# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1857_S351
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

— 351 —

Pastor Schieferdecker then remarked as
follows. In taking leave of the synodical fellowship with a shaken
heart, he assured the Synod that throughout that whole time he had
wrestled in his heart to determine whether the hope he held really did
overturn clear articles of the faith. Only his conscience, he said, had
kept him from joining in the Synod's judgment. Should it come to pass,
by God's will, that what he now believed he had to hold fast to he
came to recognize as error, he hoped the Synod would not refuse to
receive him back into its fellowship.

The president [Präses]: "May the gracious and merciful God and
Father grant you this, for Jesus Christ's sake, through his Word and
Holy Spirit! Amen."

Moved and resolved:

That we begin the afternoon session by singing the Litany on our
knees, to lay our great distress before God, confess our sins, and call
upon him for his help.

Regarding Pastor Gruber, the Synod resolved to appoint a committee to
negotiate further with him in person on this matter and to report the
outcome of that negotiation to the Western District Synod. (See "Der
Lutheraner," No. 12, vol. 14.)

Our Dispute with the Buffalo Synod — Especially Concerning the
Establishment of a General Court of Arbitration.

Another matter taken up was the proposal of the Synod of Buffalo to
set up a general Christian court of arbitration, by whose findings and
judgment the dispute pending between that Synod and ours might be
settled. Several letters on this subject had reached our general
president [Allgemeiner Präses], Pastor Wyneken, from Pastor Grabau, as
senior minister [Senior Ministerii] of that Synod, asking that the
matter be laid before our general Synod. Pastor Grossmann, too, as
senior minister of the Synod of Iowa, had in a letter of October 12
urgently exhorted our Synod, for the sake of peace, to give a hearing
to this proposal of the Buffalo Synod.

The Synod thus found itself obliged to take up this old dispute with
the Buffalo Synod once again, and to set out and examine the origin,
course, and present state of our conflict with it.

First, a paper [Referat] on this subject, composed by Pastor
Fürbringer at the general president's request, was read aloud, after
which further discussion and consideration of the proposal mentioned
followed. (Cf. Appendix D in the supplement.)

The sum and outcome of the discussion of this matter is gathered in
the following declarations and resolutions of the Synod:

Since our dispute with the Synod of Buffalo has its basis in nothing
other than that Synod's false doctrine, and since we, as a Synod, have
with regard to the Buffalo Synod set up and adhered to nothing but the
inviolable principle that members of our ministerium both could and
should receive, and serve with Word and Sacrament, such former members
of congregations of the Buffalo Synod as have separated from it on
account of its false doctrine and are not under a deserved ban, or who
have been unjustly banned and confess our pure doctrine — it is
therefore hereby unanimously

[SCAN: the first line of text on this page is shaved at the top in the original; only the lower half of the letters survives. The name "Schieferdecker" was read from the surviving descenders at 900 dpi with a contrast stretch and is confirmed by the context and by the roll of members on PDF p. 4 ("G. A. Schieferdecker").]