# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1852 12 07_S58
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

58

expression and fulfillment of the congregation's life of faith. Whoever takes part in the holy Supper in this or that church confesses himself not only to the Lord, but also to the congregation which here confesses Him. He must know and believe what the Church confesses and be resolved to confess it with her. For this reason the ancient Church excluded the catechumens*) from the celebration of the Supper, quite in keeping with the nature of this highest act of confession and of worship.†) For the very same reason confirmation still precedes the right to communion today; for only he is capable of worship who knows what it is to partake of the body and blood of the Lord. And according to ancient custom a Christian who has hitherto belonged to another church obtains the right to communion only after a preceding catechumenate, or at least after a confession made before the superintendent or pastor; and he was also not received if he had not given the due notice to the church fellowship to which he had hitherto belonged. His taking part in the Supper thereupon was from of old regarded as a public declaration of the passing over from one confession to another.

*) That is, the unbaptized, who were, however, preparing for admission among the Christians. The Editor.

†) "Cultus" is the name for public divine service. The Editor.

Why in all the world should we give up this good old practice? Why hesitate, where it has fallen into decay, to restore it?

People point to Lutheran congregations to which Reformed people have joined themselves in complete subjection to the Lutheran order of service and church order. People find it hard that such Reformed people should all at once be turned away from the Lord's table within the congregation to which they belong. But if they belong to the Lutheran congregation with mouth and heart, then they shall not be turned away at all. But if they wish to belong to the Lutheran congregation and yet remain Reformed, that is a self-contradiction, which bears witness either to a lack of knowledge, or to a deliberate indifferentism (indifference toward religion), or to unconscientiousness. The first cause is bad, the second worse, the third the worst; in all three cases the pastor will have to seek, with wisdom and gentleness, to bring such Reformed members of his Lutheran congregation to a conscious transfer to our Church. There is no weighty reason at all why he should have scruples about approaching them with the demand for a free decision for the Lutheran or the Reformed Church. If they are members of the congregation who still lack the most general Christian knowledge, at least a living one, then the question which church they wish to belong to, provided it is only properly prepared, is fitted to rouse them from their sleep of ignorance and security. If they are honest, truth-loving souls, then the ambiguous and hypocritical character of their present position will easily be made intelligible to them; the choice that is set before them will drive them to prayer, and the anointing from the Holy One will teach them what is right before God and wholesome for them. They have their children confirmed as Lutherans; why should they themselves not be willing to be Lutheran? Moreover, one will not press upon them by force; one will give them time for reflection, and during it be ready to take them in hand with patience, without growing weary. But should several, by the power of habit, or from obstinacy, or from inability to be convinced, wish to remain with the Reformed Church, they are free to betake themselves into the outward association and spiritual care of that church. It also remains permitted to them to take part in the Lutheran service — only the Sacrament of the Altar is inaccessible to them, because they do not wish to belong to the Church that celebrates it. Shall Reformed and United be spared what it is our holy duty to require of our confirmands before we admit them to the Lord's table? Is it fitting for the Church to have a union resting on implicita ignorantia with Reformed and United,*) of whom we do not know, and do not care to ask, whether they wish to remain what they are? Is it fitting for the Church to have so politic and outward a propaganda,**) which leaves the parents, for the sake of the children who are confirmed as Lutherans, in their unconsciousness, and lets no church-consciousness arise in them?

*) That is, a union which often exists only because the Reformed and United do not know what they are doing when they take the holy Supper in the Lutheran Church. The Editor.

**) That is, an institution for making the people a kind of Lutherans. The Editor.

It is by no means our opinion that the Reformed who are found within a Lutheran congregational association are without further ado to be regarded and excluded as Reformed. That would be untrue, unjust and unloving. One has rather, in hopeful love, to proceed from the assumption that their will and conviction also correspond to their actual attachment to the Lutheran Church. But there are two things which seem to us indispensable in such mixed congregations: first, that the unclear be brought by pastoral means to a conscious churchly decision, and that the ministry be willing and endeavor to work toward this publicly and privately with as much wisdom and gentleness as earnestness and decisiveness; second, that those who, avowedly and notoriously, wish to remain members of the Reformed Church be refused admission to our Supper for the sake of their own conscience. It is, to be sure, possible that it is precisely very dear and honorable Christians who are affected by this seemingly hard practice. But do we then mean, by turning such persons away, to say that we do not acknowledge, or that we think little of, the work of the Holy Spirit in their souls, and that we do not rejoice in the Christian virtues with which grace has adorned them? Do we number them among the unclean and unworthy, to whom, according to Matt. 7:6, holy things and pearls are not to be given? Do we put their rejection on the same line with the exclusion of those who go on in ruling sins and persistent impenitence? Nothing of all this. But they are to be turned away for this reason, that we cannot hold our Lutheran Church to be the orthodox one without holding the Reformed to be a heterodox one, and because it is truly no matter of indifference whether one confesses oneself to the one or to the other. Now we know, to be sure, that many Reformed believe more in accordance with Scripture than their church confesses, and in general no conclusion is yet to be drawn from the confession of a church to the faith of all its members. But that is just the sickness of our time, that the individual, in the same measure as he formerly was wholly absorbed in the natural and churchly connection in which he found himself, now isolates himself (sets himself out singly) from this natural and churchly connection and abolishes all reciprocal relation of obligation and responsibility. As if the Church were not there, members of the Lutheran and Reformed Church think they may believe whatever they wish. And indeed they are free, but it is just as certain that the confession of the Church holds sway over all her members, and that he whose faith stands in contradiction to the confession of his church finds himself in a contradiction contrary to conscience with himself. For he does not belong inwardly to the church to which he belongs outwardly. With this subjectivism*) of our time a stricter practice of the Supper is doubly necessary. At the threshold of the Holy of Holies he is to be brought to reflection and to conviction of his unchurchliness. This threshold he shall not cross.

*) That is, the inclination to regard oneself as if one did not belong to a whole, but, unconcerned about others, could believe and do whatever one holds right and good for one's own person. The Editor.

Let us now sum up our conviction briefly; this can be done in the following theses (propositions): 1) The holy Supper is, on the part of the Lord, a communication of His true body and blood to the congregation, and on the part of the congregation a receiving of these most holy gifts with proclamation of His death. It therefore has a confessional side**) and is, as the summit of the congregation's divine service, so also the summit of the congregation's confession going forth continually. 2) The Supper-confession of the Lutheran Church is a confession to that which is offered under bread and wine for oral partaking and imparted to the wor-

**) That is, the holy Supper is an act by which one confesses one's faith. The Editor.