# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1860_S3
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Our General Synodical Convention
in the Year 1860.

In accordance with the resolution adopted at its last convention at Fort
Wayne, A.D. 1857, the General Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and Other States
assembled for this year's sessions in the midst of the Evangelical Lutheran
congregation at St. Louis, Mo., in Trinity Church [Dreieinigkeitskirche]
there.

After a public worship service had already been held on Tuesday evening in
the church named above, in celebration of the anniversary festival of the
Central Bible Society, in which the synod members who had already arrived
in large numbers took part, the convention itself was opened on Wednesday
morning, October 10, with a public worship service, and the Rev. Pastor
Fürbringer preached the opening sermon, which is published here at the
general wish and unanimous resolution of the Synod.

Opening Sermon,
preached by the Rev. Pastor O. Fürbringer, Wednesday, October 10, in the
morning, in Trinity Church at St. Louis, Mo.

Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and the Son in the unity of
the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Beloved friends in Christ Jesus, our Lord!

In the beginning of God's ways, and from eternity, there was, as we
confess, the Son, the essential Word, with the Father; and every counsel
concerning the salvation and blessedness of mankind rests upon Him. The
creature came into being out of nothing through Him and unto Him; and in
Him is the life which spreads out from the wellspring of all being through
everything created. Pervading heaven and earth, it was, in a singular
sense, the light of mankind before the fall into sin, and it shines all
the more perceptibly now, throughout all time, even in the guilt-laden and
corrupted condition that clings to the children of Adam who sinned with
our first parents; but the darkness of those so deeply fallen has not
comprehended it, although it was revealed through work and word. It
enlightens every one born into that darkness, so far as lies in Him,
because He withholds Himself from none; the true light was in the world —
but the world, insofar as it remains the world that lies in wickedness,
did not know it. Indeed, He came at last, made flesh, into His own
possession as the newborn King of Israel, and His own...