EC8: Greatest righteous separation: the Lutheran Church; ceremonies (Central District 1867)

     This continues from Part EC7 (Table of Contents in Part EC1), a series restoring availability of English translations of several of Walther's convention essays that have seemingly been abandoned by Concordia Publishing House. — In this third of eight essays, Central District 1867, elucidating the Theses in Walther's True Visible Church book, he covers Theses VI-X. Walther's explanations of "schism", "sect", "division", "cults", "heretics", "apostates" etc. are most instructive. One learns when to use certain terms and when not. Strangely Prof. Charles Arand, the writer of the 1992 CPH Forewords, called these "seemingly tedious if not hairsplitting dis­tinctions". But I found these highly instructive, not "tedious" or "hairsplitting".

Notable Quotes :

16: "…not every division is a sect, but every sect is a schism"

17: "By a sect we do not mean a bunch of worldly nefarious people, but only people who hold to a fundamental error."
17: "Unitarians, Mormons, etc. etc. are to be counted along with the Turks; they are not heretics in the strict sense of the word, but apostates".
17: "One should depart from heretics and false teachers; one should not separate from preachers who are not right in life, but otherwise teach correctly, otherwise one would create a schism".
18: "dissolute life of a preacher… could well be assumed that there would also be a lack of pure doctrine".

19: "This error [denying Pope is Antichrist] would not be a fundamental error, but a dangerous one."

20: "…one part embraces the pure doctrine, the other rejects it, then the former part, which separated itself from the others, has carried out a just, unrighteous separation. The greatest righteous division that ever took place in the Church is without question the foundation of the Lutheran Church in the Reformation"
21: Ceremonies: "a congregation need not allow itself to be prevented by one or two from introducing a beautiful order"
22: "Unitarians, Socinians, Rationalists are all non-Christian assemblies".
24: "We baptized Christians are now the true Jews in the New Testament — the so-called Jews are the school of Satan, they have left the people of God through their unbelief."
25: "a true visible church… is only that in which God’s Word is proclaimed in its purity and the sacraments are administered according to the Gospel."
28: "…one reserves the right to understand and interpret this [Confessions] one way and that differently".

29: "Lutheran doctrine is everything that is clearly stated in the Bible. In its confessional writings, the Lutheran Church confessed the Holy Scriptures from the very beginning."

29: "our faith is not really a gloss or interpretation of the Bible, but a simple reference to what is clearly written."

30: "Dr. Luther's word was the voice of the Church, because his word agreed with Scripture."

31: "The following was also mentioned about false preachers: that they do not always preach falsehood, but also truth" [i.e. half-truths]

33: "…it has actually happened at times, that in the full sense of the term there was no true visible church".

33-34: "…the general apostasy, where the public preaching ministry will also be completely destroyed. — Word and Sacrament will remain, but there will be no pure public ministry of preaching." [Ref. this blog.]

34: Gerhard: "We say that … all particular churches, and therefore the whole visible church may be darkened by clouds of corruptions, errors, offenses, heresies, persecutions, and the like"

35: "some clear teachings of Holy Scripture are not explicitly discussed and treated in the Symbolical Books. These doctrines are Lutheran because they are Biblical"

38: "…a Lutheran is only he who has come to the certain conviction that in the symbolic books of the Lutheran Church stands the pure truth of the divine Word".

Paragraph breaks have followed the 1992 CPH translation, hyperlinks added:

Web version here; The file may be downloaded >> here <<; the German text >> here <<.

In the next Part EC9…

EC7: Church in proper, improper sense; Hypocrites; Heretics, schismatics and sects (Western District 1867)

     This continues from Part EC6 (Table of Contents in Part EC1), a series restoring availability of English translations of several of Walther's convention essays that have seemingly been abandoned by Concordia Publishing House. — In this second of eight essays, Western District 1867, elucidating the Theses in Walther's True Visible Church book, he covers Theses III–VI. The printed convention report prefixed each session's record with the following short statements:

• Church in the proper and improper sense. Hypocrites in the church, not belonging to it. Word and Sacrament do not belong to the essence of the Church.
• What it means to be mixed in. Context of the previous theses. Christians also among the members of false churches. Where God's Word is essential. Examples: the Galatians, Reformed, Greek and Catholic Churches.
• The expression: "true church" used in different senses. Stages of purity. What is sect and sectarianism.
• Heretics, schismatics and sects within the church. Difference between an erring church and a sect. What makes a heretic. Examples of teachers who erred but were not heretics. What a sect is. Example of the Roman Church and the Methodists. Children of God under the papacy.
• Roman Church in the good and in the evil sense. Errors of the same. Necessity of knowing these errors. Unionism not to be tolerated. Causes. What schisms are. Example of the Corinthians.

