# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1878_S35
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

— 35 —

...who will let nothing else arise alongside themselves. We labor for the general interests of the kingdom of God. Our present time seems especially favorable for advancing them. If we let this time pass, the kingdom of God may suffer a harm we can never undo. God has entrusted us here in this land, not without purpose, with the treasure of pure doctrine. The English-speaking church bodies, too, are to feel its power. With this goal before us, the orthodox Lutheran Church of both tongues, German and English, must carry on its work together. But that will not happen so long as preachers lack the preconditions for a blessed cooperation — preconditions that are most easily and best achieved in a joint seminary. The Norwegian Synod cannot help but become, little by little, an English synod. The circumstances of this country lay upon it the irresistible necessity of this step. Once this transformation has at last taken place, we will first truly recognize how immensely important a joint seminary is for the English Lutheran Church. Indirectly, God's pure Word will then be carried, through English-speaking preachers as through channels, into other church bodies of the English tongue as well. As things now stand, there is little to hope for in the flourishing of the English Lutheran Church. The number of professors at our theological schools is so small that the present condition of our seminaries must be called a state of dire need. Such need, however, should cease wherever possible. Every branch of theological scholarship ought to be staffed by its own man, one devoted exclusively to his subject and cultivating his own field. If we do not keep this goal before us — if it is a matter of indifference to us that our professors are burdened with every possible branch of theology — then our future looks dark indeed. The ardor of first love, which has sustained us until now in God's pure Word, will not last forever. If we wish to keep the Word pure, we must arm ourselves on every side against those who would corrupt it. In truth, then, we can resolve on nothing better, nothing that, under God's blessing hand, will prove of greater use to the Church, if it comes about, than the establishment of a joint seminary [*Gesammtſeminar*, a seminary held jointly by several synods]. There the teachers are many: one watches over another, so that no false doctrine can arise. There, too, the synods are various: each keeps a watchful eye over its own division. If a seminary is the institution of one synod alone, there is always, of course, the danger of falling, through partisan feeling, onto a false trail in doctrine. It is otherwise with a joint seminary. Wittenberg would never have fallen prey to false teachers had everything not lain in the hands of one man, namely the Elector, who, deceived by the enemies of the truth, took them for sincere men and, incited by them, the...