# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1857_S390
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

[p. 390]

...among the most renowned theologians of the Lutheran Church — if this
is so, it is only a sad sign of its dreadful decline.

We close with the heartfelt wish and the urgent request that you, dear
brother, would recognize not only the wrong you have committed against us
in your letter, but also the great and dangerous error in which you find
yourself with respect to the Last Things. — For the rest, we agree
wholeheartedly with your closing words, and we ask the merciful God that
He would continue not to withdraw His hand from us, and that He would
graciously preserve us from all sin against His holy Word, in which He
has condescended to reveal to us the mystery of His will, the wonderful
economy of His Church, and of His eternal kingdom — so that we may hold
fast to what has been revealed to us in clear words, but leave all
disclosure of the future entirely to Him, the Lord, alone.

In order to bring this whole matter between us and you to a close, with
God's help, and to preserve unity of spirit on our part, we have
appointed a commission, consisting of Professor A. Biewend and Pastor
Schaller of St. Louis, to negotiate with you, should you wish it,
concerning the points of doctrinal disagreement [*Dissensus*].

                         The Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and Other States.

                    Fort Wayne, Ind., October 24, 1857.

                         Signed
                             F. W. Husmann,                    Fr. Wyneken.
                         Secretary of the Synod, pro tem.


Appendix D.

*Referat* [paper read to the convention] on the proposal of the Reverend
Synod of Buffalo to the Reverend Synod of Missouri, to establish a joint
church court [*Kirchengericht*], together with it and other synods of
this country, through which the disputes prevailing between the first two
[synods] might also be settled.

In the late summer of last year, a copy of its 5th synodical letter was
sent, through the senior of the ministerium of the Synod of Buffalo, on
behalf of the latter, to our General Presidium; an accompanying short
cover letter requested at the same time that the proposal made in it be
laid before our Synod, and that our decisions on it be communicated back
to it in a reply.

In the synodical letter itself, the state of affairs relevant here is
described as follows. The Synod of Buffalo is willing to abandon its
demand that the well-known opposition preachers be recalled; it must,
however, still further demand at least this one thing — that Missouri
penitently acknowledge and apologize for the public wrongs it has
committed against it over the past 12 years, whereupon Christian peace
could then be restored in the external ecclesiastical relations [between
the synods], those in the opposition congregations who repent of their
separation could be absolved (by Buffalo), and everything arranged to
secure that same peace; but in case Missouri does not do this, yet has
the wish to come to recognize its public offenses, then a general church
court, as more precisely described in the synodical letter, is hereby
proposed, for the Synod of Missouri now to decide upon.