Notable Quotes:

19: "…the doctrine of the Romanizing Lutherans that hypocrites belong to the Church only leads to security".

20: "The characteristics of a thing [e.g. the Church] cannot belong to its essence."

20: "When it was recalled from one side that Loehe and Kliefoth maintain that hypocrites are members of the body of Christ, but dead ones…" [Loehe and Kliefoth refuted.]

22: "It is true that the Rationalists say: the Bible is God's Word; but from their explanation one sees at once that it is all deception." [Or "smokescreen"]

23: "The Reformed children have the right baptism, although the Reformed teaching about it is wrong."

24: "…the Catholic priests are and remain hypocrites, who say with their mouths that the Bible is the Word of God, but in their hearts they think it is a fable."

24: "For we are not to condemn the Reformed, but neither can we hold fraternal fellowship with them, otherwise we are professing their false doctrine."

26: "If a fellowship has the Word of God completely pure and the sacraments are administered in it according to the Gospel, it is not the Church alone, but it is the orthodox Church."

28: "The essence of the Church is the people who truly believe in Christ.… The marks have nothing to do with the essential nature of the Church."

29: "…it has been demonstrated to the followers of Grabau that in their doctrine of the Church they no longer have the pure doctrine of justification."

31: "Perhaps no teacher of the Church has written such powerful polemical writings as Luther."

34: "With erring teachers, therefore, the fault lies in their understanding, with heretics in their will."

37: "…when they [Romanists] show the monstrance [or pyx, container used in elevating the host] to the people, they are only asking them to worship a piece of bread, and that is pagan idolatry."

In the following presentation, the paragraph breaks have followed the 1992 CPH translation which broke up the long paragraphs of the German original. As always, many hyperlinks have been added:

The file may be downloaded >> here <<; web version here; the German text >> here <<.

In the next Part EC8…

EC6: Church in proper sense; Harrison's "disconnect" (1866 Missouri)

     This continues from Part EC5 (Table of Contents in Part EC1), a series restoring availability of English translations of several of Walther's convention essays that have seemingly been abandoned by Concordia Publishing House. — This essay is the first of eight which are the majority of Theses in Walther's book The True Visible Church. These Theses were previewed in advance of the convention in a Der Lutheraner article, vol. 22, pp. 186-187, so the convention was familiar enough to have questions prepared. The book was written "for the convention … at St. Louis, Mo., October 31, 1866", but the next seven convention essays continued on from this first essay, which dealt with Theses I-III.

     The writer of the Forewords to the 1992 CPH Essays I, Prof. Charles Arand, wrote (p. 14) that Walther "draws many, and at times seemingly tedious if not hairsplitting distinctions", yet he at least acknowledged that "The patience and effort it takes to 'plow' [?] through these lectures will be greatly rewarded." It is sad for me that Arand was picked to provide these Forewords because he has virtually ignored Walther for the rest of his professional career.

      This essay is a perfect compliment to my blog series on Walther and the doctrines of Church and Ministry as it provides clarity, and answers several questions.

Notable Quotes:

44: "…the expression was not correct when one said that belonging to the visible orthodox church was necessary for salvation."

50: "Never again are the means of grace, Word and Sacrament, the constituent parts of the Church, and therefore do not belong to the definition of its essence."

50: "The believers make up the Church, [but] the wrong understanding [of the Church] … would have it that the definition of the Church is the gathering of believers around the Word and Sacrament or the orthodox preaching ministry. … Romanizing Lutherans [do not deny this wrong understanding]"

56: "…the Third Article, according to Luther, speaks only of the invisible church".

