RH10: Walther—Hoffmann criticizes, Hochstetter defends; “Thank God Missouri also errs”; Yes and No theology

   This continues from Part 9 (Table of Contents in Part 1) in a series presenting Pastor's Hochstetter's critique of an 1881 German pamphlet on the Old Missouri Synod. — In this segment Hochstetter reveals the way that Hoffman, while he compliments ("Yes") Walther or the Missouri Synod, actually intends to criticize ("No") its core doctrines. And one such criticism gives Hochstetter the opportunity to offer one of the most memorable defenses of Walther that I have ever read. I quoted that at the beginning of my blog series presenting Hochstetter's History of the Missouri Synod. — From Lehre und Wehre, vol. 28 (Feb. 1882), pp. 78-79 [EN]:

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How the Missouri Synod is Judged in Germany Today.

[A review of an 1881 pamphlet by Pastor Rudolph Hoffmann of Germany]

By Pastor Ch. Hochstetter, Stonebridge, Canada.

 

Finally, it must be regretted here that the late Hoffmann, before he wrote this writing, did not familiarize himself with the book of Church and Ministry [EN], in addition to the sources he probably used for his historical account. Dr. Brömel on Walther's Die Stimme der Kirche in der Frage von Kirche und Amt [The Voice of the Church in the Question of Church and Ministry] also says that this book is an important and clearly decisive one through its historical testimonies. Meanwhile, Hoffmann lists Walther's sermon books and Pastoral Theology as “excellent” books, and it is surprising that he nevertheless, despite the fact that he lacks knowledge of the doctrine of the Church, draws the following description from the author of the book of Church and Ministry, which contains a protest against Grabau’s doctrines, indirectly also against all and every bondage of the Church. After Walther is called the creator and spiritual leader of the synod, “he who knows him knows her,” etc., p. 24 further states: 

“Walther is a faithful son of the German Reformation; having emerged from the Saxon Lutheran Church, he recognizes in Lutheranism the genuine continuation and resurrection of pure apostolic Original Christianity. Called from the beginning to lead his brothers in faith in America, he has maintained his outstanding position with honor and with iron diligence has acquired an astonishing wealth of thorough scholarship. He has complete command of his Augustine and <page 79> Luther, and has such an in-depth knowledge of Old Lutheran dogmatics as hardly any theologian of our time. Equipped with the gifts of a sharp dialectic, a skillful presentation and an important eloquence supported by the warmth of conviction, it was easy for him to make the spirits subservient.” — 

Regarding Hoffmann's last expression it must be noted that Walther does not make the spirits subject to himself but to the Word of God; but he knows how to teach it so emphatically and clearly that the truth must prove its irresistible power, that doubt must give way, while that which seemed difficult to some becomes easy and the uncertain finally becomes certain! —

When Hoffmann on the other hand again exclaims p. 29: 

 

“Thank God Missouri also errs and we wish but that she above all becomes more modest in her polemics and humbled by the instruction of 1 Cor. 13:12”, 

it must be noted: Paul offers a consolation there, which the Missourians are also in need of, because we feel and know well that we are not yet walking in the light of glory here, where we are to see God in his presence, that is, where we are also allowed to see through the divine mysteries (a priori). Meanwhile, we are satisfied that we may clearly recognize the way to eternal life in Christ, and whether we recognize the truth here piecemeal, i.e. one thing after another (a posteriori), the mirror of the divine Word, which is also a light, shining in a dark place, is bright enough to fulfill Luther's interpretation of 2 Cor. 3:18: “as the mirror sees an image, so our heart sees the knowledge of Christ!” 

Just at this the weakest side of unionistic mediation theology becomes obvious that it wants to unite Christ and Belial by its Yes and No, especially by its alleged struggle for progress, and thereby falls into a doubtful doctrine that does not make hearts certain and confident in faith, but more and more uncertain!  For only the truth revealed in God's Word clings firmly in the conscience and brings the heart to rest, as Augustine already confessed. Everything that is unmistakably revealed to us in God's Word we therefore respect for the true doctrine of faith, and we do not envy the United Synod for the fact that fundamental articles also become an open question for them. 

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      For all the compliments that Pastor Hoffmann offers Walther, he negates them all with his final statement that "it was easy for him to make the spirits subservient." This statement overturns Walther's scriptural, confessional basis. And Hochstetter's powerful corrective of this surely had to make Walther shed a tear of joy. — In the next Part 11, 

RH9: Christocracy, not democracy; State churchmen = servants of state authority, "only a glittering misery"

   This continues from Part 8 (Table of Contents in Part 1) in a series presenting Pastor's Hochstetter's critique of an 1881 German pamphlet on the Old Missouri Synod. — Hochstetter now digs deep into the aspects of the State Church and how it went from being a guardian to a policeman. And this is what Pastor Hoffmann was defending! — From Lehre und Wehre, vol. 28 (Feb. 1882), pp. 76-78 [EN]:

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How the Missouri Synod is Judged in Germany Today.

