# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1847 09 29_S20
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

ground and fetch it from beyond a thousand miles.... The other reason and inducement to willing confession is the precious and noble promise of God in the four sayings: Matthew 16:19: "Whatever you shall loose shall be loosed"; Matthew 18:18: "Whatever you shall loose shall be loosed"; John 20:23: "Whosesoever sins you forgive, to them they shall be forgiven"; Matthew 18:19–20: "Where two agree together on earth about anything, whatever it may be, it shall be done for them by my Father who is in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them." Whoever is not moved by such sweet and comforting words must indeed have a cold faith and be a loose Christian." (In the little book on Confession.)

Of the full scripturalness of this doctrine of the Lutheran Church, even the largest and most significant part of the Reformed Church at that time convinced itself, and accepted it — although shortly before, many of these preachers had declared themselves against it with mockery and contempt. Among the three main articles of doctrine in which the Reformed united with the Lutherans (usually called the Wittenberg Concord of the year 1536), there was, besides those concerning the two sacraments, also the article on absolution, concerning which the following was established: "Here all wish and desire that private absolution be preserved in the church — not only for the sake of the comfort which the conscience has in it, but also because in every way this discipline, whereby people are examined individually and the ignorant instructed, is useful to the church in many ways. It will also, in every way, be necessary for the coarse and unlearned that one converse with them and question them in this manner. Yet the old and papal confession, together with the enumeration of sins, shall neither be approved nor set up again; rather, such a friendly conversation and questioning for counsel shall be maintained for the sake of absolution and also for the sake of instruction."

Unfortunately, the Reformed soon destroyed this rightful union again; indeed, even a large part of the Lutherans later also fell away from Dr. Luther's doctrine on this point and set up an unlawful union with the Reformed. A powerful testimony against such and similar falsifications of the article on private confession was given by Melanchthon in the so-called Wittenberg Reformation of the year 1545 — although even at that time he already leaned very strongly toward the side of the Reformed. This Reformation was signed by Dr. Luther and other Lutheran theologians. The relevant passage, however, reads thus: "Since, then, all who understand know that this very article (of penance and confession) is taught and explained quite faithfully and purely in our churches, and that it is a necessity for the whole of Christendom that it be kept pure, we neither will nor can consent to or permit any alteration, obscuring, or patchwork in the doctrine of this article. — And although the present new deceivers paint new colors on the old errors, and probe and seek to find fault with our doctrine, yet all who understand know that this article is taught rightly and salutarily among us in every point. Thus we ourselves are inclined to maintain confession in its proper Christian form, to instruct the people in it, to examine them, and likewise to preserve the understanding, and this testimony of the churches, that the holy gospel surely proclaims the forgiveness of sins, both in general and in particular — and if one wished to undertake a salutary reformation, it would be especially necessary to preach and administer the whole article of repentance, together with the doctrine of confession, private absolution, and of faith, in the manner in which we have now often given thorough and Christian account of it."

In all this, Dr. Luther was nevertheless far from wishing to force such a salutary reformation upon anyone; he writes: "We compel no one to confession, as all our writings testify; whoever does not want it, let him let it go. . . . Our doctrine concerns those to whom their salvation is a serious matter." (In the writing to the Frankfurters.)

Among those, however, who had accepted Dr. Luther's catechism and doctrine, private confession and absolution were so generally introduced that no one was admitted to the Holy Supper without it, as may be seen, together with the reason for it, from another passage of the letter just mentioned, which reads thus: "Because we intend to raise up Christians and to leave them behind us, and in the sacrament to give the body and blood of Christ, we neither will nor can give such a sacrament to anyone unless he has first been examined as to what he has learned of the catechism, and whether he is willing to abandon the sins he has committed against it. For we do not want to make of Christ's church a pigsty, and let everyone run unexamined to the sacrament like swine to a trough. Such churches we leave to the fanatics."

That the Lutheran Church at all times, and namely also in practice, upheld private confession and absolution is finally also proven by the Lutheran church orders and agendas still extant.

The number of these publicly confirmed church orders and agendas amounts to several hundred, and even if only the usually very lengthy relevant sections were to be communicated from those according to whose model the rest were composed, this would be far too tedious. It will therefore suffice for the readers to know the true result: that in all these purely Lutheran church orders — from the first, composed by Dr. Bugenhagen, the Brunswick order of the year 1521, down to the so-called Lower Saxon order of the year 1585 — and thus specifically during the period in which the Lutheran Church was still at its purest, that is, up until Luther's death, only private confession and absolution were customary, and were introduced through these ecclesiastical regulations for preachers and congregations in all those places without any exception whatsoever — regarded, indeed, not as necessary for the sake of conscience and salvation, but, like all other church customs, as necessary for the sake of discipline and good order; just as St. Paul also admonishes Christians: "Let all things be done decently and in order" (1 Corinthians 14:40), and St. Peter: "Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake." (1 Peter 2:13.)

Now although, from that time (1585) down into the past century (around 1750), those church orders and agendas were not infrequently altered in repeated new editions, these alterations for the most part concerned only individual secondary matters; in particular, however, the earlier regulations regarding private confession and absolution remained unchanged and continued on and on until the time when the falling-away from the pure Lutheran worship service became ever more manifest and general.

These passages, cited from the symbolic books, Dr. Luther's writings, and the pure church orders, prove sufficiently that the Lutheran Church of that time upheld private confession and absolution in both doctrine and practice.

(To be continued.)

Why Are the Words of Institution, "This Is My Body; This Is My Blood," to Be Taken Literally?

Mr. Nast has made us the proposal — as readers will recall from the third volume of "Der Lutheraner" — that if we were willing to lay before the readers of "Der Lutheraner" a certain essay on the Holy Supper communicated by him in the Apologist, he too would give our refutation to the readers of the Apologist.*) However sorry we are, on the one hand, to have to detain our readers with a lengthy essay by a man who, departing from Holy Scripture, follows his own thoughts, we nevertheless hope for our readers' assent to our having accepted the proposal, for two reasons: first, because otherwise Mr. Nast would continue, not without some semblance of truth, to boast that his presentation is so convincing and unanswerable that a Lutheran must fear even to submit it to his brethren for examination —

*) Mr. Nast does add, to be sure, "our refutation is to take up just as much space" as his essay which we are to refute; we hope, however, that Mr. Nast will be fair enough to concede that many assertions can be set forth in a small space, the elucidation of which necessarily requires somewhat more space. We do not wish to fear that Mr. Nast, in setting that condition, dishonestly sought only to secure for himself an honorable retreat, should the prospect of an honorable victory begin to fade for him. We shall not only make ourselves as brief as possible without prejudice to clarity, but shall also strictly refrain from all personalities, and keep nothing before our eyes but the setting forth of the truth.