# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1860_S52
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

— Page 52 —

The third part of the thesis — "Without faith, absolution
is of no use to a person" — was recognized by everyone
as clear, and so the fourth part was taken up at once: "though it is
not therefore a skeleton key [clavis errans]." On this the Synod
expressed itself as follows: although this last clause has already
been explained at length in the Referat [paper read to the
convention], it is nevertheless so important that we may not pass
over it so quickly. One must here hold firmly to the distinction
between the means of offering (the Gospel) and the means of receiving
(faith). The means of offering never fails and can never fail. If all
of us preachers believed that we have no clavis errans (skeleton
key), we would offer people the overflowing comfort of the Gospel in
its full richness far more joyfully and confidently. Yet although in
principle we do not believe in a skeleton key, in practice various
misgivings nonetheless come over us as to whether we may offer the
treasure of the Gospel in its full richness — which shows that,
having grown up under the influences of this age, we still carry
something of belief in the skeleton key in our hearts. One of the
delegates confirmed this from his own experience; he said that he too
had once thought that, if a person did not believe, absolution
passed, as it were, right over his head — but one must instead take
Luther's word to heart: the sun that shines on a thief and a robber
and on an honest man remains the same sun, and the gold in the hand
of a scoundrel remains the same gold. Here too belongs the word from
the parable of the sower: "Then comes the devil and takes the word
from their hearts." The same holds for the sacraments. The treasure
is always given, but without faith it is not received. This is also
a great comfort for the pastor, that he need not, like Caspar Schade
once did, torment and trouble himself over never giving absolution to
someone unworthy; for if the preacher is certain that his absolution
is no skeleton key, then that worry falls away. — It was further
stated: what has been said about the skeleton key is
important not only for preachers, but especially for
hearers as well. Why else do upright Christians not come
to confession with proper longing and desire? Why is there such great
aversion to private confession? The main reason is that people think:
if you know you are a Christian, that you have forgiveness of sins,
you may go; but if you do not know this, you may not go, for you
might otherwise take absolution to your own judgment, and receive no
absolution at all but curse and damnation instead. If they knew and
believed that, every time the preacher says, "Your sins are forgiven
you," this is really so — that God really says Yes and Amen to it,
that the word really looses from sin, that the key really unlocks —
they would have far more longing for this great treasure. But they
often think: the key surely fits, but I would have to be a better
door for it not to fail me; yet this is false, the key never fails.
As surely as God lives in heaven, just as surely am I absolved when
the preacher absolves me; if, then, I do not attain forgiveness, I
should not say, "The key failed," but rather, "I have failed."