# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1850_S142
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

— 142 —

to it. By yielding to those who do not actually claim
Christian liberty but only a liberty pleasing to their old Adam, the
congregation could also run the risk of losing private
confession altogether. It should therefore, with God's help, insist on
retaining its good old order, especially since this practice is
entirely in keeping with the sense of the old teachers, as is evident,
for example, from the testimonies of Heinrich Müller, who declares that
those who newly join a congregation must submit to the congregation's
order, particularly also with regard to private confession. (See: the
appendix to his "Hours of Spiritual Refreshment.")

Yet should members join it who had until then belonged to a
congregation where private confession was not customary, or who had
scruples of conscience about it, it should not proceed immediately with
strictness, but treat them with Christian
forbearance, make an exception with them for a time, and
instruct them thoroughly first; the honest among them would then in time come
to see the benefit of private confession and fall in with the Christian order.

The Pomeranian Catechism.

On June 17, 1848, sixteen members of the Evangelical Lutheran
congregation at Freistadt, Wisconsin, addressed a letter to our Synod requesting
a ruling on the dispute over the Pomeranian Catechism that had arisen
between them and their then preacher, Pastor Keyl.
The Synod subjected the matter to careful examination and thereupon
issued the ruling found in the Second Synodical Report, pp. 22–23. This
ruling by no means satisfied the petitioners, however; they
took it to mean, rather, that the Synod had in it wholly rejected
the Pomeranian Catechism, indeed even denied the preaching office the
power "to forgive sins." They therefore believed they had to bring
their case before the Synod once more and set forth their view in a letter
to this year's assembly, demanding that the Synod retract
its previously given judgment. The Synod could not, however, agree to
the latter, since it is not aware of having rendered a false
judgment; yet it readily admits that the ruling could have been
misunderstood, first, because it stated: "We cannot agree with
the opinion that the catechism should be retained," etc.;
second, because, through an oversight (p. 23), "preaching office" was said several
times instead of "preachers." It was never, however, the Synod's
intent, by the former, to reject the catechism as heretical, or, by the
latter, to deny the preaching office the power "to forgive sins."
As to the former, it was only meant to be asserted that
it is better to use the Small Lutheran Catechism, and as to
the latter, that the power of the keys does not belong exclusively to preachers.
It is better to use the Small Lutheran Catechism instead of the Pomeranian one
because, in the latter, the phrase "by virtue of office" (in the doctrine of the
power of the keys) is liable to be misunderstood in our time — when the
unevangelical and un-Lutheran teaching has arisen, as though the Church's
servant did not administer his office in the name and by the commission of
his congregation at the same time, but were rather, in a Jewish-papist
manner, to be regarded as a kind of mediator between
God and men, exalted above the common Christian priesthood. This is
the answer given to the petitioners