GB9: Confession not forced, but needed; Luther & Köstlin vs Buchwald, lazy pastors

     This continues from Part GB8 (Table of Contents in Part GB1) in a series presenting C. F. W. Walther's defense against a Saxon State Church theologian Georg Buchwald, who attacked both the Lutheran Free Church in Germany, and the Missouri Synod in America. — Now Walther uses Buchwald's errors to instruct his readers on proper Lutheran practice on confession and Christian education. — The following translation is from Lehre und Wehre, vol. 32 (1886), pp.137-139 [EN]:

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Latest Defense of the State Church against the Free Church.

[by C. F. W. Walther]

Even the fact that Luther does not want to know of any compulsion to confess, but leaves confession “to the need”, does not give the slightest comfort to a preacher who shies away from the effort of examination. For by rejecting the compulsion to confess, Luther does not mean to approve of a person despising confession and going to the holy Lord's Supper as to a common meal; on the contrary, Luther is against the compulsion to confess primarily so that people do not, as for example in the papacy at Easter, enjoy Holy Communion for judgment out of mere compulsion without recognizing their sin and without hunger and thirst for grace. This is why Köstlin quotes the following passage from Luther's 1521 treatise “On Confession, whether the Pope has the power to command” as the last of the words he quotes from Buchwald against the compulsion to confess: 

“Behold, this is what you senseless, raging Pope does with your sects, you worst enemies of God. Secret confession is an opened treasure of grace, in which God holds and offers his mercy and forgiveness of all sin, and is a blessed, rich promise of God, which neither compels nor forces anyone, but lures and calls everyone. So you plod along with your iniquity, forcing all the world to such goods, knowing and seeing that they are not yet eager for them, nor do they take them, nor do they keep them. What else are you doing here but taking God for a fool, who should spill his goods for the sake of your compulsion, bringing him many heaps for whom he should give, and there is no one who desires his. O what an abuse of noble and precious goods you are making, you wretched pope, that I may say that there is certainly no more sinful and damnable day in the year than Easter Day; and if the whole year were a vain carnival and all days were spent in dancing and drinking, there would not be as many and as great sins as there are now in the most holy time of fasting, and before that in the weeks of torture and Easter feasts. . . For all those who are reluctant to confess and go to the sacrament, and do not desire it from the heart, would be better off falling into grave public sin.” (Erl. A. 27, 354.) 

Did our apologist of his state church, when he quoted Köstlin, perhaps not read this passage faithfully quoted by the latter himself? <page 138> Otherwise we must fear that he has understood neither Köstlin nor Luther correctly.

Incidentally, the Licentiate himself seems to have felt that his interpretation of Luther's words was diametrically opposed to almost innumerable statements he had made on the subject in question. He writes in a footnote: 

“We know quite well that Luther expressed himself differently about private confession under other circumstances. But this proves that his changing private opinion cannot be made the norm of a church.” (Underlined by Buchwald) 

This subterfuge, however, which denigrates Luther as a weather-vane, is barred to the lord Licentiate, for it is clear from what has been communicated how even Luther's many most decided demands, that a conscientious pastor should admit to Holy Communion only those who have been previously examined (with the exception, of course, of those who have long since been examined, such as Master Philip and others), are in complete harmony with what Köstlin has Luther say in accordance with the truth, both with regard to examination and the compulsion to confess. We are permitted to present only the following two passages from Luther's writings here.

Thus Luther wrote in his revised "Instruction of the Visitors to the Pastors" of 1528 [AE 40, 296; StL 10, 1660]: 

“The papal confession is not commanded to tell all sins; this is also impossible, as it says in Psalm 19:12): ‘Who can tell how often he has sinned? Forgive me for the hidden faults’. But people should be admonished to confess for many reasons, especially those cases in which they need advice and which weigh them down the most. Nor should anyone be allowed to go to the Holy Sacrament unless he is specially interrogated by his pastor as to whether he is sent to the holy Sacrament. For St. Paul says in 1 Cor. 11 (v. 27) that those are guilty of the body and blood of Christ who partake of it unworthily. They dishonor the sacrament not only those who take it unworthily, but also those who give it with indolence to the unworthy. For the common man runs to the sacrament for the sake of habit, and does not know why the sacrament is needed. Whoever does not know this should not be admitted to the sacrament.” (Erl. A. vol. 23, 40.) Cf. also the splendid passage in Luther's “Formula missae et communionis pro ecclesia Wittenbergensi” of 1523. S. Lutheri opp. lat. varii argumenti. Francof. ad M. 1873. vol. VII, 12-14. German in Walch X, 2764-2766 [StL 10, 2247 f.; AE 53, 32 f.])

If we now also share the following passage from Luther's “Warning to those at Frankfurt am M.” of the year 1533, we must <page 139> first ask the tender ears of German readers to forgive it; but it is too characteristic, so that we cannot well suppress it here. After Luther has praised our freedom from papist auricular confession and exhorted us to the right evangelical confession, he continues: 

"It is true that where the preachers pass vain bread and wine for the sacrament, it does not much matter to whom they pass it or what those who receive it can and do believe. One sow eats with another, and they are simply overburdened with such troubles; for they want to have wicked great saints, and do not think to educate Christians, but want to make it so that for more than three years everything is disturbed, neither God, nor Christ, nor sacrament, nor Christians remain. But because we intend to educate Christians and to leave them behind us and to pass on Christ's body and blood in the sacrament, we do not want to and cannot give such a sacrament to anyone, but let him first be questioned as to what he has learned from the Catechism and whether he wants to refrain from sins that he has committed against it. For we do not want to turn Christ's church into a stable of swine and let everyone go to the sacrament unheard, like swine to the trough. We blame such churches on the enthusiasts." (Erl. A. vol. 26, 307. Walch XVII, 2449. F. [StL 17, 2018-2019])

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      Walther uses Luther to instruct lazy pastors to do their evangelical job in examining potential communicants. — In the next Part GB10…