# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1902_S32
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

32 Proceedings of the 25th General, or

...works the ground of salvation? This is what would happen: it would lead
people not to salvation, but into eternal damnation. The church, with such
preaching, would become the greatest deceiver that exists in the world.
There is much deceit in the world. In trade and commerce, things are
constantly represented otherwise than they are, and people are thereby
harmed, or an attempt is made to harm them, in their earthly goods. But
the greatest deceit in the world is a church that, instead of Christ
crucified, preaches human works as the ground of salvation. Such a church
robs people of their salvation, for by the works of the Law shall no flesh
be justified, says the apostle, Gal. 2:16.

The papacy is therefore a fraud upon the world and upon mankind. The
papacy seeks to entice all people to itself with the promise of leading
them securely to salvation. It claims to be the only church that saves.
And when people, enticed by this promise and this claim, betake themselves
into the bosom of the papal church, they are led to trust, instead of in
Christ crucified alone, also in their own works and in the works of the
saints, and are thereby, so far as the papal church has anything to say
about it, led in crowds into hell. If people are saved under the papacy —
and there are such — it is because they do not believe the papist
doctrine of works, but in the anguish of sin and death lay hold of Christ
as their only Redeemer. Through its doctrine of works, cloaked in the
appearance of churchliness, the papacy is the greatest fraudulent firm in
the world. Further frauds upon the world and upon mankind are the lodges
with their religion. For the lodges, too, hold the religion of works. That
Christ crucified should be the one through whom all people must come to
God is offensive to them. They wish to lead people into a better hereafter
on the basis of their own self-improvement. Deceivers of mankind are all
sectarian preachers who speak as though Christianity consisted in
following the "Golden Rule," and who describe man's conversion as an
attempt to lead a better life. We too would be deceivers of mankind if we
were to follow the Berlin professor and place the essence of Christianity
in human morality. Then we too, so far as our doctrine is concerned, would
be unable to lead any person to salvation. All our preaching would be in
vain. All our offerings of money would be in vain. All our synodical
meetings would be in vain. If the essence of Christianity consisted, not
in faith in the Gospel of the forgiveness of sins for Christ's sake, but
in our own morality — if we had to be saved through our own works — then I
would move that we adjourn at once and go home. We would then, as a
church, be of no use in the world; we could then lead no one to salvation,
for by the works of the Law no flesh is justified before God. I would not
know what...