58: "the Synod expressed its astonishment that there could still be Lutheran theologians today who claim that the doctrine of the church was not yet properly developed at the time of the Reformation, that it still needed to be perfected. [e. g. Loehe] Luther could not have waged the battle against the heresies of his time, which among other things concerned precisely the point of the church, if he had not known exactly what the church actually was according to God's Word."

61: "All the misery, all the confusion in the dispute about the concept of the Church came from the fact that this sentence was not held fast: The church is the congregation [Gemeinde] of saints."

65: "But as long as the preaching of the Word is still there, we can still believe with certainty that the Church is still there, i.e. the children of God through faith, no matter how horrible things may be in life.".

 72: "Dr. Luther deliberately never used the word 'church' [Kirche] in the German Bible, but always 'congregation' [Gemeinde], in order not to encourage the pope, who had made it so that 'church' was understood to mean him, the pope, and his bishops. This, too, is one of the errors of the false Lutherans of our time, that they also make a distinction between 'church' and 'congregation'." [Cp. to Pres. Harrison's statement against J. T. Mueller's translation here on this point, that his translation of Walther was a "disconnect" with Walther's intent. Since Luther never used the word "Kirche" in his Bible, Mueller was correct in sometimes translating it as "congregation" where it was necessary. It is Harrison who is "disconnected" with Walther and Luther. Walther at times uses the terms "church" and "congregation" interchangeably. The reader is especially encouraged to read the section on Thesis III here.]  

The following presentation provides links to each individual page of the original German publication. It follows the paragraph breaks of the 1992 CPH translation:

This file may be directly downloaded >> here <<; German original text >> here <<.

In the next Part EC7…

EC5: Calling a Pastor by a congregation (Synod 1863)

 [It should be noted at this point that the next essay in Essays vol. 1, the essay "Church and State" was erroneously attributed to Walther. After researching and corresponding with top LC–MS historians years ago, it was discovered that this essay was delivered by District President J. G. Schaller, and so it is being skipped over in this blog series of Walther's essays.]

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     This continues from Part EC4a (Table of Contents in Part EC1), a series restoring availability of English translations of several of Walther's convention essays that have seemingly been abandoned by Concordia Publishing House. — This essay, delivered to the 1863 general Synod, is best introduced by quoting the "Foreword" from the 1992 CPH book:

“This essay is an elucidation of Thesis XXI of Wal­ther’s book The Proper Form of an Evangelical Lutheran Local Congregation Independent of the State [see Part EC4a], which appeared in 1863 and whose contents were in the hands of the delegates to the Synodical convention of that year.”

One may read Thesis XXI in translations by John Drickamer here, and by Theodore Engelder here in the book Walther and the Church (p. 97). It is also in J. T. Mueller's translation The Form of a Christian Congregation, p. 63-75. My translation is available in the file below. 

      There are 3 matters addressed in this Thesis XXI:

• Walther counsels congregations, in calling pastors, against an isolationistic, do-it-yourself approach that excludes the counsel and guid­ance of the church at large.
• Walther reviews the re­quirement for the pastor to subscribe unconditionally to the confessional writings of the Lutheran Church.
• The nature and role of ordination: not divinely instituted, but a “wonderful institution”.

Just two quotes that speak to the first and second points above, from pp. 32 and 41:

“…in Acts 1:26, … the apostles do not carry out the election, but give advice”

“Then what is required of the congregations is not really a commitment to the symbols, but a confession of them.”

      Another quote from Walther demonstrates his teaching on the Synod itself and whether it can be called a "church" in the sense that the local congregation is "church". On page 34, it is taught that independent minded congregations 

"hinder the inner growth of our Synod and thus of the kingdom of God, of which our Synod is also a part, even though it is only a small part."

Compare this with Pres. Matthew Harrison's statement that "a synod is in fact 'church' because it is a transcongregational expression of ecclesiastical unity." Walther minimizes the Synod as only "a small part" in the kingdom of God, Harrison maximizes it in comparison to the local congregation. — 

       In the following, file links are added pointing to the German original page in Google Books. Links have also been added to the sources for Luther's writings:

Web version here; print format file download here; German text here.

In the next Part EC6…