# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_M rz 1859_S81
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

How should a pastor conduct himself at the sickbed of his parishioners? 81

until the following day, so that, God willing, a more lasting repentance
may be worked.

There is, however, yet another kind of secure people, in whom the
security springs, next to the corruption of original sin, also from a very
great natural dullness. To be sure, all Christians ought to learn from
public preaching what serves the salvation of their soul, so that when
illness breaks in and death draws near them, they would know how to
die in a state of grace — yet experience teaches that, apart from the
willful indifference of very many (as noted above) in whom God's Word
seems to be without power, there are also quite a few who, on account
of a weakness of natural mental gifts joined with the natural corruption
of original sin, arrive neither at a genuine knowledge of their sins nor at
a settled, joyful confidence in Christ — not exactly out of wickedness
and willfulness, but out of spiritual sluggishness and dullness. Dr.
Luther, in his writing "Whether One May Flee from the Plague," speaks
earnest and weighty words: "One should," he says, "admonish the
people to go to church and hear the sermon, that they may learn God's
Word, how they are to live and die. For one must take care that those
who are so coarse and reckless as to despise God's Word while they live
are likewise, in turn, to be left lying in their illness, unless they show
their remorse and repentance with great earnestness, with weeping and
lamenting. For whoever wants to live like a heathen or a dog, and has
no public repentance for it, to him we will not administer the
sacrament, nor receive him among the number of Christians; let him
die as he has lived, and see to himself, for we are not to cast pearls
before swine, nor give what is holy to dogs. One finds, alas, so much of
the coarse, hardened rabble that cares for its soul neither in life nor in
death; they go about and lie down, and they die off just like blocks of
wood, in which there is neither sense nor thought.

Secondly, that everyone in good time prepare and ready himself for
death, by confessing and taking the sacrament once every eight or
fourteen days, be reconciled with his neighbor, and make his testament,
so that, should the Lord knock and he be caught unawares before the
parish pastor or chaplain can come to him, he may nevertheless have
provided for his soul and not neglected it, but have commended it to
God — for it is also not always possible, where mortality is great and
there are only two or three [pastors] available, that they can go to
everyone and tell and teach each person, from the very beginning, all
the things a Christian ought to know in the hour of death's distress.
Those, however, who are negligent and remiss in this matter give
account for themselves, and it is their own fault if a special daily
pulpit and altar cannot be held before their bed, seeing that they have
so despised the common pulpit and altar to which God had called and
summoned them."

These are truly beautiful and splendid words, well deserving to be laid
earnestly to heart; yet it must also be noted that our dear father Luther
was thereby...