say that they will wait until the church has determined [the doctrine], let the devil wait that long. I certainly will not wait so long; for the Christian church has already decided all things [doctrines].” [Die Stimme, 164; Mueller, 152; Harrison, 142; cf. AE 23, 287] From Leipzig, Pastors Grabau and von Rohr went to Bavaria, where a conference of 50 pastors was held in Fuerth on September 22, 1853, before which Pastor Grabau reported in his usual way and complained about the Missourians. The dean there, E. Stirner, finally also addressed a letter of admonition to the Missouri Synod on behalf of this conference in Fürth,
in which it says first of all, one disapproves of the fact that the Missouri Synod had accepted those who had been expelled by the Buffalo Synod, without having asked the church court of this synod for the reason of the excommunication. (It has already been noted above that this questioning on the part of the Missourian pastor took place each time with the Buffalo pastor, but the latter either gave no answer or an abusive answer). Secondly, the Buffalo people may now also let the quarrel rest and not attack the churches that were established by secession any further. Third, one unanimously recognizes the question of the Ministry as an open one and wishes that it would also be regarded and treated in North America in this way. — Although this conference expresses itself more guardedly, and their writing says nothing about a demand that the opposition pastors be first removed before beginning the mutual colloquium, and although the Fuerth Conference only wished that the excommunication of the Buffalo Synod, if not unconditionally approved, might have been considered more seriously, the Fuerth Conference in its part agrees with the Leipzig Conference in this, that it wants the question of the ministry treated and considered as an open question, and confesses even more clearly than the Leipzig Conference that in the German state churches the confessions are understood according to the guidance of Holy Scripture, etc., and that, although the question of the ministry is not a matter of indifference, it is nevertheless necessary still to find the right churchly expression. To this the Missouri Synod replied: “Whoever wants to adjust the Lutheran Confessions himself according to the Scriptures does not understand them better than the rationalists and Union people, who likewise accept the symbols as their rule of faith not because but only insofar as they seem to agree with the Scriptures, yes, one could even swear by the Roman Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent insofar as it was in accordance with the Scriptures; but Lutherans find in all the symbols of their church completely their own confession and understanding of the Scriptures; and that it was for this purpose that they had been pledged to the symbols!” Admittedly, there is such a disagreement among German theologians today that there is hardly any doctrine in the entire Lutheran system of doctrine that is not
made uncertain and being questioned. The Missourians, however, as the above response briefly indicated, are also certain in these doctrines that they are based on the Holy Scriptures and in harmony with the symbols; the reason for their faith brings a certain confidence, but the mere scholarship which most German scholars practice does not lead to the inner certainty nor to the fraternal unity and agreement which is necessary for a Lutheran Council. The Day of Judgement will come much sooner than German theologians will come to an ecclesiastical agreement and expression, meanwhile they are still protected by the "bridle of the state" to which the Leipzig letter also refers for the German states. But the founders of the Missouri Synod refer already in the introduction to the book of Church and Ministry to the fact that here (in America) they are not in inherited ecclesiastical circumstances, but rather in the case that they first have to lay the foundation for it, and can lay it unhindered by what already exists, “Rather, these conditions have compelled us to search with great seriousness for the principles on which, according to God's Word and the confessions of our Church, the constitution of a truly Lutheran congregation should be based and shaped. The less we ask ourselves the question: what can we retain without sin? but rather the question: what should it be like according to God's Word and the principles expressed and proven in the confessions our church? — the more urgent was the need for us to come to clarity and certainty of faith about the principles of the doctrines of the church, the ministry, the power of the keys, church polity, etc. and the like. We did not pattern the doctrine of our church after the conditions prevailing here, but we established the church according to the doctrine of our church. Whoever doubts this, we confidently invite: ‘Come and see!’ —” [Die Stimme, p. VIII; Mueller, p. 10]
In Germany, too, the importance of this book, which in its testimonies gathered a council of Lutheran witnesses from Luther down to Baier and Hollaz,
has been recognized from several sides. Not only C. Stroebel [or K. Ströbel] exclaimed in Rudelbach and Guericke's magazine: “Now everyone has the choice of standing on the side of the Romanizers or on the side of Lutheran orthodoxy,” also the Leipziger Repertorium, edited by Dr. E. Gersdorf, wrote in the review of that book: “While our German brothers are moving to America to found a refuge of a physical kind there, America is in a position to give advice and help to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in the German motherland.” After Prof. Walther had taken note of the sad paralysis of the Protestant consciousness in Germany during his journey, it soon became clear that “the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, reborn under a thousand storms, tribulations, deceptions and disappointments, was currently more aware of its paternal heritage than the children of the cradle of the Reformation.” Prof. Guerike wrote then, after the Leipzig Conference had so hastily sat in judgment on American affairs, that it had lost its ecumenical (truly catholic) character. The Leipzig Conference has never regained the influence it had before that time. Both the Leipzig as well as the Fuerth Conference were outsmarted by Pastor Grabau by the fact that instead of even looking at the far-reaching doctrinal differences that exist between the two synods, they immediately took up the question of whether it was permissible, if (for example) a dispute arose over the doctrines of Church and Ministry, at once to erect an opposition altar for this purpose! Of course, there are doctrinal differences which have less influence on the life of the congregation and on church practice than if, for example, a difference were to arise over the question of what kind of descent into hell Christ had gone through, both generally and in particular; *) but the doctrines of the Church and of the Ministry must necessarily be applied in practice.
