# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1847 09 20_S15
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

best case, setting up the loudest shouter from among the newly converted as their preacher — one of whom openly confessed to us that he knew nothing at all of the Word of God, but simply preached to them according to his own judgment as to how they should conduct themselves. — On the other hand, however, we must also thank God from the bottom of our hearts that HE has still left an open door for His pure Word and His unadulterated Sacrament among the poor Indians of our neighborhood, and has also sent us, in the Dresden mission student Mr. Eduard Baierlein, a faithful helper in our difficult field of labor, who already, with the interpreter's help, holds Indian-language worship for the Indian children every Sunday.

May the good Shepherd and faithful Savior Jesus Christ further bless the work of our hands, and open the hearts and hands of many of our brethren in the faith, that they may help with their prayer and their gifts, so that yet many more may be gathered into the host of the thousand times thousand, whose perfected ones already sing the thrice-holy around the throne of the Lamb. Amen.

A. C.

On Private and General Confession.
(By Pastor Keyl.)

It is among the gratifying signs of life of the Lutheran Church that recently, here as well as in Germany, many questions long fallen silent, concerning the mutual ecclesiastical relationship of private and general confession, the high advantages of the former over the latter, and the desirable return to private confession, have again been raised anew.

It would be far more gratifying still if the answering of these questions found not only an ever livelier interest among preachers and hearers, but also exerted a wholesome influence on church life, so that the number would continually increase of those in whom the forceful testimonies of our experienced forefathers concerning the inner excellence of private confession awakened the desire to become acquainted with it also from their own experience.

It shall now, first, be shown that in the best times of the Lutheran Church private confession alone was in use, but general confession was customary neither alongside private confession, and still less alone.

Secondly, the grounds shall be refuted which are usually advanced both for retaining general confession and against introducing private confession.

For a better understanding of what follows, the following remarks may serve: in the testimonies to be cited, almost always only private absolution is mentioned, indeed as the most important part — indeed as the actual purpose — of private confession, so that the mention of the former almost throughout presupposes the presence of the latter.

That in the best times of the Lutheran Church private confession alone was in use is evident from the frequent and unanimous testimony of her public confessional writings.

In the 11th article of the Augsburg Confession, which deals specifically with confession, it reads thus: "Of Confession it is taught that private absolution should be retained in the churches and not allowed to fall into disuse." By these latter two expressions the reproaches of the Papists were to be turned aside, as though Lutheran doctrine produced nothing but harmful innovations — since, as is well known, Carlstadt had already rejected the whole practice of confession as purified by Luther. Against this the Lutheran Church testified by those words that she wished to retain (retinere) private absolution, indeed after the pattern of the ancient Christian Church; for traces of it are already found in the third century, and at that time the desire for it proceeded from the members of the congregation. From the 5th century onward this practice came increasingly into use, especially through Leo the Great, and was already introduced in almost all places by the 7th century; whereupon, to be sure, it was later more and more corrupted through much leaven of false doctrine, and turned from a medicine of the conscience into a torment of the conscience, under the name of auricular confession. Against the latter, protest is made in the second half of the 11th article of the Augsburg Confession, in these words: "Although it is not necessary in confession to recount all misdeeds and sins, since indeed this is not possible. Ps. 18: Who can discern his errors?"

In the 25th article of the Augsburg Confession, private confession and absolution are likewise treated, for the same reasons, but still more fully, and specifically in contrast to the abuses that had crept in. It says there, right at the beginning: "Confession has not been abolished by the preachers on this side, for this custom is kept among us, not to administer the Sacrament to those who have not first been examined and absolved." These latter expressions, which occur still more often, can be understood solely and exclusively of private absolution, since only this one, and no other, was known and customary in the Lutheran Church at that time. At the close of that article it is proven to the opponents, from the Pope's own canon law, that confession is not commanded by Scripture but was instituted by the Church; but it is also added: "Nevertheless it is diligently taught by the preachers on this side that confession, for the sake of absolution — which is the chief part and the principal thing in it — should be retained for the comfort of terrified consciences, and also for the sake of certain other reasons."

