# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1876_S20
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

— 20 —

if hypocrites were among us, as there was also a Judas among the disciples of the LORD. But this we may not presuppose. Precisely this point forms the characteristic difference between the *Synodalconferenz* [Synodical Conference] and other so-called Lutheran church bodies of this country. We want to tolerate absolutely no congregations in fact Unionist in our midst; they do it, however. For this reason several synods among us withdrew from the General Council, because one wished to tolerate it there, but we rejected it. By this it is by no means to be said that among us all congregations are free of the Unionist leaven. But because it is still found in our congregations, they are by no means thereby already Unionist, just as a church is not already World because something worldly still occurs in it. Let one not, therefore, call something in fact Unionist that in reality is not. More or less weak-in-knowledge people will always be found also in our congregations, who must be borne with and need instruction. What matters above all in this thesis is to answer whether a proper Lutheran pastor can serve a congregation in fact Unionist at all, or even continually. This we must decidedly deny. Then it matters whether we can receive into our synodical body such congregations as think they can remain Unionist and yet belong to a Lutheran synod. Such a congregation cannot belong to us for one hour. Here we have no need to ask how long. No, Lutheran and Reformed simply exclude each other.

If a Lutheran preacher conducts himself in a congregation so that it must think: Oh, these differences between the Lutheran and the Reformed Church are of no importance, then such a pastor is a shameful hypocrite. Through the recognition of errors one gives the devil a right in the Church. We, however, want to stand under one banner, and a preacher who has not broken with all Union cannot stand with us in rank and file. If we concede that a Lutheran pastor can serve a congregation in fact Unionist, only that it must not go on continually, we give our Unionist opponents weapons in hand with which they can attack us. In Scripture it says: "A man that is an heretick reject" (Tit. 3:10). "Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers" (2 Cor. 6:14). "If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed" (2 John 10). No man gets past this.

Gerhard writes: "We can ascribe to our churches a threefold unity. The first is the canonical, by virtue of which the doctrine confessed by us agrees in everything with the canonical Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. The second is the churchly, by means of which, namely, our doctrine with the churchly writers, the