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*) It goes without saying that it is not intended here to present as "open questions" any doctrines about the descent into hell that are contrary to Scripture, such as the modern doctrine of Hades, for instance, but that only human opinions about
As shown above, members of the congregation immediately feel whether the pastor is working together with his hearers, and whether he is basing what he preaches and purposes on God's Word or on his ministerial authority (Pastor Grabau used to answer when asked to give reasons: it's enough that I know), whether he extends his ministerial authority more and more and imputes to the members of the congregation as sin, what is no sin at all, so that not only Christian freedom but also justice has to suffer from it, or whether he cheerfully puts his own person aside and humbles himself. Where church discipline and the ban is really practiced, and this was the case on both sides, such opposites must show their practical consequences; only where the binding key in the hands of the bureaucratic church superiors rusts, and the peace of the church spreads over the congregations, as it does in the state churches, can such doctrines remain as open questions and be left to the scholars to find answers. Here too, what has already been said about America in general applies: the things that are only discussed in Germany, they come to the fore in North America! — Like a limping messenger, who nevertheless brings the right message, a letter of mission from the High Consistory of the separated Lutheran Church of Prussia, addressed to the Buffalo Synod, arrived in Buffalo after the departure of Pastors Grabau and von Rohr. Grabau and von Rohr had also called on the members of the High Consistory in Breslau, but had not found the desired reception with them. The now sainted Pastor Ehlers, an evangelically minded man who was then still a member of the High Consistory, rebuked the fanatical polemics against the Missouri Synod, as he was not only well versed in the writings of Luther and the old teachers, but also gave the congregation of saints their right. If one considers that the vast majority of
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things about which Scripture is silent, and that is to say those opinions which are not contrary to other clear Scripture, should be said to be of lesser influence.
separated Lutheran congregations in Prussia also came into being as a result of secession from the United Church, then one could reproach them with the same right that they had erected counter altars and that the separated Lutheran pastors had broken into the congregations of the state-church pastors, as was blamed on the Missourian opposition pastors from the Leipzig Conference. It may also be that, since there is no congregation without hypocrites, that impure motives may now and then have played a part in secession from the state church, such as those which were laid to the charge of the separation from Grabau’s Synod. — The letter of response of the Missouri Synod to the Leipzig Conference expressly emphasizes that the Buffalo Synod had been presented “that the rifts that have arisen could be healed immediately and everything could be brought back into the old order, if it, the Buffalo Synod, would only respond to a peaceful religious discussion and at least stop condemning our doctrine.” Not only his opponents, however, reproached Pastor Grabau with the Scripture word of 1 Peter 3:15, in addition to the examples of the doctrinal discussions held in earlier church history, but the Breslau High Consistory also advised Pastors Grabau and von Rohr, upon their request, to accept the request of the Missourians for a colloquium. For the sacred cause of God and for the love of Christ they must be advised to do so, according to the letter signed by Privy Councillor Dr. Huschke in March 1854. The same letter emphasized that the Missouri Synod could not be expected to call away in advance the opposition pastors of the congregations formerly associated with Buffalo and to return these congregations in advance to Buffalo; such was not in the power of the Missouri Synod at all, and these pastors concerned would first have to be convinced of the illegitimacy of their position, since the practice which the Buffalo condemned in the Missourians was only a necessary consequence of the doctrines and principles on which the two synods differed.
