# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1872_S56
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

[p. 56]

the words were discussed: "Unity in the purely Lutheran doctrine." It was said: it does not say: unity in the purely Christian doctrine, but: unity in the purely Lutheran doctrine. By this is meant: God has let us recognize that Luther was the reformer of the Christian church, that he preached not a half but the eternal Gospel, that his teaching is nothing other than the pure, saving Word of God brought again to light. — Our enemies say: the unity of the Missouri Synod does not amount to much. Right now the Missourians are still all under one hat; but who knows how long that will last. There are already various spirits among them. But we answer these our enemies: it is true, we recognize the dangers that threaten our unity; but here, by unity in the purely Lutheran doctrine, nothing more is to be understood than that all confess with one accord all the symbolical books of the Lutheran church, that teaching in the church accords with our doctrine, and that no false doctrine is tolerated among us. We know: we are not certain that un-Lutheran spirits are not also among us. Who could know that? On the contrary, God's Word warns the church: "Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them." But be that as it may. A pure church deserves that name for this reason: that those who are not of the spirit of the church must keep themselves in check. Only when that ceases does the church cease to be a pure one — and this concerns both doctrine and life. As long as a church stands in such a way that those who are not of its spirit must keep themselves in check, then however many false spirits may be in it, grumbling, that does not make it false. Indeed, the church cannot be otherwise here on earth. There are always the *non-sancti admixti* [the unholy mixed in], as it is put in the Latin text of the Augsburg Confession. The pure Lutheran church consists only of those who hold faithfully to the doctrine of the symbolical books. The others are only mixed in with it. But when what is mixed in becomes a constituent part, then the Lutheran church ceases to be a pure church. We therefore do not let ourselves be made afraid when our enemies say that among us there are those who do not agree with us. What they tell us, we know ourselves; for God's Word tells us that the church does not remain without false spirits; but as long as God preserves us in his grace and in the living knowledge of his truth, these false spirits shall not be allowed to gain the upper hand among us. They must either keep in check, or, once they have become manifest, go out. We will not suffer that anyone publicly put forward a doctrine that is against the confession of our church. Better to die, better to let the Synod be broken into a million fragments, than to lose the unity of pure doctrine. If we no longer have that, then we have no right to exist, then we are nothing. We cannot boast of our holiness, nor of our order, our organization of offices and the like. If we no longer have the pure doctrine, then we are spirit—