# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1847 09 29_S19
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

(from the year 1526), but most briefly and forcefully in his warning writing to the Frankfurters (from the year 1533).

How highly and dearly Dr. Luther held private confession he testified in the eighth sermon that he preached in the year 1522 against Karlstadt's innovations, in which he says: "No one knows what holy confession can do except one who must often fight and struggle with the devil. I would long ago have been overcome and strangled by the devil, had this confession not preserved me. For there are many doubtful and erring matters in which a man alone cannot rightly manage or comprehend himself."

Especially relevant here is that well-known and excellent passage from his letter to the Frankfurters: "If a thousand and yet a thousand worlds were mine," etc. — a passage that gains still greatly in force when considered in its context. For after Dr. Luther has spoken of the soul-destroying abuse that formerly took place in connection with confession, he continues: "Now that we have revived it, the devil and his apostles want once again to strike it down entirely. But not for me; whoever does not want it for himself, let him go his way; yet he should not take it from us and other devout people (who need it and understand its benefit), nor destroy it. It is said, qui ignorat, ignoret [let him who wishes to be ignorant remain ignorant]. — If a thousand and yet a thousand worlds were mine, I would rather lose everything than let the smallest particle of this confession be taken out of the church. — Indeed, I would rather bear the papacy's tyranny concerning fasting, festivals, clothing, places, tonsures, cowls, and whatever else I could bear without injury to the faith, than that confession should be taken away from the Christians. For it is the first, most necessary, and most useful school of Christians, in which they learn to understand and practice God's Word and their faith — which they do not do as powerfully in public lessons and sermons." This one testimony of Dr. Luther alone outweighs a host of testimonies of later teachers who speak in favor of private confession, and overcomes the many ifs and buts that have been raised against it.

Now if a man like Dr. Luther lets the high praise of private confession, with which his heart was full, flow so abundantly from mouth and pen, should not every Christian, when it is moreover offered and advised to him, not only make use of it with heartfelt delight, but also, out of love for his neighbor, urgently recommend it to other Christians?

For this reason, namely out of love for the whole Church of Christ, Dr. Luther urged so often and earnestly that private confession and absolution be maintained by and for every Christian; he deals with this, for example, in the counsel for the proceedings at Schmalkalden, which he composed in the year 1531, and in which he also justifies the use of private absolution by the example of Christ, who for the most part absolved only individuals. He writes thus: "There must indeed remain a form and discipline in the churches, which cannot be maintained without confession. And it would well come to this, where people were not accustomed in confession to take heed of sin and to await absolution or forgiveness, that in time absolution and the forgiveness of sin would be altogether abandoned and the matter turned around, and people would run to the sacrament again out of their own devotion, as before. So one must also leave room for the comforting, free gospel, that it may be spoken both to any individual person and to many. But what else is absolution than the gospel spoken to a single person, who thereby receives comfort concerning his known sin? Thus stands the example of Christ, Matthew 9, where he absolves the paralytic individually, and Luke 7, where he likewise absolves the sinful woman individually."

Of the great benefit of private confession and absolution Dr. Luther likewise speaks in many places, of which only a few shall be conveyed here. Both, namely, are meant to be, for every Christian in particular, an exercise in the two chief parts of Christian doctrine, the Law and the Gospel. He shows this in his letter to the Frankfurters in the following words: "Thus we now make use of confession as a holy exercise. In the first part we exercise ourselves in the Law; in the other, in the Gospel. For in the first part we learn to make right use of the Law (as St. Paul says), namely to recognize and hate sin. In the other part we exercise ourselves in the Gospel, learn to grasp rightly God's promise and comfort, and thus put into practice what is preached from the pulpit. For although a preacher in the pulpit also teaches the Law and the Gospel, yet he lets it rest there; no one practices, asks, or inquires how he has grasped it, nor can he see where it is lacking, whom he should further comfort or rebuke, because he has no particular person before him whom he may exercise. And although the hearer also hears both of these in the sermon, he still grasps far more strongly and surely what is said to him in particular, as to a single person."

That precisely for this reason every Christian ought to seek comfort for himself in particular in private absolution, Dr. Luther teaches in his House Postil, on the Sunday of Quasimodogeniti: "In order that faith may become firm, that our sins — yours and mine — are forgiven, Christ has so ordained it that no one is to be baptized for another, or go to the sacrament for another, but each one is to do it for himself. So also each one is to hear the Word for himself and to seek and desire absolution, wherever he cannot sufficiently be comforted by the common preaching; and he should not doubt at all, when he hears the word of the forgiveness of sin in the name of Jesus, that it is indeed so — that his sins are taken from him, and that he is released from them, even in heaven and before the eyes of God."

Briefly, powerfully, and comprehensively Dr. Luther speaks in another place (in the sermon on the Sacrament from the year 1526) of the threefold benefit of private confession — namely, that it serves for the absolution, instruction, and comforting of every Christian in particular — remarking at the same time that only devout Christians can rightly confess, but that they should pay attention not so much to their own confession as chiefly to the word of absolution. It states there: "In private confession there is much benefit and comforting matter. First, the absolution, that your neighbor absolves you in God's stead, which is exactly as much as if God himself spoke it; this should indeed be comforting to us. If I knew that God were in some place and would absolve me himself, I would not want to fetch this only once, or in one place, but as often as ever I could, go there to obtain it. This he has now placed into the mouth of man, wherefore it is very comforting, especially for burdened consciences, to fetch it there. Secondly, it serves the simple-minded, the children, as it were. For since the common people are an unindustrious lot, always hearing sermons and learning nothing, and no one at home insists that it be practiced, therefore, even if it were good for nothing else, it is at least good for this, that people be instructed and one may hear how they believe, pray, learn, etc." (Such instruction is needed nowadays even among the so-called educated, since unfortunately even among these ignorance of catechism teaching is now great. In Dr. Luther's time a child of seven years knew what the church was; now many adults who yet go to the sacrament do not know it.) "Therefore I have said," Luther continues, "the sacrament should be given to no one unless he can give an account of what he is fetching and why he is going there. This can most fittingly take place in confession. Thirdly, however, there is comfort in it for one who has an evil conscience, or otherwise a concern or need, and would gladly have counsel, that he may ask for counsel there. Therefore we cannot despise confession, for God's Word is there, which comforts and strengthens us in faith, and moreover instructs and teaches us what we lack, and also gives counsel in time of need. Therefore, too, no one performs this confession rightly except devout Christians. For they must be such people as feel that they would gladly seek counsel and comfort. But the fault in this matter is that one has paid attention not to the absolution but to our own work — how well and purely one confesses — and has wished, besides, to enumerate one's sins, which cannot be done, and also becomes too much and too great a labor to listen to."

"But two reasons should move us to confess willingly and gladly. The first is the holy cross, that is, the shame and disgrace, that a man willingly bares himself before another man and accuses and reconciles himself. That is a precious portion of the holy cross. Oh, if we knew what punishment such willing shamefacedness forestalls, and how it makes God gracious, in that a man, to God's honor, thus humbles and abases himself, we would dig confession out of the