Only after hearing both parties and on the basis of evidence can a judgment be made as to whether the Missourians have really sinned by accepting those excluded from Buffalo. — As detailed and fraternal as this address was, which the closest brethren in faith addressed to the Buffalo people, the latter nevertheless followed the Breslau expert opinion with a negative answer. (See the Kirchliches Informatorium of January 1, 1855). Pastor Grabau was too proud to have his alleged orthodoxy questioned from a colloquium. Therefore, all attempts at reconciliation between him and the Missourians were in vain. — One could have expected that after his return from Germany he would at least speak a more moderate language towards them, which he had been admonished to do from his journey, but nevertheless, without having any urgent reason, he soon accused Professor Walther again of Jesuitism. But the more he hardened in his goings-on, and the longer he refused to go into a colloquium with the Missourians, the more clearly the fruits of his hierarchical teaching and actions became apparent. It is already noted above in what way the cent tax was carried out by him. More than 250 families, very important communities, than: Johannisburg, most of Wolcottsville and others were classed as being banned and excluded. Although a ban based on such a constitution was certainly undeserved, these excommunicated persons followed the advice of some Missouri pastors to whom they had turned and presented the Buffalo Synod at its sixth session in 1859 with a letter asking them, for God's sake, to take steps to unite with the Missouri Synod. Therefore they approached Pastor Grabau, and several Buffalo pastors asked him at this synod convention whether he would be responsible for the proceedings in Johannisburg and other places on the judgment day. Grabau, however, declared that it was now necessary to proceed to the final judgment on the Missourians and enforced a decision
which he dictated to the Buffalo people in writing with the following words: “That we must now regard the Missouri Synod as such according to Christ's command in our hearts and with our confession of paganism and as publican... ... and it follows that we must publicly deny fraternal fellowship with this persecutor of ours, the Missouri Synod, in the name of Jesus.” — Page 28 of the Buffalo Synod Letter concludes this declaration with the words: “And finally, we call upon all honest Christians, and exhort them in the Lord, to leave these false prophets and destroyers of the Church and give glory to God and His truth, for our God speaks Isaiah 9, ‘For the leaders of this people cause them to err; and they that are led of them are destroyed’! May God give the darkened Missourians a merciful awakening.” — Pastor Grabau and his followers hereby imposed the ban on the entire Missouri Synod, which already counted about 200 congregations at that time! One can also see from the demand with which that synodical resolution appealed to all members of Missouri Synod congregations, how happy Grabau and his adherents would have been if he could have alienated the Missouri Synod congregations from their pastors. Pastor Grabau's pretence, that he boasted in Germany, that he was far from being inclined to retaliate against the Missourians in the same way with the same things was not the truth either. Even before that time, he had accepted and given pastors to many who had seceded from the Missouri Synod in Cincinnati and Pomeroy, Ohio. Just as a Roman bishop lays claim to the Protestants in his diocese as, in his opinion, strayed sheep, so also Grabau wanted to draw people to himself as much as he could. From that time on, however, it became more and more obvious that the word from Joshua 7:13, “There is an accursed thing in your midst, O Israel,” which the Leipzig Conference had borrowed from Grabau's mouth and called out to the Missouri Synod at the end of that letter of exhortation, must rather be realized in the Buffalo Synod. No peaceful synodical assembly was granted to them any more. At the following Seventh Synodical Assembly the Senior Pastor succeeded in defeating the opposition, which some
