# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1876_S22
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

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and become one body [*Ein Corpus*], or again an approach to the papacy and a departure from the pure doctrine of the Gospel and the true religion should take place or follow gradually from it. For in this case that must and shall hold which Paul writes, 2 Cor. 6: 'Be ye not unequally yoked together; what fellowship hath light with darkness? Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord.'" (Art. 10. Repetition, fol. 316.)

This is a chief article for our time; accordingly we can acknowledge as an orthodox Lutheran preacher none who, in order to please the heterodox, omits the confessional ceremonies. We have, therefore, to demand of a Lutheran pastor: accept only a Lutheran congregation, otherwise we do not acknowledge you. He may not plead that the principle is to be followed here: The welfare of the people is the highest law; he really seeks the welfare of a Unionist congregation, if he serves it, he wants to lead it to right knowledge, rejects its false faith and testifies against it, that surely cannot be wrong. This is refuted by the fact that according to Scripture it is forbidden to do evil that good may come of it. Otherwise one might say: I will become a Methodist in order to bring them to right knowledge — which certainly no one will approve.

As to the congregations, we cannot receive into our synodical body those that do not have our doctrine. To this we are bound in our conscience. Nor can we receive those congregations which have come to knowledge of their false Unionist position and now want to be Lutheran, but which still bear the Unionist name and in which the Unionist confession still exists by right, although they themselves struggle against it. Even if a congregation, for example, used the Lutheran Catechism and yet still called itself Unionist, it would nevertheless be in fact Unionist. With the admission of such congregations we would have to wait until all this is changed. The same is to be done in the case where a pastor serves a congregation which told him beforehand that it is Lutheran, but of which it later turns out that it is a Unionist congregation. Before the Unionist position is removed we could acknowledge neither the congregation nor its pastor as Lutheran and receive them into the synodical body. If we did so, we would thereby become Unionist ourselves. We must ask such: Do you condemn the Union? If they can do that, they will also renounce all Unionist standing. If it occurs in practice that a Unionist congregation applies for admission into the body of a Lutheran synod, we must declare to it: We do not approve your confession. If it replies: We are Lutheran too, we then make the demand: Change your constitution, only then can we receive you and give you a preacher. Even if much in such a congregation were still to be desired, we should nevertheless, after