# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1872_S21
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

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center of all doctrine, into which all other doctrines have grown and from which they also flow out again. On this article all salvation rests, and therefore it is absolutely necessary for every Christian. It would be of no help if someone knew all the other doctrines exactly, for example that of the Holy Trinity, of the Person of Christ, etc., if he did not know and believe this one. An error in any other article would not do so great harm to the Christian's soul as an error in this doctrine. And as it is with the individual Christian, so it is also with the whole church. This article is indispensable to it if it is to lead souls out of the devil's power into God's kingdom. When we speak of justification we speak of the Christian religion, for the doctrine of the Christian religion is precisely nothing other than the revelation of God as to how one becomes righteous and saved before God through the redemption that has been accomplished through Christ Jesus. All other religions show other ways that are supposed to lead to heaven. One demands that one must do good works and so earn heaven; another, that one must be very virtuous and make oneself very deserving of the world, and then one will obtain salvation; the Christian religion alone shows another way to heaven through its doctrine of justification, and with it something unheard-of and undreamed-of for the whole world, thoughts that were hidden in God's heart before the foundation of the world. Therefore all other doctrines lose their meaning if the doctrine of justification is not right. It may be a matter of indifference to us whether the essence of God subsists in three or six persons, so long as we must fear Him as the zealous God over us sinners. Only when we know and believe that we poor sinners are reconciled with God the Father by grace through Christ and obtain, through faith alone, which the Holy Spirit alone works, the righteousness that avails before God, does the doctrine of the Holy Trinity become a doctrine full of comfort and blessedness. Whoever therefore attacks that doctrine of ours attacks the whole doctrine, the whole Bible, the whole Christian religion. As long as this doctrine is quite pure among us, no error in other points can take hold among us. It is as Luther says repeatedly: "This doctrine suffers no error." It is the sun in the sky of the church, and where it rises, all shadows must vanish. Our Book of Concord says on this in the Apology, Article 4: "Since, however, such controversy is about the highest, most principal article of the whole Christian doctrine, such that much depends on this article, which also serves chiefly for a clear, right understanding of the whole Holy Scripture, and alone points the way to the unspeakable treasure and the right knowledge of Christ, also alone opens the door to the whole Bible, without which article no poor conscience can have right, steadfast, sure comfort or recognize the riches of the grace of Christ: — so we beg .... For since the adversaries understand and know nothing at all of what