[A review of an 1881 pamphlet by Pastor Rudolph Hoffmann of Germany]

By Pastor Ch. Hochstetter, Stonebridge, Canada.

 

This [Prussian] Union does not consist in the power of the spiritual authority given to the saints as such <page 77> by Christ, but in the power of the royal cabinet order, whereby the Church has been treated more and more as a police institution which has religion taken care of on the side. Whoever, as Hoffmann does, wants to separate the congregation of saints as the ideal Church from the real congregation in such a way that the latter (the saints) no longer exercise any activity whatsoever, that is, should no longer profess their faith through church service, turns the ecclesiastical, living organism into a raging state machine, and keeps only a hollow constitutional building in place of the true Church. On the other hand, it sounds very tendentious when Hoffmann says that the Missourians do not give the emperor what is the emperor's, but take the side of the Romans in their consideration of the state, because we want to distinguish between secular and spiritual power, as the Augsburg Confession expressly demands. We reject the teaching of the Jesuits, which the New Lutherans approach in relation to the judgment of civil marriage etc., as if the state, without recognizing a papal sovereignty, was equal to a band of robbers. We know what is written in Rom. 13 and we honor God's order in the secular authority, but we also honor the Word of Christ who confessed to Pilate, the representative of the Roman state power: “My kingdom is not of this world.”

On the other hand, it must still be replied to the reproach of the democratic constitution that we, if in truth the Christocracy belonging to the Church still stands, regard the constitutional form of the visibly represented church as an indifferent thing [or adiaphoron]. The Lutheran Church can bear many different constitutional forms, in Sweden and Norway the episcopal constitution, and in the good old days a consistorial government. In this connection it is only to be taken into account that the consistories were originally only advisory bodies, just as all representative assemblies should never forget that they may only advise and act in the name of others in what concerns all and in what everyone has a stake, and only according to the Word of God. If in former times godly princes in their thoroughly Lutheran country also took part in the church government, we do not reject this activity either, as long as the church leadership is only an Evangelical church government and not a mastering princely government. Luther called this activity of Christian princes an emergency remedy! This alone shows how superficial and null Luther's objection is, to which Hoffmann in his writing p. 31 refers, that the Missourian pastor Hübener from Dresden had sent the “very poor” assertion into the world that the Church was born as a free church, but Luthardt is right to say [p. 31]: whether, because we are born as children, we must also remain children! 

Unfortunately, today's state churchmen are by no means men in Christ, but eager servants of the state authority! St. Paul reminds the Galatians [Gal. 4:31] <page 78> in very serious words that as children of the free they are taken from the Jewish theocracy and the poor statutes, how much more must the modern state [in Germany] without religion, which favors unbelief, be in servitude for Christians loyal to the faith, which despite the fat profits that the royal pastors and professors enjoy, is nevertheless only a glittering misery. Are we therefore to become servants, servants of a state power that is becoming more and more pagan, because we are called to the Christian Church as free children of God? Quite different from Luthardt and comrades, the old teachers saw the service that Christian princes, as long as they remained true to the faith of their fathers, wanted to render to the Church. Hartmann [1640-1680] writes in his Pastorale: 

“So also in our time the godliness of our princes is to be praised, according to which they provided their subjects with skillful and efficient teachers, not so that the congregations were deprived of their rights, but because the people neither understood nor used their rights, and the right judgment of the same was prevented by old madmen, they took the same under their guardianship and represented the place of the church.” 

Hartmann thus calls the state that existed under the territorial system a life under guardianship. Hartmann does not teach that the Christianity of the New Testament, born as a free church, thereby made progress towards manhood; how much more would he deplore the present state of the state church, which is not unjustly called a prince's maid by the Romans [Catholics].

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      I appreciated Hochstetter's instructive narrative to help delineate the issues. Hochstetter was a true Missourian! — In the next Part 10, a transition from an error in Church Government to errors in doctrine.

RH8: Not constitutional question, but doctrinal; not the Church as a whole, but the whole Church

   This continues from Part 7 (Table of Contents in Part 1) in a series presenting Pastor's Hochstetter's critique of an 1881 German pamphlet on the Old Missouri Synod. — Some of what Hochstetter covers in this installment was also covered in his later History of the Missouri Synod book (see his his Chapter 7, and my follow-up Excursus). He is focused on defending the Biblical and confessional doctrines of Church and Ministry, and so fights no only against the erring Iowa and Ohio Synod theologians, but also against the "state and court theologians" of Germany.  — From Lehre und Wehre, vol. 28 (Feb. 1882), pp. 75-76 [EN]: 

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How the Missouri Synod is Judged in Germany Today.

