# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1947_S487
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

; INTERSYNODICAL AND DOCTRINAL MATTERS 487

emand obedience and submission in matters which Christ
niot commanded. ;
$3. Regarding ordination we teach that it is not a divine, but
commendable ecclesiastical ordinance. (Smalcald Articles. Tri-
glot, p. 525, § 70; M., p. 342.)

. Of Church and State.

34, Although both Church and State are ordinances of God,
-,yet they must not be commingled. Church and State have entirely

different aims. By the Church, God would save men, for which
reason the Church is called the “mother” of believers, Gal. 4, 26.
. By the State, God would maintain external order among men, “that

we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty,”
Tim. 2, 2. It follows that the means which Church and State
- employ to gain their ends are entirely different. The Church
may not employ any other means than the preaching of the Word
of God, John 18, 11. 36; 2 Cor. 10, 4. The State, on the other
hand, makes laws bearing on civil matters: and is empowered to
employ for their execution also the sword and other corporal
~ punishments, Rom. 13, 4.
Accordingly we condemn the policy of those who would have
the power of the State employed “in the interest of the Church”
and who thus turn the Church into a secular dominion; as also
of those who, aiming to govern the State by the Word of God,
seek to turn the State into a Church.

Of the Election of Grace.

35. By election of grace we mean this truth, that all those
who by the grace of God alone, for Christ’s sake, through the
means of grace, are brought to faith, are justified, sanctified, and
preserved in faith here in time, that all these have already from
eternity been endowed by God with faith, justification, sanctifica-
tion, and preservation in faith, and this for the same reason, namely,
by grace alone, for Christ’s sake, and by way of the means of
‘ grace. That this is the doctrine of Holy Scripture is evident from
Eph. 1, 3—7; 2 Thess. 2, 13.14; Acts 13, 48; Rom. 8, 28—30; 2 Tim.
1, 9; Matt. 24, 22—-24 (ep. Form. of Conc. Triglot, p. 1065, §§ 5. 8. 23;
M., p. 705).

36. Accordingly we reject as an anti-Scriptural error the
doctrine that not alone the grace of God and the merit of Christ
are the cause of the election of grace, but that God has, in addition,
found or regarded something good in us which prompted or
caused Him to elect us, this being variously designated as “good
works,” “right conduct,” “proper self-determination,” “refraining
from wilful resistance,” etc. Nor does Holy Scripture know of an
election “by foreseen faith,” “in view of faith,” as though the

EERE EAR SEINE. =