# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_April 1860_S117
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

A Contribution to Pastoral Casuistry. 117

the opposite is the case: then the Wisconsin Synod, too, is not acting
rightly when, despite these facts, it takes steps toward a union that
will have so great an influence upon the faith and doctrine of their
future preachers and thus also of their congregations. It is a sin not
against men, but against the heavenly good of eternal truth itself. If
this is lost, what comfort remains for us poor sinners then, on earth
and in heaven? Therefore let us hold fast, with earnestness, to the
confession, that it may, so far as lies in us, be preserved to us, and
that under future generations too, people may yet be saved through the
truth that is in Jesus.

————◆————

(Submitted.)

From Balduin's Tractatus De casibus conscientiae.

How is the correction of one's neighbor, when he sins, to be
conducted, so that the neighbor may be bettered?

Answer. Brotherly correction belongs among the spiritual works of
mercy, and is called by some a spiritual alms.

Great is its necessity. For just as we are bound to assist our
neighbor with our help in bodily distress, poverty, imprisonment, and
other dangers of life, so we are obligated by the commandment of love
to correct his faults, through which he falls into danger of his soul.
This Christ requires of his own, Matth. 18:15: If thy brother sin
against thee, rebuke him between thee and him alone, etc. Although this
passage is commonly interpreted of private offenses, because it says:
if thy brother sin against thee — yet one says in general that those
sin against us who by their sins, which they commit either against God
or against the brethren, give us offense; if these were not corrected,
they would never recognize the magnitude of their sin, and so could
easily perish in their sins. To this belongs the word of Sirach 19:13:
Speak to thy neighbor about it; perhaps he has not done it, or if he
has done it, that he do it no more.

But in order that this correction be conducted rightly and
fruitfully, five points must be set out separately: 1. who ought to
correct others, 2. who ought to be corrected, 3. how many kinds of
correction there are, 4. how, and 5. to what end it ought to be
conducted.

As for the first point: all Christians in short are bound to correct
their neighbor when he sins, but chiefly the superiors should correct
those over whom they have, according to the measure of their office,
some authority, as for example the authorities their subjects, a
minister of the church his hearers, parents their children, teachers
their pupils. Concerning the superiors there is no doubt; but that the
subordinates too are obligated to this service is evident from the
fact that the duties of Christian love are common to all