# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_M rz 1859_S83
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

How should a pastor conduct himself at the sickbed of his parishioners? 83

At the same time it can happen, and is often found, that such a person
possesses a fair knowledge of the way of salvation; he knows that God's
wrath and curse on account of sin are mankind's inheritance; he knows
that Christ has atoned for and paid for our sins, and that we cannot
attain righteousness before God by our own works — and with this
knowledge which he possesses, he is perhaps a diligent churchgoer, he
goes to the Holy Supper at the proper times, indeed perhaps gives
generously of his own means to this or that good work; and yet his
heart is not upright before God, yet he is no Christian, but a hypocrite,
a sham stalk of wheat which indeed has the form and shape of good
wheat, but has no kernels in the ear. Who would believe it? People can
indeed be deceived by such a semblance of godliness, for they look only
at what is before their eyes; they are not searchers of hearts. Yet it not
infrequently happens that such self-righteous people reveal the ground
of their heart — either in that they place great confidence in their own
strength, or are very quick with heart-experiences which they relate to
others with visible self-satisfaction, and gladly tell the pastor too, so as
to win his admiration; or in that they take a certain pleasure in
reflecting on the injustice they have already suffered from the world on
account of their fearlessly confessed faith; or in that, on the sickbed,
without one being able to perceive any genuine spiritual life in them,
they speak with great assurance of their salvation, and the like. It does
not occur to me here to do injustice to any child of God, or to stamp
him a self-righteous Pharisee, even should quite similar symptoms —
arising from weakness of faith, which even a true Christian still carries
in himself — be found in him; and a pastor must certainly here pray
earnestly for the illumination of the Holy Spirit, in order to hit upon
the right course in dealing with the sick person committed to his
spiritual care, and thus, for his part, to fully discharge his calling and
office. But experience teaches how much more difficult it is to bring the
self-righteous to a humble recognition of their corruption through
original sin and their own great worthlessness, than it is to bring the
secure — people who have perhaps hitherto lived in gross sins — to
acknowledgment and repentance of their deep corruption.

But if the pastor is convinced that the sick person is a self-righteous
man, then it is necessary that he, so far as the man's condition allows,
set before him God's great earnestness and holy abhorrence of sin and
of our corruption through original sin — God who did not spare even
his own Son, but let him, though he himself had no sin of his own, feel
the whole of his wrath when he bore our sin; God who, according to his
righteousness, ought all the more to show his so just wrath against us,
who have so many sins of our own, indeed have often sinned with
pleasure and have willfully cast his holy commandments out of our
sight. And in doing so one must, with such people, turn especially to
their conscience as well, which can best convince them whether they,
with their whole heart and with their whole...