# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1848_S56
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

— 56 —

...burial should not be refused. The same holds also for those who, during
their lives, have been guilty of gross, offensive sins, but who repented
before their end and died in faith in the Lord Christ. Where, however, the
pastor does not have sufficient knowledge of the state of soul in which the
person in question died, he should at least take care that no public
testimony of that person's blessedness be given at the burial — for
example, by singing the hymn "Nun laſſet uns den Leib begraben"
["Now let us bury the body"] etc., etc. — Should one wish to hold a
funeral sermon for those in whose case there is clear evidence that they
died impenitent, this sermon should have as its chief purpose to set before
others the examples of divine judgment as a warning, and the body should
then be committed to the earth without any Christian ceremonies. (Cf. the
opinions of the Wittenberg theological faculty, Book 1, p. 487 ff., and Book
3, p. 69.)

Opinion on the Use of the Pomeranian Catechism.

Since sixteen members of the Evangelical-Lutheran congregation at
Freistadt, Wisconsin, in a letter of the 17th of June of this year, have
asked the German Evangelical-Lutheran Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and
other states for an opinion in the dispute that has arisen between them
and their present preacher, the Reverend Pastor Keyl, over the
Pomeranian Catechism, the synod has taken care to examine this matter
carefully, in order to render its well-considered judgment on it in
accordance with the wish of those concerned.

The spirit in which that letter gratefully acknowledges the office and work
of the Reverend Pastor Keyl as pastor of that congregation, and expresses
the heartfelt desire to be in agreement with him on all points, is without
doubt gratifying. It also expresses a sincere trust in our synod, in that the
undersigned members of that congregation request such an opinion from
us.

The Reverend Pastor Keyl, namely, has had reservations about retaining
the mentioned catechism — which had until now been in use in the
church and school there — in his confirmation instruction, chiefly and
above all because it contains no instruction of Luther's on confession at
all, and partly because it speaks of the Office of the Keys differently than
the usual older Lutheran catechism does.

Specifically, in the — even if not substantially altered — wording of this
doctrinal article, the following explanation is found in the fourth answer
to the question: "How can man forgive sin?" Answer: "Man indeed does
not do it as a man of himself, but by virtue of his office, at the command
of the Lord Christ, as the words run: 'Whosesoever sins ye remit, they are
remitted unto them. Receive ye the Holy Ghost.' For just as the Son of
Man has power on earth to forgive sin, so has he instituted the same
power in the preaching office, when he says: 'As the Father hath sent
me'" etc.

Here the Reverend Pastor Keyl has by no means denied that the preaching
office indeed has the power to forgive sins, both through the general and
the particular preaching of the gospel, namely through holy absolution.
Nor, in turn, have the signers of that letter denied that Christ gave that
power to his whole church; but they have up to now held to the view that
this passage is not to be disapproved of or rejected, and that the catechism
should therefore be retained.