# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1878_S36
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

— 36 —

...drove out faithful witnesses to the truth, such as a Flacius, for example. It is quite otherwise when a seminary is the property of all the orthodox synods together. Just as false doctrine can scarcely arise and spread in our congregations when the office of visitation is rightly exercised, just so little will such a joint seminary, under the watch of the synods, be able to harbor a false teacher.

And then let us not forget that we owe it to the English Lutheran Church to help it, God willing, to power and standing. That will come about through a joint seminary, in which something complete can and will be accomplished with regard to English as well. In such a seminary the students will hear the various professors in various languages. To be sure, English is diligently pursued at our own seminary too, and no student enters the ministry who could not, if pressed, also preach in English; but we thereby remain without any influence on the English-speaking population of this country, to whom God also wishes his pure Gospel proclaimed. "When the American notices the foreigner in the preacher, it costs him — especially the educated man — a great effort even to listen to him." We must help the English that they may receive the right preaching in their own language. God has let the pure Gospel fall into our lap out of undeserved goodness, without our having sought it. This glorious fruit we ought not wish to consume alone, but must share it also with the English-speaking population of America. We are to bring them the Gospel, which does not set salvation off in some distant future, but shows man how he may come to God at every moment and become certain of his salvation. To be sure, the Americans for the most part still hold this religion to be a disgraceful one; but they do not know what they do, because they do not know what they revile. But if God grants grace, they shall come to know that this religion alone is the one through which man is saved. Well then, since we know that the English can be helped through our service, it is also our duty to do everything possible to this end. Love, which is God's commandment, demands this of us inescapably. Let us therefore go to the work with confidence! Let us not shrink from the sacrifices this work lays upon us! — If the joint seminary comes about, it shall serve not only America but, God willing, the whole world. Already people seek from us what we, at least in scholarly respects, unfortunately cannot yet offer. Not only from the various synods of the Synodical Conference, but also from Germany — indeed even from Australia — we have students at our institution. Yet such outsiders, for whom pure doctrine is not the first and overriding concern, will send their children to us only once we have a seminary in which, so to speak, a truly scholarly air also blows. And there is one more thing besides. The Norwegian Synod must, in the...