# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1872_S55
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

— 55 —

Against this we say that the Word not only changes us and makes us fit for the goods, but that it also brings and gives them to us, so that a man need not say, when he hears the heavenly gifts named and described in the Word: Yes, but how do I get them? but can say: There they are, in the Word, and in Baptism they were handed over to me. If he says: But I have fallen since Baptism, one answers him: You have indeed fallen, but Baptism has not fallen; it still stands with all the goods that God has put into it; just take hold again and take the goods which were already given to you then, when you were baptized. This the sects, however, do not believe. They suppose that it is conversion which obtains grace again for a man, so that his heart is changed, and that it is on account of this change that one can believe again that one has forgiveness of sins. That is to harness the horses behind the wagon; for if I build my state of grace on my new heart, I build the cause on the effect. From this it follows that they have quite a different concept of faith from the biblical one; they suppose that faith is a new sensation of the heart, which, however, has nothing yet, but only seeks something. How quite differently our Catechism speaks of the effect of the means of grace; e.g. to the question: What does Baptism give or profit? it answers: "It works forgiveness of sins, delivers from death and the devil, and gives eternal salvation to all who believe it, as the words and promise of God declare." And to the question: "How can water do such great things?" it answers: "Water indeed does not do it, but the Word of God, which is with and in the water, and the faith which trusts such Word of God in the water." Likewise to the question: "How can bodily eating and drinking do such great things?" — "Eating and drinking indeed does not do it, but the words which stand there . . . and whoever believes these words has what they say and as they read, namely forgiveness of sins." As soon, then, as the Word sounds, I also already have everything there that it indicates; whereas those who ascribe to it only the effecting power (vis effectiva) regard it as a little seed from which all this must grow. But in the Word lies precisely both, the gifts of grace as well as the power to accept such gifts. The necessary change which must take place in every man if he is to be saved God works, and He works it through the means of grace, through which man's heart is changed. This is called the order of grace [Gnadenordnung]; where God, namely, calls a man by the Gospel, enlightens him with His gifts and sanctifies and preserves him in the right faith. Besides this, however, the man must also receive something that cannot be wrought in him: grace, forgiveness of sins, justification. This latter takes place in God and is His, so it cannot be wrought in man but must be given to him. That is then the imparting power of the means of grace (vis collativa). The symbolical