# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1882_S10
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

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but, as weak ones, bore with them with great patience, rebuked and instructed them now mildly and kindly, now sternly and sharply on that account, and, instead of rejecting them, put to them rather the question: "Will ye also go away?" (John 6:67.) What dangerous errors, moreover, were held by many members of the Christian congregations at Corinth and in Galatia! And yet the holy Apostle by no means demanded of these congregations that those among them who had gone astray in the faith be excluded at once, but admonished and rebuked all members of these congregations as his "dear brethren" in fervent zeal of love, and sought to heal them of their errors as persons fallen through weakness.

The same Apostle, however, observed, and commanded to be observed, a quite different course toward those who not only held ruinous errors but who, despite repeated admonition and refutation, held to their errors obstinately and stiff-neckedly, and sought to lead others astray from the truth, to cause division and offence and to gain a following for themselves. With such persons the holy Apostles directed orthodox Christians to break off all brotherly and church fellowship. To Titus Paul writes: "A man that is an heretick, after the first and second admonition reject; knowing that he that is such is subverted, and sinneth, being condemned of himself." (Titus 3:10, 11.) To the Galatians the same Apostle writes with reference to their seducers: "He that troubleth you shall bear his judgment, whosoever he be." (Gal. 5:10.) To the Romans he calls out: "Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them." (Rom. 16:17.) The elders at Ephesus he finally warns and admonishes: "Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them. Therefore watch." (Acts 20:30, 31.)

This, then, is what we have considered it necessary to say first, before we set out before the Venerable Synodical Conference the grounds why we have lodged a protest against any further unconditional recognition of Prof. Schmidt as a member of the Synodical Conference assembly. May we now be permitted to set forth these our grounds.

That Prof. Schmidt is caught in false doctrine, and above all in synergism, will hardly be denied by anyone who has read what has appeared in print from him in recent years and who himself knows, and believes from the heart, even moderately, the doctrine of Holy Scripture on the free will of man after the Fall and before conversion. As soon as Prof. Schmidt began his controversy concerning the doctrine of election, it became evident, to everyone who looks deeper, at once that the real ground of his contending lay in his synergism. At first, to be sure, he put forward the remarkable