# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1848 04 18_S129
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Der Lutheraner.

"God's Word and Luther's teaching shall pass away neither now nor ever."

Published by the German Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and Other States.

Edited by C. F. W. Walther.

Volume 4.

St. Louis, Mo., April 18, 1848.

No. 17.

to be prepaid, along with the postage.
Only the letters which

Terms: Der Lutheraner appears once every two weeks, at the annual subscription price of one dollar for the out-of-town subscribers, who must bear the same. — In St. Louis, each single number is sold for 5 cents.

contain communications for the paper are to be sent to the Editor; all others, however, which contain business matters, orders, cancellations, money, etc.,
are to be sent under this address: Mr. F. W. Barthel, care of C. F. W. Walther, St. Louis, Mo.

(Submitted.)
Christian Liberty, with Regard to Private
and General Confession and Absolution.

Since the manifold usefulness of private confession has been set forth and discussed in several detailed articles in the Lutheraner, but since it can hardly be expected that this church order — well-intentioned and salutary in itself — will find acceptance everywhere among the American Lutheran congregations, it is, in order to forestall a one-sided understanding of those articles that could lead to dangerous scruples of conscience, certainly not without use to consider the church orders in question also from the standpoint of Christian liberty, and to show briefly that a Christian may not only, with a good conscience, make use of the one or the other of such orders, but must even make use of his liberty in this matter, as soon as they are either imposed upon him by others as a necessary thing binding the conscience, or are made into such a thing by himself with good intentions.
I prove this: 1. from God's Word;

2. from the doctrine of the Lutheran Church in the Symbolical Books;

3. from the writings of the late Dr. Luther, and
4. from the practice of the Lutheran Church.
1. Specific testimonies from God's Word are as follows:

-dom, wherewith Christ has made us free, and be not entangled again in the yoke of bondage.

By the yoke of bondage was to be understood the divine commandment of the Old Covenant, circumcision, which had been abolished in the New Testament, but which, for love's sake and so as not to give offense to the weak, was still occasionally practiced out of Christian liberty even by the Apostle Paul himself, in that he, for instance, circumcised Timothy; but as soon as a necessity — indeed, a necessity unto salvation — was made of it, and the conscience was thereby held captive, the Apostle called out to his Galatians: "Stand fast

Gal. 5, verse 1: "Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free," etc. For consciences can just as easily be thrown into confusion by unnecessary doubting and scrupling over whether one may do this or that, as by a bold use of liberty that offends the weak.

Another passage belonging here is found at Col. 2, 16: "Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of a feast day, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days."

Here too these are commandments of the divine ceremonial law which, especially as concerns the sabbath, were still observed by most Jewish Christians, and concerning which the Christians at Colossae were not to let their consciences be burdened, whether these were pressed upon them as commandments binding the conscience, or whether they themselves were in danger of so binding themselves to them that the liberty of their conscience suffered and a necessary habit resulted from it. — It will hardly be necessary to cite further testimonies of the New Testament to prove that the right of every Christian freely to make use of this or that church order without offense to his conscience has full grounding in the Gospel. If only everything proceeds honestly and in order, and liberty is not made by us into a cloak for wickedness, then full justice is done to all human ordinances.

2. The doctrine of the Lutheran Church concerning things indifferent, church orders, and ceremonies is contained in many passages of the Symbolical Books, according to which, therefore, Articles 11 and 25 of the Augsburg Confession, and others which treat of the retention of private confession, are to be understood, and which are to be taken into account in any attempted reintroduction of the same. Very instructive and warning in this regard is the general counsel which the blessed confessors give in the Apology of the Augsburg Confession, Art. 8, where it says: "that without a special and compelling cause, nothing should be changed in the church usages, but rather, for the sake of peace and unity, one should keep those customs which

can be kept without sin and without burdening the conscience, since general unity and peace, so far as they can be maintained without burdening the conscience, would rightly be preferred to all other lesser matters." With great definiteness the Formula of Concord, Article 10, expresses itself concerning the abolition of things indifferent: "We also reject and condemn it when such things indifferent are abolished in such a way as though

it were not free to the congregation of God, at any time and place, according to its circumstances, as may be most useful to the churches, to make use of one or more of them in Christian liberty." That therefore even a larger or smaller part of a congregation, if it does not wish to have taken from it a long-standing church order, such as, for instance, general confession is, may not have its liberty curtailed, is clear from this passage — and this holds especially true when, in return, the other part is not hindered in its liberty to make use of another order likewise present and agreeable to it.

In the Formula of Concord, Solid Declaration, Article 10, it says: "Accordingly we believe, teach, and confess that the congregation of every place and every time has good right, power, and authority to change, to diminish, and to increase such things, without frivolity and offense, in an orderly and becoming way, as may at any time be regarded as most useful, most conducive, and best for good order, Christian discipline and training, evangelical decorum, and the edification of the Church. Rom. 14. Paul yields, and bears with the weak in meat and in time or days. But to the false apostles, who wanted to press such matters as necessary things upon the conscience, he would not yield even in such things indifferent, free in themselves. Col. 2: 'Let no man make you judge concerning meat, drink, or particular feast days,' etc. And when Peter and Barnabas in such a case yielded somewhat, Paul rebuked them publicly, as those who walked not rightly according to the truth of the Gospel. Gal. 2, 14. For it is a matter of the article of Christian liberty,