In the defense of the aforementioned 11th article of the Augsburg Confession (Apology, p. 159) it is said, among other things: "When people all rush to the altar together at a certain fixed time (as used to happen), they cannot be so diligently examined and instructed as they are instructed among us." Soon after, it is further remarked that it is good for preachers to instruct people "that they name certain sins in confession, whatever weighs upon them, so that they may be more easily instructed." Both passages likewise cannot be understood of any other practice — for example, not of the confessional announcements unusual at that time, still less of the then-unknown general confession — but only of private confession.

In the Apology, Article 12 (p. 181), it is declared again, right at the beginning, that private confession is retained for the sake of private absolution, "which is God's Word, whereby the power of the keys absolves us from sins." But then a short yet powerful — indeed, without doubt the strongest — testimony against the abolition of private absolution is set down in the following words: "Therefore it would be against God thus to abolish absolution from the Church." In the Latin original it reads still more emphatically: "Impium esset" — it would be impious; and the absolution is more precisely specified still by the added word privata. This sharp judgment was probably aimed first of all at the senseless undertaking of Carlstadt, who, as is known, wished to abolish private confession altogether, under the pretense that it belonged to the papal leaven — in which the adherents of Zwingli's teaching, for example in Switzerland and in Frankfurt am Main, and other fanatics, agreed with him at the time, scoffing at the Lutheran Church, as still frequently happens even now.

In the Smalcald Articles Dr. Luther begins with these words: "Since absolution, or the power of the keys, is also a help and comfort against sin and an evil conscience, instituted in the Gospel through Christ, confession or absolution should on no account (Latin: nequaquam, by no means) be allowed to fall into disuse in the Church, especially for the sake of timid consciences, as well as for the sake of the young, untaught people, that they may be examined and instructed in Christian doctrine." Immediately following it further says: "Since private absolution derives from the office of the keys, it should not be despised, but held in high honor and esteem, like all the other offices of the Christian Church." Now, whoever does not desire it — can he really be said to hold it in high honor and esteem?

One of the most thorough and clearest proofs that private confession — and indeed to the total exclusion of general confession — is to be maintained in the Lutheran Church, is Dr. Luther's excellent instruction in his Small Catechism, which, unfortunately, very few Lutherans know, value, and use, because private confession has long since been displaced by general confession. Every word of this instruction presses toward private confession and absolution — for example: receiving forgiveness from the confessor (father confessor); before the confessor we are to confess the sins we know and feel in our heart; further, the address "Worthy, dear sir," etc.; the forms for confession; the address and the question put to the one confessing: Do you also believe that my forgiveness is God's forgiveness? — and finally the absolution to be pronounced according to the prescribed formula: all of this fits solely and exclusively private confession. Whoever reads through this instruction attentively and without prejudice will, on this ground alone, be moved to declare only private confession — not general confession — to be the Lutheran usage. This conviction will be further strengthened by the appendix to Dr. Luther's Large Catechism, found in several editions of the Book of Concord, containing "a brief exhortation to confession." This exhortation has, to be sure, not received such churchly authority as the catechism itself, yet it has ever and again been regarded as a clearer explanation of the article on confession, and as a warning against its abuse. Right at the beginning it names the three chief benefits which we obtained with respect to confession through the Reformation, namely, "that we need do it under no compulsion or fear, and are also relieved of the torment of having to count all sins so exactly. In addition we have the advantage of knowing how it is to be used savingly, for the comfort and strengthening of our conscience." But when in this exhortation mention is made of "the private confession that takes place between one brother alone," every believing Christian does indeed have, by virtue of the spiritual priesthood, the right, upon request, to absolve his brother just as validly as this is done by a minister of Christ regularly called to the office; yet from the conclusion of the writing mentioned, as well as from Article 14 of the Augsburg Confession, it is sufficiently clear that this private confession (cases of necessity excepted), and especially publicly in the church, should be performed only by those who have a regular call to teach and preach, or to administer the Sacrament.

The conclusion of these testimonies shall be made by a passage from the Formula of Concord, where in the 11th article, p. 808, it reads thus: "Therefore Christ also does not let the promise of the Gospel be proclaimed only in general, as in the sermon and in the general absolution after the sermon, but confirms the same, through the Sacraments which he has attached as seals of the promise, to each believer in particular, as happens in private absolution. Therefore we also retain, as the Augsburg Confession, Art. 11, says, private absolution, and teach that it is God's command that we should believe such absolution and hold it for certain that we, when we believe the Word, are as truly reconciled to God as if we had heard a voice from heaven; as the Apology explains this article."

(To be continued.)