# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1860_S54
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

— Page 54 —

...nevertheless not be given to those who tell us they do not wish to
be absolved. This is said to us by those who live unrepentant in
manifest sins, or in open heresy. These we do not absolve, because
otherwise we would misuse the name of God, which is forbidden us in
the Second Commandment. Even if such people persist in saying they
want to be absolved, this is nonetheless not true; for they do not
want to be absolved of all their sins, since they insist on
persisting in particular willful sins, or in heresies.

Second question: If the loosing key is always infallible, then the
binding key must likewise always be infallible — but how, then, does
this stand with false excommunication [Bann], in which the binding
key is misused? And in what case must excommunication be regarded as
an abuse of the power of the keys?

Answer: the solution to this question is given so clearly in the
Small Catechism that it cannot be given more clearly. The binding key
is, namely, to be used on public and unrepentant sinners. It remains
always the binding key, wherever it is applied; but when one retains
the sin of those whose sin, according to God's word, one may not
retain, that is an abuse of the binding key and false
excommunication. As regards excommunication, we are given in Matthew
18 an infallible rule by Christ himself, by which we must proceed.
Here it is not necessary to look into the heart; for one judges and
decides on what lies openly before us, namely public sin and
impenitence — the latter becoming manifest precisely in that the
public sinner, at the third stage of admonition, refuses to hear the
congregation. Here it must not be forgotten that the one worthy of
excommunication is always convicted in his own conscience that he is
rightly excluded and to be regarded as a heathen and a tax collector.

Sixth Thesis: Through private absolution, no essentially
different or better forgiveness is imparted than in the
preaching of the Gospel; nor is it necessary, for obtaining
forgiveness, in such a way that without it no forgiveness
would take place; nevertheless it has its own particular
value and use, because through it the individual is made
more certain that the forgiveness of sins belongs to him
as well.

The first point of this thesis — that in private absolution no
essentially different or better forgiveness is imparted than in the
preaching of the Gospel — has already been explained under the first
thesis; for if the Gospel is essentially nothing other than
absolution, then private absolution too imparts nothing essentially
different from the preaching of the Gospel. A comparison can make
clear the relationship of private absolution to the general
absolution given in preaching. With the general absolution through
preaching, it is as if a rich man threw a mass of gold coins among a
crowd with the intent that everyone should receive one; whoever now...