Buffalo pastors raised from the West, but his aversion to Luther and Luther's writings was also evident. When he was reminded that the Formula of Concord also recognized Luther's writings as best explaining the real opinion and understanding of the Augsburg Confession, because Luther was the most distinguished teacher of the Augsburg Confession, Pastor Grabau answered at the Synod that if this was true, he would rather be released from the obligation of the Formula of Concord. — At the eighth convention of the Buffalo Synod it happened that the Synod removed Pastor Grabau, who complained about too much work, from the editorship of the Informatorium, and assigned the writer of these lines to do so. Pastor Grabau had not expected this. But the synod members were all the more willing to do this because several Lutheran friends and benefactors from Germany, with whom the Deacon [Hochstetter] had contacted, complained about the spiteful tone that prevailed in the Informatorium. This writer read these letters of complaint to the Senior, who promised to give in and to moderate. But he felt sorry for his Informatorium, and the correspondence that the writer of these lines had with his friends in Germany was very annoying to the Senior Pastor. He told the meeting of ministers that the center of the Buffalo Synod must remain with the Senior Pastor, that he knew that they were waiting for his death, that they wanted to destroy his thirty years of work! Around this time he boasted in every sermon of his double martyrdom, which he had suffered in Prussia and after this here in America. And in the Lenten sermons he presented himself as the suffering Christ. At the Eighth Synod it came to light that Pastor Maschhop, the representative of the Senior in Michigan, had deprived a congregation of its pastor because it refused to insure its church property in the deed (bill of sale) for the Buffalo Synod. Pastor Maschhop explained to the congregation that this was the sin of Ananias and Sapphira, which they committed because they did not place their property at the feet of the Buffalo Synod ministerium or the
its Senior Pastor! Many pastors were shocked when they heard this. The Senior did not succeed in justifying this action, and even less so in 1866. — Dr. Muenkel wrote in his Hanoverian journal that one could see from the events in Buffalo that the hierarchical direction, instead of uniting the church, only caused division. Meanwhile the Buffalo congregations were undermined everywhere, even before the split occurred. What was the state of affairs caused by this trend? The more the Buffalo Synod developed into a party of its own, which believed it had to fight against the so-called church democracy, a body which was to have its head at the Senior Grabau and be obedient to the old ecclesiastical orders as interpreted by the Senior (it was said that these church orders go along side the symbols), the clearer it became that the church, which in reality is primarily a communion of the inner treasures of faith, was to be transformed into a Grabau domain in this area. Instead of preaching the Gospel in such a way that Christians wanted to live their faith, that they learned to think, speak and test whether it would hold true by their own conviction (John 4:12), they wanted to suppress the spiritual priesthood more and more with the help of the ministerium, which they claimed to be infallible. Gradually, each congregation divided into two camps. Although many of them trusted their pastors from the beginning, it was inevitable that this legal system of statutes would cause anger under this government. The time had to come when the magical halo with which the Senior had surrounded himself fell. Doubt and suspicion now came to those who had gone astray with the pastors. And when those who had already converted to the Missouri Synod in the course of time, even today it is sometimes difficult even for the evangelical minded pastors to overcome the mistrust that had taken root in these souls. Since this part of the congregations in Buffalo was notorious for its tendency to “quarrel, rebel
and form mobs”, the writer of these lines at first held from the beginning to the other side, where the favor and satisfaction of the Senior and pastors was sought, and was counted among the “dear children”. Since Pastor Grabau could also flatter, and the Prussian persecution of the 1830s was repeatedly praised, the pride of the church and martyrs on this side was so great that once a Buffalo country pastor rightly preached to his listeners: “You boast: we have emigrated for the sake of faith; you ought rather confess: faith has emigrated from us!” It was revealed where this tendency leads, which bases salvation on visible membership in the church (i.e. the Buffalo Synod). It was again said as with those Jews, according to Jer. 7:4, here is the temple of the Lord. The adherents of Pastor Grabau were taken to be the little flock to which God had promised the kingdom. The honorable walk before the people, as long as one never stood in church discipline, but knew how to practice ceremonial service, was the justification on which the laity relied. That they are not unified is the consolation that such people take, that they are in the right (visible) Church, that is the reason on which they hope to be saved. — This is the fruit of Grabau’s doctrine of the Church, the outward Church takes the place of true Christianity!
