# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1850 02 05_S92
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

92

Gotth. If the congregation does not listen to God's Word, whether it be spoken by many or by one alone, then it renounces the Word of God. Then you may and ought also to sever the bond with it, according to Ps. 1:1: "Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly." But if you withhold from the congregation your better gifts of knowledge, of faith, and so forth, by willful separation from it, then you bury the talent that is entrusted to you, and also have no profit from the spiritual gifts that are given to others. For "in each one," says the Apostle, 1 Cor. 12:7, "the gifts of the Spirit show themselves for the common profit." Without and apart from fellowship with other Christians the gifts of the Spirit cannot therefore show their rich and manifold profit. I could give you plenty of living examples of how those have been furthered in their knowledge, in their faith, and in all Christian virtues who through their joining the congregation have come into closer connection with other advanced Christians; and how soon, on the other hand, those have grown cold and gradually died altogether who lived separated from Christian fellowship. Therefore a Christian who is faithfully in earnest with God and his own soul will rather renounce many an earthly advantage, if only he can enjoy the fellowship of the brethren, and will on no account wish to stand so cut off and torn loose. One must in truth concede to the children of the world that they understand their own advantage better than Christians. They gladly become members of their worldly societies, as for example the Freemasons, partly because they hold it an honor, partly because they promise themselves many advantages from it. A Christian ought to count it an infinitely greater honor and an infinitely greater advantage to be a member of a Christian congregation, but alas! the saying applies here also: "The children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light."

Gebh. Even if I grant all that, I must nevertheless confess that I would not willingly bind myself. I have a certain dread and a secret aversion to the thought of letting myself be restricted in my freedom. I do not wish to be free from God's Law, but still I would not like to lay a human yoke upon myself.

Gotth. That means, in other words: you will not submit to the order which of course must be in every Christian congregation. If this proceeded in you from such a proud, willful, refractory disposition as, alas! shows itself in most of our German people run wild through unbelief, I would waste no more words to move you to join the congregation. But I would rather believe that it is only a prejudice, which comes from your regarding such a congregational constitution as something quite other than it really is.

Gebh. That there must be order I do not deny, but the signing of it looks to me like a legal compulsion.

Gotth. How can you call that a legal compulsion? You may first read and examine what is laid before you for signature, and so have the fullest freedom to give your signature or not. You will not be compelled to submit to the order if you do not do it from the free conviction that it is right and good and in accord with the Word of God. But the congregational constitution is indeed a salutary and necessary bridle against such undisciplined and unbridled people who, if they broke into the Church, would soon make a Babel and Sodom of it.

Gebh. Since we have come to the congregational constitution, there is in yours precisely one point that has always somewhat repelled me.

Gotth. Now do say what kind of point that is.

Gebh. That is the announcement before Communion, that everyone who wishes to partake of the Holy Supper must first come to the pastor. This was not even introduced everywhere in Germany, and still less among the other churches here in America. I have found it only among the Lutherans.

Gotth. In the Lutheran Church of Germany there was formerly in use not only the announcement but also private confession. That many good customs have now fallen away in all places is a sad proof of the unbelief of the time. The announcement is almost the only means still left to us of checking and resisting, to some extent, the dreadful abuse of the Holy Supper. I ask you only this one thing, whether the pastor is not responsible for whom he gives the Holy Supper?

Gebh. If the pastor in the general confession that precedes the Holy Supper shows plainly from God's Word who is worthy or unworthy, and warns the latter, he has done enough for his office and calling; for into the heart he can see no one.

Gotth. But if now the pastor knows most definitely that among those who come to confession this one and that one lives in gross sins, from what is he then to conclude that he is penitent? Does not experience show that thousands go impenitent to the Sacrament, and afterward continue always again in the same sins?

Gebh. If anyone goes impenitent to confession and to the Sacrament, he mocks God, and God will judge him.

Gotth. But should not the pastor of souls with all his strength seek to hinder the judgment of such wretched people, and that precisely by warning them individually and in particular against impenitent going to the Lord's Supper, and by seeking, through setting before them the state of their souls, to move them to a sincere repentance? By the Prophet Ezekiel God speaks, ch. 33:8, 9: "When I say unto the wicked, O wicked man, thou shalt surely die; and thou speakest not to warn the wicked from his way; that wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand. Nevertheless, if thou warn the wicked of his way to turn from it; if he do not turn from his way, he shall die in his iniquity; but thou hast delivered thy soul." How can the pastor, in view of such terrible words, satisfy his conscience with this, that blasphemers, despisers of God, drunkards, gamblers, fornicators, usurers, thieves, slanderers, the unreconciled, and so forth give no other sign of their repentance before partaking of the Holy Supper than that they speak a hypocritical Yes to the public confession spoken in their name? But suppose someone is an upright Christian, will he not be glad to get opportunity at the announcement to avail himself of the counsel or comfort of his pastor in special troubles and concerns of the heart? Still less will it be a burden to an upright Christian to observe an order which to some extent restrains the immeasurable, terrible abuse of the Sacrament. If all who are ministers of the Word and stewards of the mysteries of God acted more conscientiously in this point, the most holy of holies, the body and blood of the Son of God, would not be so shamefully and disgracefully profaned. The Lutheran Church acts more conscientiously in this than the sects, because it believes that it is the body and blood of the Son of God; but these do not.

Gebh. You have spoken truly — it is so. What has also chiefly prejudiced me against the announcement is only this one thing, that it is held by many to be a kind of auricular confession.

Gotth. By many unintelligent and ill-willed people, you should have said; but if we were to take our guidance from every fool, we should ourselves be the greatest fools. I hope, moreover, that now all your scruples are removed which have hitherto hindered you from joining the church. This is truly no indifferent matter which you may do or leave undone, but it is the plain divine commandment. How can you comply with the divine commandment: "Obey your teachers and follow them," etc., if you have no pastor? How can you comply with the divine commandment: "Endeavour to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace," if you seek no Christian fellowship? Is it not a contradiction to confess in the Third Article a communion of saints, and yet to separate oneself from their communion? How can you fulfil the law of Christ: "Bear ye one another's burdens," if you leave the cares and burdens of the congregation to others, and yet wish to share in the preaching and Sacrament?

It is not fair when one wishes only to reap but not to sow, to enjoy the fruit but not to labor.