# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1879_S15
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

— 15 —

not seek the Church according to the Bible, but the Bible with the Church; first hear what the Church teaches in it. That would be a strong piece of Popery. For between an Evangelical Lutheran Christian and the Bible there stands no Church. The Bible is not the moon, which would first have to borrow its light from the sun Church; on the contrary: the Church is the moon, which must borrow its light from the sun Bible. Indeed one should listen to the Church in its judgment, but not let oneself be bound from the start. For this reason our fathers also say of the symbolical books that they accept them not because they were set down by theologians, but because they are firmly grounded on God's Word.

At times, in defence of the open-questions theory, it is pointed out that the Apology teaches that false doctrine also occurs in the orthodox Church, which must nevertheless be tolerated; for it reads as follows:

"No one can lay another foundation than that which is laid, which is Christ. On this foundation Christians are now built. And although in the crowd that is built on the right foundation, that is, on Christ and faith, there are many weak ones who build on such a foundation straw and hay, that is, some human thoughts and opinions, with which they nevertheless do not overturn or reject the foundation, Christ, for which reason they are nonetheless Christians and such faults will be forgiven them; they are also perhaps enlightened and better instructed: so we see in the Fathers that they too sometimes built straw and hay upon the foundation, yet they did not want to overturn the foundation by it. But many articles among our adversaries overthrow the right foundation, the knowledge of Christ and faith." (Art. 7, p. 156.)

To this Carpzov makes the important remark: "The Augsburg Confession does not regard the non-fundamental dogmas lightly, but it says only that they are allowed to stand in the weak." (Isag. p. 310.)

"In the weak," it says. But the preachers ought not to belong to the weak in a church communion. It is important to know that our congregations are nevertheless orthodox, even if errors crop up in them. But that is not to say that one should tolerate preachers who cannot become certain in doctrine, or that one should grant them the right to indulge their errors unpunished. Preachers who are so weak that they cannot distinguish error and truth do not belong in the pulpit but under the pulpit; they should not preach, but listen. —

The Fathers are mentioned in the citation from the Apology so that the Church in which the Church Fathers were found, who mixed some human thoughts and opinions into the doctrine of the Church, should not be regarded as a sect. Out of weakness errors are scattered also in the orthodox Church; but that takes away from a church commu-