# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1879_S11
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

— 11 —

(where he is a true preacher), but must say with Jeremiah and boast, Jer. 17:16: "LORD, you know that what has gone out of my mouth is right and pleasing to you"; yes, with St. Paul, with all the apostles and prophets, defiantly say: Haec dixit Dominus [Thus says the Lord], God himself has said it. Et iterum (and again): I have been an apostle and prophet of Jesus Christ in this sermon. Here it is not necessary, indeed not good, to ask forgiveness of sin, as if it had been wrongly taught; for it is God's Word and not my word, which God neither shall nor can forgive me, but rather confirm, praise, crown and say: You have taught it, for I have spoken through you, and the word is mine. Whoever cannot boast of this about his preaching, let him leave off preaching, for he surely lies and blasphemes God. If the Word were to be sin or wrong, by what could life be directed? Surely one blind man would lead the other and both would fall into the pit, Matt. 15:14. If the plumb line or the square were false or crooked, what could the master build by it? One crookedness would make another without end or measure. (If a preacher wants to be a Lutheran, he must be able to say to God: For my preaching I want no forgiveness. If he is not certain of his cause, he is before God nevertheless a false teacher, even if he has preached rightly.) So too here: life may well be sin and wrong, indeed is, sadly, all too wrong; but doctrine must be straight as a line and certain, without any sin. Therefore nothing must be preached in the Church except the certain, pure and single God's Word. When that fails, it is no longer the Church but the devil's school. (In life we may therefore make allowances, but in doctrine there is no mercy, even if everything went to ruin. For what use is a Church of doubt, a church in which errors may rule? It is better that it perish. If Luther on one side complains that in his time things stood weakly with discipline of life, he praises God on the other that things stood well with doctrinal discipline.) All this is said to the end that the Church must teach only God's Word and be certain of it, whereby it is called the ground and pillar of the truth and built upon the rock, holy and blameless; that is, as one rightly and well says: The Church cannot err; for God's Word, which it teaches, cannot err. But what is taught otherwise, or is in doubt whether it is God's Word, cannot be the Church's doctrine." (Against Hans Worst, of the year 1541. XVII, 1680–86.)

The sentence "The Church cannot err" is therefore no papistic error but Lutheran truth, and means: As soon as anyone errs, he ceases, so far as he errs, to be in the Church; his preaching is not the voice of the Church. As we also say of the regenerate, in so far