# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1857_S391
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

[p. 391]

The Synod of Buffalo believes it may therefore assume a wrong on our part
to be proven, because we still regard it as a part belonging to the
Lutheran Church, and yet have taken into our fellowship those it
excommunicated, and have set up counter-altars against it. Apart from the
fact that we would never refuse to receive Lutherans who can show that
they are persons persecuted under an unjust ban, from which they are
supposed to free themselves only under conditions that, with an
enlightened conscience, they could by no means accept — no matter where
they come from — it is also, in fact, certainly true that a communion may,
under the sign of the Symbolical Books [the Lutheran Confessions] and
despite them, find itself on the most dangerous path of mixing heretical
leaven in with the treasure of pure doctrine, although as a sect willfully
persisting in heresy it has by no means yet become manifestly such. Yet it
seems that Buffalo, since 1853, has not even wished to stay on this side
of the boundary set here. Crossing it is possible only if the Confession
is either set aside or altered — but no less also if, despite the
clearest, most earnest, and most emphatic demonstrations [to the
contrary] within a circle that professes that Confession, an
understanding of fundamental doctrines takes root that conflicts both
with its wording and with the analogy of faith. Our opponent has,
admittedly, not yet ventured a direct attack on the Lutheran Symbols; but
she interprets important dogmas of them not according to the sense their
authors unambiguously attached — and could only have attached — to them,
but in an anti-Christian sense, thereby making a settled text doubtful
and turning it into an open question. And why, then, have we received
people out of her fellowship among us, except solely because they, like
us, had come to recognize this or that falsification, current among
them, of the articles on Church, *Amt* [the pastoral ministry/office],
and the Ban — or at least the abuses and burdens of conscience grounded on
it — and were accordingly not to be permitted to bear witness to this in
word and deed? So far are we now from recognizing this as sinful that we
are rather confidently ready to boast of it as one of our best works.

The Synod of Buffalo, to be sure, persistently denies that it has ever
excommunicated anyone on account of the doctrines in dispute between us
and it; it declares itself ready not only to publicly withdraw such
excommunication in case this is proven, but also declares our demand for
a colloquium on the doctrinal differences to be, in that case, just and
well-founded. But it is also plain to see that every one of the
oppositions that arose, one after another, within the congregations
belonging to its fellowship, turned for that very reason only to [our]
pastors, and later to the Synod of Missouri, because they were convinced
that a purer doctrine prevailed here than there — which only intensified
the hostile proceedings against them, as is undeniably shown by the fact
that the adversaries themselves admit, in their 5th Synodical Letter,
p. 36, note 2, that since 1840 — as their first Synodical Letter reports —
they had been willing to tolerate the Missourian doctrinal difference
concerning Church and Ministry, but that they could never, for
conscience's sake, have borne and tolerated the devastating consequences
arising from it as un-Christian things. This indeed then actually
happened quite openly — namely, as has been said, against those who did
not agree with them and rejected the principles by which office and ban
were exercised among them; a necessary consequence of their intolerance
was, then, that...