# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1849_S99
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

— 99 —

Reply to the reasons that have been raised from several sides for
dividing the Synod.

However much the reasons deserve consideration that have been put
forward from several sides for the immediate division of our Synod and
for the establishment of branch synods, no less serious and important
concerns arise against it, which for the present do not allow us to
agree to such a division with a glad conscience.

It is true that the distances are great which physically separate the
individual Synod members from one another; it is true that, for this
reason, in every year a not-inconsiderable number of members of our
fellowship will be prevented, partly by lack of money and partly by lack
of time, from taking part in person in the Synod convention. In
particular, it will most often not be possible for the delegates to
attend as faithfully as would be desirable. Yet these are always only
difficulties for individuals, which, moreover, a good courage of faith
and fervent zeal will in many cases overcome with God's help.

Against this, it should become clear in what follows that a division of
the Synod at this time would impair the attainment of its common purposes
in important respects.

The word of the Lord — be diligent to keep the unity of the Spirit —
has driven us, from the most various quarters, to come together on the
basis of the one truth and the one pure confession into our present
Synod fellowship. God's rich blessing has accompanied this step thus
far. The Lord has done for us beyond what we asked or understood. We for
our part should therefore all the more willingly let ourselves be led
along the level path of the Spirit in this matter as well. To put this
willingness into practice, we had chiefly in view, according to Chap. I,
§§ 2 and 5 of our constitution, at the founding of our Synod fellowship,
the purpose:

to preserve and promote the unity of the pure confession among us, to
jointly resist the separatist and sectarian mischief that spreads so
ruinously, especially in this country, and, to this end also, to let the
various gifts of the Spirit prove themselves for the common good.

Now it is an undeniable fact that, in so short a time, and with a
membership of our Synod so numerous and so diverse in age, gift,
experience, and level of understanding, it has by no means yet grown
strong enough inwardly, nor come to that manly maturity, that we might
"all speak the same thing and be perfectly joined together in the same
mind and in the same judgment." However little we place our trust in the
flesh, or wish to expect from being together in one Synod fellowship what
can only be the work of the one Spirit who guides us, still, in the
immediate establishment of branch synods, there humanly lies the danger
that, through the fault of our sinful flesh and through the wicked
cunning of Satan, things might occur that would in no way further our
ever-closer growing together and an ever more living and conscious unity
in the Spirit. How easily it could happen that, in these troubled times
of ours, the various branch synods might also drift apart into different
directions!

This would soon give rise to an opposition that would at the very least
cripple the strength we ought to unite in the common defense against
separatist and sectarian mischief. In fact, moreover, in our