# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1872_S49
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

— 49 —

grasp and become partakers of it. It must be especially emphasized that God's promise is not an empty sound but a presenting of the goods, so that God really brings in the means of grace also what He has promised in the Gospel, and so it is likewise with the sacraments. By this we differ from all who do not believe that there are means of grace through which God really offers, presents and bestows on us what Christ has obtained for us by His suffering and dying. When someone in anguish over his sins asks the enthusiasts [Schwärmer]: What shall I do to be saved, to get the grace and certainty of the grace of God, that my sins may be forgiven me? then the enthusiasts say: Pray, pray; fall on your knees and wrestle with God until He puts it into your heart. And when they then feel as if God had put it into their heart, they leap up and cry: Gloria, now I have grace! Now far be it from us to deny that the Spirit of grace also makes Himself noticeable in the sinner's heart, when the man does not wilfully close himself to His workings; but it is a dreadful confusion when one holds this feeling, which stirs in the enthusiasts through their praying and wrestling, to be this grace itself. In the best case (for very often this feeling is caused by quite other causes, not by the Holy Spirit) what the enthusiasts call grace is an effect of grace of the Holy Spirit. Grace is something outside us, not in us, just as righteousness is also something outside us. Therefore, when a poor sinner comes to a Lutheran preacher and says: Where then shall I find grace? I have now recognized that I am a poor lost and condemned sinner, so that I cannot stand before the righteous God! the Lutheran preacher answers: Comfort yourself with the grace of God. This grace, however, is in the Gospel and in the holy sacraments. Believe what God has said to you there, and comfort yourself with the grace that is thereby given to you. Comfort yourself with your Baptism and that in it grace was already given to you. Use absolution, go to the Holy Supper, for there it is that God offers, presents, bestows and seals to you grace and forgiveness of all your sins. But that is just what the enthusiasts deny. They know indeed of a grace, but they do not know where this grace is to be found; so they want to obtain it by prayer on their knees. It would indeed be dreadful to say anything against prayer; for we know that God has commanded it and promised that He will hear us; but it is just as dreadful to think that prayer is a means of grace. Only he can pray aright who already has grace. I can and should indeed call upon God for grace in prayer, but impart, give, bring grace, prayer cannot. In this, however, all the sects err. They all say of the Word of God that it has an attesting and perhaps also an effecting power, but the imparting power they deny it. One must, however, distinguish between the vis et