# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1872_S60
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

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Christ. And such consciences are to believe that for Christ's sake sin is forgiven them out of grace. This same faith lifts up again, comforts and makes alive and joyful such broken hearts, as Paul says in Rom. 5: 'Being justified, then, we have peace with God.' The same faith shows rightly the difference between the repentance of Judas and Peter, of Saul and David. And therefore the repentance of Judas and Saul was of no use, for there was no faith there that had held to the promise of God through Christ. On the other hand the repentance of David and St. Peter was genuine, for there was the faith there that had grasped the pledge of God, which offers forgiveness of sins through Christ." (p. 172.) And in the Large Catechism: "But that our clever ones, the new spirits, pretend: Faith alone saves, and works and outward things do nothing toward it, we answer that indeed nothing in us does anything but faith, as we shall hear further; but this the blind leaders will not see, that faith must have something that it believes, that is, on which it holds and stands and rests. . . . Now they are so mad that they separate faith and the thing to which faith clings and is bound, though it is outward. Yes, it shall and must be outward, so that it can be grasped and comprehended with the senses and thereby brought into the heart, as indeed the whole Gospel is an outward and oral preaching. In sum, what God works and does in us, He will work through such outward order." (Page 489.)

If someone were to say to the enthusiasts: Here is bread, but it has nourishing power only when it is eaten by him who is hungry, or: this medicine has its healing power only when a sick man takes it, they would themselves see that this is folly. So the Gospel too has its power not only where a penitent and one hungry for grace hears it, but also when it is proclaimed to the godless. This, however, is true: whoever does not eat the bread, it does not nourish him; whoever does not take the medicine, it does not heal him; and whoever does not believe the Gospel, it does not comfort him; but even an enthusiast should see that the power of the Word does not lie in the man, any more than the nourishing power of the bread lies in him. From the assertion that the Gospel and absolution are not efficacious in the impenitent there follow the most dreadful conclusions: thereby is denied Christ's all-sufficient merit, the redemption and reconciliation of the world, for then faith would always have to be taken as a work that must still be added, so that there may be a forgiveness in the Gospel. Then it follows that Christ's merit is not all-sufficient. But if Christ's merit is not all-sufficient, then Christ is also not true God. One could also not with a good conscience preach the Gospel to any man and admit him to the Lord's Supper of whom one is not certain