# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1882_S24
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

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Proposition 4.

We believe, teach and confess that no man is lost because God did not will to save him, passed him by with His grace, and because He did not also offer him the grace of perseverance and did not will to give it to him, but that all men who are lost are lost through their own fault, namely on account of their unbelief, and because they have obstinately resisted the Word and grace to the end, of which "contempt of the Word is not the cause of God's foreknowledge (vel praescientia vel praedestinatio), but man's perverse will, which thrusts from itself and perverts the means and instrument of the Holy Spirit which God offers him through the call, and resists the Holy Spirit, who wills to be powerful through the Word and works, as Christ says: 'How often would I have gathered thee together, and thou wouldest not,' Matt. 23:37." (Konkordienbuch [Book of Concord], p. 713.) Therefore we reject and condemn from the whole heart the Calvinistic doctrine opposed to this.

Proposition 5.

We believe, teach and confess that the object of election or predestination is only the truly believing, who truly believe to the end or still at the end of their lives; we therefore reject and condemn the Huberian error that election is not a particular but a universal one and concerns all men.

Proposition 6.

We believe, teach and confess that the divine decree of election is unchangeable, and that therefore no elect person can become a reprobate and be lost, but every elect person will surely be saved; and we therefore reject and condemn from the whole heart the Huberian error opposed to this.

Proposition 7.

We believe, teach and confess that it is foolish and dangerous to souls, and leads either to carnal security or to despair, when one seeks, by searching out the eternal divine secret counsel, to become or to be certain of one's election or one's future eternal salvation; and we reject and condemn from the whole heart the doctrine opposed to this as a pernicious fanaticism.

Proposition 8.

We believe, teach and confess that a believing Christian should seek to become certain of his election from God's revealed will; and we therefore reject and condemn from the whole heart the opposing papistic false doctrine that one can become and be certain of one's election or salvation only through a new immediate revelation.