# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1874_S42
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

— 42 —
The question therefore arises: Can we enter into such a colloquium? Can we negotiate with those whom the General Synod may name as a committee, as with members of a synod which confesses the Augsburg Confession without reservation? Indeed, can we negotiate even with those of the General Council if we would thereby acknowledge that it confesses the Augsburg Confession without reservation? The committee to which the letter of the General Council had been referred for consideration did propose,

1) "that the Synodical Conference [*Synodalconferenz*] appoint three persons from its midst to arrange, with similarly commissioned persons of other synods, the time and place of a free conference according to the proposal of the Rev. General Council, and

2) to recommend for this Professor W. F. Lehmann, Pastor Beyer and Professor F. A. Schmidt.

But after the letter of invitation had been read once more, the question was put whether, if we negotiate with those concerned on the strength of this invitation, we do not thereby acknowledge them as such as confess the Augsburg Confession without reservation? And would it not be a contradiction if the invitation says: those who confess the Augsburg Confession without reservation are first to come to an understanding about this confession?

As soon as we therefore accept the invitation as it stands and enter into the colloquium, a de facto armistice would be forced upon us, to which we can neither submit nor wish to. To paralyze us, this would be an excellent means. The invitation should rather, as with our earlier free conferences, be addressed to individual honest Lutherans, not to whole bodies.

Such a document must be judged by its wording. If the invitation of the General Council said: "All synods calling themselves Lutheran," we should have no hesitation in negotiating with those who appear. A colloquium to which the bodies in question here are to send delegates on the condition that they mutually recognize one another, one cannot accept.

From another side it was remarked that, for the sake of the Church in general, one should accept the colloquium, even if, precisely with respect to certain leaders, there is little hope of fruit. Such colloquia always bring blessing. The victory of the truth is always the final outcome. To this it was replied that such doctrinal negotiations are indeed a means pleasing to God for restoring lacking unity of doctrine; but the only and always most suitable means such a colloquium surely is not. At least at the time of the Reformation it was not regarded in some circumstances as a particularly favorable one. The attainment of the goal in view is also possible by another way, if God give grace. Here the only question is whether the conditions under which the