# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1872_S60
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

[p. 60]

—without which a person cannot have saving faith. But we say: a distinction must certainly be made between articles of faith and other teachings that stand in the Bible. When it is a matter of an article of faith, we must fight at once against the error as something to be removed absolutely. But regarding other teachings, while error is certainly also to be fought, one must nevertheless take care to see whether someone errs because he does not hold God's Word to be God's Word, or out of weakness. The articles of faith are so constituted that if one denies the topmost one, one must also deny all that follow, or conversely. Our faith, for instance, does not depend unconditionally on the doctrine that the divine attributes are communicated to the humanity of Christ. A person can be a Christian even without knowing this. But as soon as someone denies that Christ, according to his humanity, is omnipresent, one can demonstrate to him that he is denying that God became man. Therefore we cannot yield a single letter in articles of faith, although in other teachings we can keep peace as long as it is held fast that the Bible is God's Word.

On Thesis I.2. On this it was first remarked: had our congregations and pastors been compelled by the civil authorities to join our Synod, it might be doubtful whether the growth of our Synod were of any value. But the voluntary decision from which the joining resulted is a guarantee to us, as far as we can see, that a real need was the ground of our coming together. However varied the level of theological training among our pastors may be, all are nevertheless able, in greater or lesser degree, to preach and, as needed, to defend divine truth. Only a few cases have occurred in which individuals have become manifestly culpable in doctrine or life. The same can be said of the congregations. Whatever various shortcomings may still occur in the congregations, on the whole — according to the visitation reports — their condition is such that the preached Word finds entry, and there is everywhere hope of the healing of these shortcomings. — As for the influence of our Synod on our immigrant fellow believers, that influence is incalculable. The growth of the Synod has kept pace almost exactly with immigration. Thousands of our immigrant fellow believers have been provided with the pure preaching of the Word, preserved from gross unbelief and godless living, and many have come, through the service of our Synod, to a knowledge and high esteem of the Lutheran faith. Surely many of them already enjoy the blessed fruit of our labor in eternity.

At this point it was said: to the words "political compulsion" one might still add: "or compulsion of conscience." For we have never taught that a congregation has the full rights of a true church only when it belongs to a synod. We have [instructed] our young preachers—