# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1882_S9
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

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monies, since the other, if it otherwise maintains unity in doctrine and in all its articles, as also in the right use of the holy sacraments, according to the well-known saying: Dissonantia jejunii non dissolvit consonantiam fidei, Difference in fasting shall not divide the unity in faith." (Art. X of the Epitome, p. 553, § 7.) But as to the second point, the necessary giving up of fellowship with false teachers, our church makes its own that well-known declaration made by Luther in holy zeal for the purity and unity of faith, in its closing confession: "I count them all in one cake, that is, for sacramentarians and fanatics, as they also are, who will not believe that the Lord's bread in the Supper is His true natural body, which the godless or Judas receives with the mouth just as well as St. Peter and all the saints: whoever (I say) will not believe this, let him just leave me in peace, and hope for no fellowship with me; there is no getting around it." (Formula of Concord, Art. VII of the Declaratio, p. 653, § 33.)

Here, however, according to God's Word a twofold distinction must be made: first with regard to the nature of the error, and second with regard to the nature and conduct of the erring person.

If an error contradicts the fundamental teachings of Christianity neither directly nor indirectly, so that it is no fundamental, ruinous error, then the appearance of it in the church does not in itself abolish the unity of the church in faith, doctrine and confession, and thus also not brotherly, church and sacramental fellowship. Those who are afflicted only with such an error are, according to 1 Cor. 3:10-15, those who indeed build only upon the foundation, which is Jesus Christ, and so deny, dispute and overturn no fundamental article of the Christian faith, but build upon this foundation "wood, hay, stubble," that is, as the Apology of the Augsburg Confession says, "some human thoughts and opinions, with which they nevertheless do not overturn or reject the foundation, Christ, therefore they are nevertheless Christians, and such faults are forgiven them, and they are also in time enlightened and better instructed." (p. 155 f., §§ 20, 21.) Far from such "weak ones" being to be avoided, God's Word rather says: "Him that is weak in the faith receive ye." (Rom. 14:1.)

According to God's Word itself, however, even gross, ruinous errors are by no means in every case sufficient ground to break off at once all brotherly and church fellowship with those who hold and utter them. In how grievous errors, among other things, were the holy Apostles caught before the wonderful outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon them! And yet the Lord did not on that account cast them from Himself