# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1899_S16
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

16 Proceedings of the 24th General, or

[continuing the sentence from the previous page:] ...standing, our
pride, our love of strife. But in saying this people do us wrong — truly
wrong, and great wrong. Our Bible, too, contains the beautiful sayings
about peace. We too know very well that God calls himself a God of
peace. He indeed calls to us: "Follow peace with all men. Blessed are
the peacemakers." Contentiousness and quarrelsomeness are, for us
too, an abomination. Whoever wants to know can further know that we
have not even been ashamed to take something back that had not been
stated precisely enough; indeed, that in several cases it was precisely
we who first extended the hand of peace. Truly, we too would only too
gladly sit, each man under his own vine and fig tree. There is, in us
too, only too much that draws us toward peace. Our old Adam, too,
would only too gladly let matters rest. — There is only one thing that
stands in our way, that keeps us from keeping peace at all costs, in all
things. And that is something in our new man. It is the Word of God in
Holy Scripture. That holds our conscience captive. That leaves us, too,
no free will in this respect. For it calls to us: "Hold fast to the Word,
which is certain. Add nothing to it, take nothing from it. Fight for the
faith once delivered to the saints. Suffer yourselves to be the good
soldiers of Christ. Do not yield, neither to the right hand nor to the left.
Resist unto blood." — These words also stuck in our own Luther's
conscience, as he wrote (Erlangen edition, vol. 19, p. 269): "No, dear
sir, not peace and unity for me, if for their sake God's Word must be
betrayed! For with that, eternal life and everything else would already
be lost. Here it is not permitted to yield, or to concede anything, for
your sake or for the sake of some people; rather, all things must yield
to the Word, be it called friend or foe. For it was not given for the sake
of outward or worldly unity and peace. The Word and the doctrine shall
produce Christian unity or fellowship. Where the [doctrine] agrees and
is at one, there the rest, too, will surely follow. Where not, no unity
remains at all. Therefore tell me of no love or friendship where the
Word or the faith is to be broken off. For it is not love, but the Word,
that brings eternal life, God's grace, and all the treasures of heaven.
— But this we are gladly willing to do: to keep outward peace with
them, as we must do with everyone in the world. . . . But for the sake of
doctrine and Christian fellowship we will have nothing to do with
them, nor hold them as brothers, but as enemies, because they
knowingly persist in their error, and [we] will fight against them
through our spiritual warfare. Therefore it is a devilish, deceitful,
cunning approach that pretends and demands that one should yield
something and tolerate an error, for the sake of unity, by which it
seeks cunningly to lead us away from the Word." —