# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1852_S201
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

— 201 —

of a teachers' seminary in Saginaw City have again borne out, has
already been reported to our honored brothers through our journal, the
"Lutheraner."
    Above all else, however, we must praise the Lord of the Church for
having, through His grace, kept the hearts of His servants of the Word
until now in the true unity of faith and love, and for the enemy's not
having succeeded, until now, in kindling among us as well the strife he
has stirred up against us for the truth's sake; and as long as the Lord
keeps us in love for the truth and in humble submission to His Word,
then, given the mutual free and candid exchange that, thank God, takes
place among us, there will be nothing to fear for the future either, even
if, as is unavoidable with the synod's growth, minor differences should
arise here and there.
    In our congregations too the Word seems to be striking ever deeper
root, and many of our brothers in office who have so far borne their
office with heavy sighing are beginning to breathe more freely and to
praise God the Lord for having given them patience and endurance, and,
through that patience, victory to His Word.
    There is, to be sure, no shortage of individual bitter complaints
about the obstinacy and stubbornness of whole congregations as well as
individual members of them, but on the whole these have become far
fewer, and the discipline of an orderly congregational life breaks its own
path all the more easily the more the congregations recognize that the
pastors of our synodical association seek not their own honor but the
Lord's, demand obedience not for their own arbitrary will but for the
Lord's will, and that in seeking to bring hearts under obedience to the
Word they thereby place them at the same time into true, highest, and
most blessed freedom. In the congregations we have served longer, the
obstinate — once they saw that the struggle here was not against a
human power and the self-will of ambitious, domineering cravings, but
against the divine power of the Word and the inflexibility of a conscience
held captive by God's Word — mostly separated themselves from the
part of the congregation that remained faithful, leaving it room to build
itself up on our most holy faith and to order its congregational affairs
according to God's Word.
    It is true: given the ignorance and lack of discipline that have
generally taken hold, our way of building up the congregations is a slow
and laborious one. Could we, and were we permitted to, adopt the
principles and manner of proceeding of our brothers who level the grave
charge of heresy against us over our doctrine of Church and Ministry
[Kirche und Amt], and accuse us of stripping the holy preaching office of
its divine dignity and pandering to the congregations' fleshly cravings
for freedom — were we permitted, as they are, to claim some power other
than that of the Word — it would be an easy matter for us too to capture
consciences, force them into an outward obedience, and introduce
discipline and order in a quicker way more comfortable to the flesh. But
what would be gained by that? A submission to human authority that is
outward, legalistic, and displeasing to God would have been compelled,
but not the inward, willing obedience — pleasing to God alone — of a
heart born of God, for which, conscious of its inherited, inalienable
freedom and glory, it is an easy thing, indeed a delight, out of love and
for the sake of the welfare of the whole, to submit itself to the
arrangements made by it in fellowship with equally free brothers, to