# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1882_S21
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

— 21 —

recognize, would thereby either themselves plead guilty of the apostasy from the truth of which they are publicly accused, or make themselves guilty of the grossest syncretism and thereby at the same time become partakers in the sins of their opponent.

That Prof. Schmidt has indeed shown himself to us to be such a man needs, to be sure, no proof here, since everything that has been written, spoken and done by the said person toward us has happened before the eyes of all the world; the following few proofs, taken from many similar utterances, may nevertheless demonstrate it also to those who have not followed the course of the controversy.

Prof. Schmidt opened his public campaign against Missouri at once in the first number of the first volume of his "Theologisches Zeitblatt" [theological periodical], called "Altes und Neues" [Old and New] (January 1880), with the following declaration:

"The reason why we are launching our 'Altes und Neues' just now is a very special one. In the publications of the Missouri Synod ... a doctrine of election has been set out and defended at length in recent years which we can recognize only as an erroneous teaching, contrary to Scripture and the Confessions, tending to Calvinism: ... Well then, so let it be, in God's name, a fight, an open and decided fight against this new Crypto-Calvinism." (pp. 1, 2.)

Passing over the almost countless repetitions of this branding of our doctrine as "Crypto-Calvinism," we single out only the following sallies:

On page 253 of the same volume it says: "This mystery, as it is so often" (by the Missourians) "called, is nothing other than the Calvinistic distinction between voluntas beneplaciti and signi (that is, the unconditional will of secret good pleasure and the mere will of the sign)."

Vol. II, p. 2: "In this doubleness of the decree unto salvation" (which the Missourians teach) "lie countless other false and soul-destroying doctrines hidden, e.g. concerning grace, the means of grace, conversion, faith, certainty of salvation, perseverance."

Vol. II, p. 3: "Precisely in this case, where thousands let themselves be simply beguiled by the magic of Missourian, allegedly crystal-pure orthodoxy, ... we want all the more earnestly and vigorously to raise our watchman's voice. .... If divisions and fragmentations thus arise, well then, we would rather save the truth and the true evangelical foundation of faith than leave unchallenged, outwardly, a colossus of an allegedly most orthodox organization, if the truth is thereby denied, suppressed and lost."

Ibid., p. 159: "As sad as it is that through this new doctrine