# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1902_S16
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

16 Proceedings of the 25th General, or

After the Synod had organized itself, the Reverend General President, Prof.
F. Pieper, read the following Synodical Address together with his Presidential
Report.

Synodical Address.

In the name of the most-praised Trinity, God the Father, the Son, and the
Holy Spirit. Amen.

Venerable, dear fathers and brothers!

We cannot conceal from ourselves the fact that we and our fellow confessors
occupy an isolated position within outward Christendom. It is true that we do
not lack individual friends in other ecclesiastical camps. We are permitted
again and again to find that earnest Christians grow well disposed toward us
once they have had the opportunity really to become acquainted with our
doctrine and practice. But the church bodies as such stand, for the most part,
either indifferent or hostile toward us so-called Missourians.

This might surprise us all the more, seeing that we know we teach God's way
rightly. Indeed, we know that we hold not a false but the right doctrine, the
doctrine that is commanded to the church of God and alone warranted in the
church of God. That is the case precisely also in the points that have been
and are in dispute between us and other church bodies. We teach rightly
concerning the church. It is the doctrine of Scripture that Christians, and
they alone, are the church, and that all the spiritual rights which Christ has
given his church on earth belong to them, and not to individual persons within
the church. We teach rightly concerning the preaching office [*Predigtamt*].
It is the doctrine of Scripture that the preaching office is of divine
institution, but has no authority other than the authority of the Word of
God. We teach rightly concerning conversion. It is the doctrine of Scripture
that a man is converted solely through God's working of grace in the Word,
and that there is on man's part no cooperation toward conversion through
so-called "self-decision," "good conduct," etc. We teach rightly concerning
election by grace. It is the doctrine of Scripture that the eternal election
is an election of grace — that is, that it is not grounded on aliquid in
homine, on anything good in man, call it "self-decision," right "conduct,"
faith, or whatever else one may call it, but rests solely on God's grace in
Christ. We teach rightly concerning Holy Scripture. It is the doctrine of
Scripture that Holy Scripture, through God's inspiration, is God's Word and
is therefore inviolable truth in every one of its words. We teach rightly
concerning the source and norm of all Christian doctrine — namely, that
Christian doctrine is to be drawn and judged not from the general human
consciousness nor from the Christian consciousness, but solely from Holy
Scripture, and to