Most regrettable were the pastors, who were met with suspicion, even hatred, whenever they dared to contradict in the meeting of the ministry or otherwise. It was a great misery; at last the temptation taught us to remember the Word. They had clung to one person for far too long, and as punishment for this they now had to bear enmity from this side. A dark, grim spirit had come over Grabau, and it was also revealed in the pulpit. At the feast of Epiphany in 1866 he complained as if everything was conspired against him, and finally exclaimed: “If some of these gray heads who
heard his sermon and should come to him and confront him, he would not answer them. Soon afterwards, on February 6, he attacked the Deacon [Hochstetter] in the sermon on Paul's conversion: “Even if he has the pure doctrine,” exclaimed Grabau, “he is cursed because he does not preach as I do!” Grabau applied the anathema of Gal. 1:8 to his brethren in office. Since this sermon had been copied by the then colleague Inspector Zeumer and another student, the deacon, accompanied by Pastor Zeumer, soon afterwards went to the Senior and declared that if it continued in this way, the Deacon would file a complaint with the ministry. Pastor Grabau answered challengingly that even if ten thousand pastors were coming, he would not let his mouth be shut. After a few weeks, the writer of these lines handed over a complaint to the Senior Pastor, which contained reservations about his, the Senior's, conduct of office, and was only intended for the pastoral conference. It was said in this writing that Pastor Grabau made the power and validity of the Word of God, especially of his sermon, dependent on his own person; he wanted to be judged by no one, whereas a pastor should gladly be judged by anyone, even if it were a child, and should be able to speak; he also saw the Buffalo Synod as a universal parish, and saw himself as the universal bishop; he was also committing the same abuse with the old church orders as it was sometimes abused by the popes with the so-called. pseudo-Isidorian decretals. Pastor Grabau's claims went even further at that time, he wanted to make himself a bishop, because, as he said, the collegiality in the ministerium went too far. Meanwhile it was now said: “So far and no further!” Events that no one had expected occurred blow after blow. First of all, Pastor Grabau resigned his office as Senior (presidency) and the directorship of the college in the presence of the assembled ministers and the church council, and no one asked him to take over these offices again. Afterwards, the first part of the Deacon's [Hochstetter’s] complaint was heard, which Pastor Grabau had added the title
“Jude 19”, and the plaintiff was proved right. Pastor Grabau appealed to the Synod, which was quickly called together for early May. On April 13, in a congregational meeting, he wanted to remove the Deacon by exclaiming that he would certainly die if he were to live next to the Deacon until this Synod convention to which he was being referred. He exclaimed, “Thus I have had a congregation,” and ran away from that congregational meeting without achieving his purpose. However, after a few weeks, since he was making more and more of a spectacle, he succeeded, by the small majority he had among the congregational trustees, in banning the Deacon from the pulpit of the Trinity Church. When a “visitation” was reported to him, Grabau quickly had the same trustees close the church doors in the early hours of Sunday morning and suspend the service in his church, which caused great indignation in the congregation. On the following Sunday, the conditions were such that the part of the congregation which held to the Deacon moved into the hall of the Martin Luther College to hold its service there. Thus the split in the Buffalo congregation was decided, for after the May Synod convention, which gathered as the Ninth Buffalo Synod, this newly organized congregation, which had appointed the previous Deacon as pastor, rented the French church in Buffalo for its services.
It should be noted, finally, that although it initially seemed that Pastor Grabau was ready to give account to the Synod, on the eleventh day he suddenly renounced the Synod; according to his explanation he was hated by most of the pastors of the Synod. With him, three pastors left the meeting room and also renounced. The other pastors (some twenty), together with the delegates concerned, felt quite perplexed at first, but it was soon felt that a transitional period, a gracious visitation, had come for many. With the departure of Pastor Grabau, the Buffalo Synod took on such a form that it was possible to respond to the colloquium to which the Missouri Synod had been calling for for so many years.
The more the Missouri Synod had been cursed by Grabau and his party until then, the more it increased, blessed by the hand of God. Its educational institutions flourished, its pastors numbered 300; its writings were read by many; even those synods which had previously been caught up in syncretism and unionism listened to the voice of the Missouri Synod and approached it. From a human point of view, such a synod did not need the Buffalo people, who were in every way bankrupt! The joy was all the greater when Professor Walther, President of the Missouri Synod, invited two delegates of Buffalo Ministerium to Fort Wayne for a meeting, where the preliminaries for the public colloquium to be held in Buffalo were arranged. Chapter IX will report about this colloquium.
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