# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1875_S15
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

— 15 —

one must declare: You are committing a lie and denying your confession by your deed. If someone is honest, a decided, sustained, factual testimony will help him best to get free of the false fellowship.

Three marks of the false Lutherans are cited in our thesis:

First, pulpit exchange with non-Lutheran preachers. The General Council, by its own declaration, will not give this up. It belongs to the famous, or rather notorious, Four Points. But whoever practices such pulpit exchange with non-Lutheran preachers does not hold his doctrine to be the only right one, but at most probable. Luther says: "Contradict the willful spirits, otherwise your confession is only a mask and good for nothing. Whoever holds his doctrine, faith and confession to be true, right and certain cannot stand in one stall with others who lead false doctrine or are attached to it, nor go on forever giving fair words to the devil and his scales. A teacher who keeps silent about errors and yet wants to be a right teacher is worse than an open fanatic, and does greater harm with his hypocrisy than a heretic, and is not to be trusted. He is a wolf and a fox, a hireling and a belly-servant, and is ready to give up and despise doctrine, word, faith, sacrament, churches and schools. He either lies secretly under one blanket with the enemies, or is a doubter and weathercock who wants to see where it will end up, whether Christ or the devil will win; or is altogether uncertain in himself and not worthy even to be called a pupil, let alone a teacher, and wants to anger no one, to speak neither Christ's word nor to hurt the devil and the world." (Conversation with Dr. Georg Major. Walch XVII, 1477.)

This is a powerful testimony against such false Lutherans. Their confession is only a mask. The same faith does not live in the heart as in Luther, if one keeps silent about errors or even lets false spirits preach for themselves. Though such a man may have the right confession, he is nevertheless a wolf and a fox. He is either under one blanket with the enemies, or is a skeptic and wants to sail with the wind, to see who finally wins, so as to be able to side with him. He is not fit to be a pupil, much less a teacher and preacher. He unites himself with those with whom God has no fellowship. For Psalm 94:20 says: "You will never be one with the harmful throne [Stuhl], which interprets the law wrongly." *Stuhl* here means teaching chair or pulpit. By pulpit fellowship [Kanzelgemeinschaft] one now understands that bad custom by which one occasionally leaves the teaching office in one's congregation to preachers of other confessions. False teachers one should avoid according to God's Word, guard against them and not greet them as brethren. How can a preacher then let a false teacher into his pulpit, or a congregation listen to him! The Council turns