# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1877_S32
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

— 32 —

to Christ with the question: Are you he who is to come, or shall we wait for another?

In such and similar cases no one has just ground to say: I can no longer belong to this congregation, for the preacher teaches something that I do not consider right.

Paul writes instead, Rom. 14:1–9: "Him that is weak in the faith receive, and do not confuse consciences. One believes he may eat anything; but he who is weak eats herbs. Let not him who eats despise him who does not eat; and let not him who does not eat judge him who eats; for God has received him. Who are you, that you judge another's servant? He stands or falls to his own master. He may well be held up; for God can well raise him up. One esteems one day above another; another esteems all days alike. Let each be fully convinced in his own mind. He who observes the day does it to the Lord; and he who does not observe it, he does it also to the Lord. He who eats, eats to the Lord, for he gives God thanks; and he who does not eat, does not eat to the Lord, and gives God thanks. For none of us lives to himself, and none dies to himself. If we live, we live to the Lord; if we die, we die to the Lord. Whether we live or die, we are the Lord's. For to this end Christ both died and rose and lived again, that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living."

Those, then, in the Roman congregation who had better knowledge were by no means to separate from the others. Therefore our thesis also says:

"In this case, as in the first, the change would be a split, a schism, a separation, and the schismatics who separate, the separatists, will set up altar against altar."

In agreement with this are Paul's words in 1 Cor. 1:10 and 11:18, 19, in which passages he uses the word σχίσμα [*schisma*], that is, a division contrary to love.

Our Church has therefore always expressed disapproval of such division and has never broken off church fellowship on account of such differences as those above.

Chemnitz carries the principle through so decisively that he even demands that one bear with and tolerate one who holds John's baptism to be only an outward ceremony in which no forgiveness of sins was imparted. Chemnitz gives as reason for this that this view can now have no influence on our salvation, since there is no longer any baptism of John. One sees from this that one may hold a quite ugly error and yet one may not for that reason at once declare an end to church fellowship with him. For it is certainly strange if someone with regard to the baptism of John holds this error, confirmed by the papists at Trent