Latest Defense of the State Church against the Free Church.
[by C. F. W. Walther]
But let's go further. 1)
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1) Yesterday, to our delight, we received a 36-page pamphlet in large octavo with the following title: "The Good Rule of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. Free Church, its doctrinal position and church practice, against the unjust accusations of the Lic. Dr. Buchwald defended by O. Willkomm, P. Zwickau, printed and published by Johannes Herrmann [Concordia Historical Institute holds a copy]. On commission from Heinrich J. Naumann in Dresden. 1886." This pamphlet makes our entire article superfluous, but since Licentiate Dr. Buchwald has not only attacked our confessionalists and comrades-in-arms in Germany, but also our local [American] Free Church, it should be neither improper nor useless for us to take part in the defense of our common cause with few words. We say with few words, because we can now be all the more brief in what follows, the more victoriously Pastor Willkomm has already beaten back the attacks on us contained in Buchwald's pamphlet.
Pastor Willkomm had written in his "open letter":
"Secondly, we want Holy Communion in the Lutheran Church to be served only to those who, as far as can be recognized by conscientious examination, have a sufficient knowledge of the pure doctrine and profess it, and who are also determined, with God's help, to lead a Christian way of life — in a word, we want communion discipline according to the old practice of the Lutheran Church."
What does the Doctor of Philosophy (Doctor philosophiae) answer to this? First, on p. 12, he again makes use of the popular fallacia ignorati elenchi [“irrelevant conclusion”, “missing the point”] and compositionis. [“fallacy of unknown composition”]. Instead of dealing solely with the necessity of the so-called confessional report and the examination connected with it, of which Pastor Willkomm alone had spoken, he speaks against <page 135> "compulsion to confess" and the "questioning of the confessor about individual sins" and their "enumeration"; all of which Willkomm had not said a word. To represent the opponent correctly is the first requirement of honest polemics. He who, after the manner of our Iowans, first insinuates allegations against his opponent and then takes up arms against his figure, and is satisfied if readers incapable of judgment allow themselves to be misled by this, or if party comrades turn a blind eye to it and celebrate him as the victor, God is not with him and he is neither in the service of truth nor in the service of love and justice. [misuse of logic]
Buchwald continues on p. 12 f.:
"If, by the way, Pastor Willkomm considers his ‘communion discipline’ to be ‘Lutheran’, he is probably mistaken. We refer him only to [Julius] Köstlin, Luthers Theologie. Vol. II, p. 529, where the exact references are also given. There Luther's doctrine is stated by the man who certainly knows it best among our contemporaries: ‘It is enough that one admits to being a sinner and tells the individual sins for which one needs special consolation. From those who already know what sin is, such as pastors, Melanchthon, etc., the enumeration of sins is not to be demanded’. — What Luther already said in 1518 applies: ‘It must be enough for the priest that I ask for confession and absolution without him having to be certain of my repentance and my faith, — even before the Lord's Supper.’” — (Underlined by Buchwald himself.)
First of all, we note the following: It is quite wrong that our pamphleteer, instead of letting Luther himself speak about how he teaches on this point, has someone else, namely Köstlin, give a lecture. Buchwald assures us, it is true, that in Köstlin's work the references are exactly given; but of what use is this to him who has not the work? We do not wish to assert that Köstlin did not really substantiate his exposition of Luther's teaching on the present question with passages from Luther's writings; but how little one can generally rely on contemporary German theologians quoting Luther is shown, among other things, by their citations to prove that Luther had a very lax theory of inspiration. 2)
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2) Cf. p. 7 ff. of the current volume of Lehre und Wehre. [LuW 32 (1886), 7] [e.g. “a derogatory judgment of Luther's about a Scripture that he did not consider canonical”]
In any case, a Lutheran in our Free Church demands that he should not be expected to rely on men in such highly important matters, whether his name is Köstlin or Buchwald. We remark, secondly, on Buchwald's quotation from Köstlin: It is further wrong that Buchwald has omitted the words with which the quoted passage begins and which form the key to what follows, especially to the sentence underlined by Buchwald himself! the words namely: "But never again shall the <page 136> old torture with the enumeration of all individual sins occur. It is enough" etc. Köstlin therefore does not want to prove with the following what Buchwald wants to prove with it, namely that Luther declares an examination in the Protestant manner to be an unnecessary thing, but that he did not want to see the "old torture with the enumeration of all individual sins" reintroduced. How wrongly Buchwald therefore understood Luther's words, which he emphasized, "it must be enough for the priest", which of course are a true gospel in Buchwald's mind for uncertain administrators of Holy Communion in the state churches, — this becomes even clearer when Luther's words are, as is fair, considered in their context. They occur in his "Sermon on the Sacrament of Penance" of 1518. (Erl. ed. vol. 20. p. 179. ff.) The words immediately preceding those quoted, however, read as follows [of Luther]:
"Twelfth, there are some who have taught us that we should and must be uncertain of absolution, whether we are received into grace and our sins are forgiven, because we do not know whether repentance is sufficient or whether enough has been done for the sin; the priest may not impose a penance worthy of the same on ignorance. — Beware of these "seductive" unchristian chatterers. The priest must be unsure of your repentance and faith; there is nothing to it. It is enough for him that you confess and ask for absolution; he should give it to you and he owes it to you." (op. cit. p. 185. f.)
Everyone can see that this passage is first of all directed against those papists who teach that absolution is only a true absolution if the person coming to confession has sufficient contrition for the sin; however, neither the penitent nor the confessor can be certain of this, and the latter therefore cannot know whether the reparations which he imposes in order to obtain forgiveness of sin are "equally worthy" or whether the guilt has really been made up for; therefore one should and must always be uncertain whether one has really been absolved. Contrary to this abominable error, Luther now says that the validity and power of absolution is based neither on this certainty of the one confessing nor on that of the confessor. If, therefore, as far as the priest is concerned, he may always be uncertain (just as it is not at all possible for him to be uncertain, since he cannot see into the heart), it must be sufficient for him if the confessor only desires this twofold: first, that the priest hears his confession as a poor, unworthy, lost and damned sinner, and second, that he then speaks to him the forgiveness of all his sins in Christ's stead. From this it is clear that as far as the salvation and relative necessity of confession and examination are concerned, nothing at all is said in that passage by Luther, <page 137> neither for nor against it.
At any rate, there is not a drop of consolation in it for the dissolute practice prevailing in the state churches. For the task of the exploration is not to investigate the secret sins of the confessor, to test the perfection of his repentance or even to impose penances on him, but to test him as to whether he wants to go to Holy Communion out of habit or for the sake of the people, without knowledge of his sins and without a believing desire for forgiveness, and, if so, to help him to obtain what he lacks and to receive Holy Communion worthily, not for his judgment.
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