[A review of an 1881 pamphlet by Pastor Rudolph Hoffmann of Germany]

By Pastor Ch. Hochstetter, Stonebridge, Canada.

 

On the other hand, it must first be testified that in Hoffmann the great error prevails, as if it were only a constitutional question, which forms the gulf between Buffalo and Missouri! The differences between these two or between the New Lutheran Romanists and the real Old Lutherans, whose Germany counts only a few, are much deeper, they are far-reaching doctrinal differences! The question is: with whom is the spiritual power, the power of the Keys that Christ has given to His Church on earth, that is recognized in all church governance? Grabau attributed it, as shown above, to the "teaching estate", and today's state and court theologians allow the communion of the saints, which is already the Church according to the Apostles Creed, to be only the object and the goal, on and towards which the so-called church government should work. The latter, which according to Hoffmann remains best in the hands of the sovereign, is considered to be the Church. He distinguishes this “real” Church [p. 32] from the so-called idealistic one and thinks that the Missourians are mistaken in wanting to make the fellowship of the saints visible! 

They know that only true believers belong to the Body of Christ, but they are afraid of falling into subjectivism, individualism or atomism if they hold to the teachings of Sacred <page 76> Scripture and the Lutheran symbols, according to which the Church is the Body of Christ, the Kingdom of Heaven, which is characterized by the pure Word and the Sacrament, but is essentially invisible, because Christ also dwells invisibly in the hearts of his believers. Through Christ and by Christ, the communion of saints, as his bride, has the power which the Caesareopapist Union [i.e. Prussion Union] wants to take away from it.  Hoffmann accuses the Missouri Synod of transferring the church government to each individual congregation; but here nothing at all is to be transferred, but only to confess what Christians, as spiritual priests and kings, already have originally. Therefore, if only two or three were gathered in Jesus name, they would have orders and power from Him to set up the public preaching office. For "where the true church is, there is also this command", as the Smalcald Articles already teach [Of the Power and Jurisdiction of Bishops, § 67-69], citing not only Matthew 18:20 but also 1 Peter 2:9 as a passage proving that the congregation has the spiritual priesthood. 

Hoffmann, on the other hand, thinks that only the whole church, existing as a divine union of the three estates, has the church government and the appeal of the Missourians to the spiritual priesthood is not valid, because this leads to a spiritual priesthood rule! It would be like carrying water into the sea to show in this publication that the Missourians have Scripture and symbols for their doctrine, that the Smalcald Articles, for example, with reference to the above passages, do not ascribe to the Church as a whole, but to the whole Church the power to appoint church servants who, on behalf of the congregation, in the name of other Christians, maintains this ministry of the Word and Sacraments. If even the Apostle Paul says that he administers the keys for the sake of the believers, in Christ's stead, 2 Cor. 2:10, then the servants of the Church today need not be ashamed of this either. Nevertheless, it is partly official priestly pride and partly fear of the so-called “spiritual priesthood” that underlies the aversion with which people want to reject our genuine evangelical doctrine as a kind of American democracy. A spiritual priesthood is a contradiction in adjecto [a contradiction in terms], a self-contradiction, because spiritual priests [the laity] do not want to rule, but serve their Lord and his Church as a dearly bought property of Christ; they willingly surrender to the Word of God together with their preacher, who has to administer the public service, and have a better guideline for it than the statutes of the royal state church. From obedience to the Word of God flows independence from the state authority in spiritual matters; for in matters of faith they are also kings, that is, directly under Christ, who do not have to go into fealty to any other power, whether secular or spiritual, that is the ecclesiastical freedom of the Christian man, which, of course, is destroyed as far as possible in the [Prussian] Union. 

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      Hochstetter demonstrates, by his passionate defense of these doctrines, that he was a true student of Walther and the Confessions. This is quite in contrast to the publications emanating from the LC-MS today. Although Hochstetter did not mention this, Hoffmann understood Missouri's doctrine of the particular "church" to be: "they assigned church government to the individual congregation [Einzelgemeinde]". Today's LC-MS, according to Pres. Matthew Harrison, Church and Office, p. 65, teaches that "a synod is in fact 'church'" which is the opposite of how Hoffmann in Germany understood Walther's teaching. — In the next Part 9, Hochstetter gives more evidence and emphasis to his defense against the modern Union or State Church in Germany.