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…