# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1872_S62
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

— 62 —

I do not stand in faith, and the like. If the doctrine of the opponents were true, then the unbelievers would be right when they say: "Bah, what do we care what the parson says!" For then it would indeed really be an empty word; but now their speeches are so dreadful precisely because it is God's absolution which they despise and mock. As gold remains gold even when it is stolen or trodden in the mud, so absolution remains absolution even when it is despised by unbelievers. As prisoners who hear that they have been pardoned and say: But we like it in prison, are nevertheless pardoned, so those are absolved who do not accept the Word and what it brings. For the great King, God the LORD, has pardoned the world and sent out His servants to bring this message to men. Most gloriously, therefore, Luther writes: "Therefore there must lie hidden in the keys of Christ His blood, death and resurrection, whereby He has opened heaven for us, and so imparts through the keys to poor sinners what He has obtained by His blood... Next, consider that the keys or forgiveness of sins do not stand upon our contrition or worthiness, as they teach and pervert; for that is wholly Pelagian, Turkish, heathen, Jewish, Anabaptist, enthusiast and end-christian (antichristian): but, on the contrary, that our contrition, works, heart and what we are should build upon the keys, and with entire consideration confidently rely upon them as upon God's Word, and on pain of loss of body and soul not doubt that what the keys say and give you is as certain as if God Himself said it: as indeed He certainly says it Himself; for it is His command and Word and not the word or command of a man. But if you doubt, you call God a liar, pervert His order, and build His keys upon your contrition and worthiness. Be contrite you should, that is true; but that on that account the forgiveness of sins should become certain, and confirm the work of the key, that means to forsake faith and to deny Christ. He will forgive and give you the sin not for your own sake but for His own sake, out of pure grace, through the key... Do not let the Pharisaic prattle lead you astray, with which some make fools of themselves, how a man might forgive sin, since he cannot give the grace, nor the Holy Spirit. Abide by the words of Christ, and be certain that God has no other way to forgive sin than through the oral word, which He has commanded us men. Where you do not seek the forgiveness in the Word, you will gape up toward heaven in vain for the grace or (as they say) for the inward forgiveness. But if you say, as the fanatics and sophists also do: Many hear the binding and loosing of the keys, yet pay no heed to it, and remain unbound and unloosed; therefore something else must be there than the Word and the keys: the Spirit, Spirit, Spirit must do it. But do you suppose that he is not bound who does not believe the binding key? He shall learn it well