# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1873_S18
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

— 18 —

Truth may well guide us also in framing the confession paragraph of a congregational constitution yet to be drawn up. Formerly some among us thought they had to prove their loyalty to the Lutheran Church especially by listing in this paragraph all the individual confessions of the Book of Concord of 1580 by name, and thus obligating the congregation to them, while the congregation for the most part did not even know most of them by name, and later, as far as the great majority of its members are concerned, does not come to know them. One should rather confine oneself to designating as the congregation's confession the Unaltered Augsburg Confession and perhaps also Luther's Small Catechism, which our whole people know, or at least can easily learn to know.

Remark. On pages 1 and 2 of the book "The Right Form of a Local Congregation Independent of the State" there is found yet another excellent testimony for Thesis 2 together with the "Note."

On the third thesis: The Augsburg Confession itself places the three ecumenical Symbols at its head and wants itself to be nothing but the further development of these Symbols, which development became necessary through the false doctrines of the papacy and of the enthusiasts [*Schwärmer*] that arose after the adoption of the ecumenical confessions and had to be combated. When we have to do with members of other church parties, we cannot of course demand of them that they concede from the outset that the Augsb. Confession is, in all its articles of faith, the pure and unadulterated explanation and presentation of the divine Word, in its teaching and defense; but among Lutherans this concession is to be presupposed: whoever refuses it shows that he is no Lutheran.

Testimonies:

Chemnitz, Selneccer and Kirchner: "The first reason why they" (the Calvinists in Neustadt) "weaken the Augustana and its authority is this: That it is a particular confession of the churches that confess it, and not of the whole of Christendom; for which reason it also cannot have so much standing. To this our answer is that we remember well that it is the particular confession of some and not of the whole of Christendom. That it should therefore not be valid, however, we do not concede to them at all. For we are certain that it is strongly grounded in God's Word, as has also been found through God's grace hitherto at all diets and colloquies. Moreover, we have never given it out as a confession of all churches of the whole of Christendom, but as the confession of our churches and schools. If they now do not wish to have anything to do with it, it remains nonetheless our churches' confession, one way or the other." (Apologia or Defense of the Christian Book of Concord. Dresden 1584, fol. 165.)

Carpzov: "The Symbol of the Augsb. Confession has not been held by the Protestants to be an ecumenical Symbol, although it contains the doctrine of the