# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_August 1859_S253
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Gleanings. 253

...who presents from the pulpit, for our supposed good, the most arbitrary opinions about the activity of the departed. Although they have gone from us, they nevertheless remain in fellowship with us, just as the risen Jesus was with the disciples on the road to Emmaus! (p. 217) Whatever we do here below — repentance, prayer, the fight of faith — "they see it, they hear it, they bless me for it, for they know that it is for my good; they intercede for me at the throne of God, for as there is joy before the angels, so also before the blessed in heaven, over one sinner who repents — joy over everything that leads to the salvation of souls." (p. 221.) A certain omniscience, then, is not to be denied the departed; at least Edelmann assures us that he cannot conceive of the blessedness of heaven without knowledge of the doings of earth. (p. 218.) But does the fact that he cannot conceive of it otherwise entitle him to preach a mere conjecture from the pulpit? It is true that "the rich man and Lazarus knew very well how they had lived on earth" (p. 218), but how is one to prove that they also knew everything that afterward happened on earth? Of the blessedness of those who fall asleep in Christ we know only this: that he takes them into his paradise (Luke 23:43; Acts 7:55, 58), that they rest from their labor, and that their works follow them (Revelation 14:13) — but beyond that we know nothing more. All superstition we leave to the Roman Church. If it is as Edelmann says on p. 219, that the dead care for us, and on p. 221, that they pray for us — what, then, still keeps us from sending prayers up to them? And if the Roman Church has her canonized saints, then let us henceforth pray to our departed relatives: o father, o mother, ora pro nobis! That is where we end up through a sentimental overbidding of what Holy Scripture teaches concerning eternal life.

VI. In a review of: "Shepherd's Voices from the Confession-Vespers of the Old Orthodox Lutheran Church. Edited by Ch. C. A. Brandt" — Ströbel writes:

The gifts here offered are indeed excellent; but in the "revival," or reintroduction, of private confession one should proceed carefully and cleanly, and above all not forget what is taught in the splendid "Sermon on Confession, by M. Joh. Jak. Bauller, formerly pastor at Geislingen, delivered on January 21, 1667," placed at the front by way of introduction: "It is not absolutely and unconditionally necessary that confession and absolution must, without any condition, precede communion. This is aimed chiefly at the simple-minded, and at those who happen to have some burden on their heart and conscience; hence Luther freely confesses that he often went to the Holy Supper unconfessed, although in general he held confession in high regard" — and that the preacher, too, should be content with a quite brief confession, indeed, if need be, should require only that the penitent declare himself this time with nothing more than a Yes or No: 1) whether he acknowledges himself a sinner and repents of his sin; 2) whether he takes comfort in the Lord Jesus as his Redeemer; and 3) whether he also