# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1878_S14
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

— 14 —

...gone not forward but backward. We are no longer what we were. To be
sure, our enemies, whether in the state churches or in the free churches, have
no cause to gloat over this; for most of them would think themselves in a
paradisal state if their own church conditions were no worse than ours,
which we ourselves so deeply lament. The "standing-in-the-right" [*Zu-Recht-bestehen*]
of the precious confessions of our orthodox church among us has not yet
become a mere lying shield covering false doctrine and false teachers; rather,
by God's grace we still stand in the unity of pure doctrine, clear
understanding, and church practice conforming to it. We still speak with
one voice, holding firmly together in one mind and one accord; hence we too,
with respect to the doctrine of our church fellowship, can say what Luther
still wrote of his own in 1541: "We for our part have desired no council to
reform our church. For God the Holy Spirit has long since sanctified our
church through his holy Word — indeed, has swept out all papal
whoredom and idolatry — so that, God be praised, we have everything pure
and holy: the Word pure, Baptism pure, the Keys pure; and everything that
belongs to the true church we have holy and pure, without any addition or
filth of human teaching." (Vol. XVII, 1693.) Moreover, God's pure Word
still proves itself among us to be a seed of rebirth and of a new life in love
and every good work. The Christianity of a great number of our
congregation members still consists not in empty words but in power, and it
is precisely these members who still hold the rule in our congregations;
therefore, God be praised, God's Word is still, in every one of our
congregations, the highest court, to whose decision every member submits.
Whoever must acknowledge, in any of our congregations, whether in matters
of faith or of life, "Thus it is written!" and yet is unwilling to submit to this
as the divine verdict, is still tolerated in none of our congregations, but must
leave, whoever he may be. Or if a congregation among us should show itself
to be a company that dares knowingly to contradict even the written Word
of God and thus to say, in effect, "We will not have this man" — namely
Christ — "reign over us!" — then the preacher shakes the dust from his feet
and abandons such a company as a synagogue of Satan. But for all that, our
Synod — how could we deny it? — is no longer what it once was.
Particularly in our older congregations, in some of which God's pure Word
has now held sway for more than a quarter century, there shows itself
among many once-zealous members such a satiety and such a weariness with
God's Word, such worldly-mindedness and such a leveling with the world,
such an abuse of Christian freedom, such worldly ways of doing business,
such a striving after riches, such a readiness to decide hastily whether
something...