# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1872_S63
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

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in his time that on account of his unbelief the binding has not been in vain, nor has it failed. So too he who does not believe that he is loose and his sins forgiven, he shall in time also well learn how very certainly his sins were forgiven him, and that he would not believe it. St. Paul says, Rom. 3:3: Our unbelief shall not make God fail. So we also speak now not of who believes the keys or not, we know well enough that few believe; but we speak of what the keys do and give. Whoever does not accept it, has indeed nothing; the key does not fail on that account. Many do not believe the Gospel; but the Gospel does not fail or lie on that account. A king gives you a castle: if you do not accept it, the king has not lied or failed on that account, but you have deceived yourself and it is your own fault; the king certainly gave it. Yes, you say, here you yourself teach the key that misses; for not everything happens that the keys effect, since some do not believe or accept it. Dear friend, if that is to be called failing, then God fails with all His words and works. For few believe or accept what He nevertheless says and does against all without ceasing. That is to twist the tongues quite and go out of speech. For that is not called failing or erring, when I do or say something and another despises it or lets it stand. But the pope's missing-key is so taught, understood and held that it itself, the key in itself, may err, even if a man would gladly believe and accept; for it is a conditionalis Clavis [conditional key], a wavering key, which points us not to God's Word but to our contrition, and does not say freely: I loose you certainly, that you shall believe; but says thus: If you are contrite and pious, I loose you; if not, I miss, that is called Clavis errans [the erring key], and cannot itself rely on it nor say: I know certainly that I have loosed you before God, whether you believe or do not believe, as Peter's key can say; but must say thus: I loose you on earth, but truly do not know whether you are loose before God on that account. For they have not taught faith with the keys, as one sees in all indulgence bulls, where contrition and confession and pennies are demanded, and nothing at all of faith is mentioned. One can also well notice it from this; for they neither rebuke nor punish such uncertain delusion, in themselves or in others, but go on quite securely, as if such doubt were no sin at all, and think: If I have hit, I have hit, if I have missed, I have missed, it is all the same; so they have neither conscience nor concern about such unbelief: though it is a horrible sin of unbelief on both sides, both of him who binds or looses, and of him who is bound or loosed. For it is God's command and Word that the one speaks and the other hears: both are guilty, on pain of their souls' salvation, of believing this as certainly and firmly as all the other articles of faith. For whoever binds and looses, but does not believe, and doubts whether he