# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1882_S27
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

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2. that Prof. Schmidt, with all the means at his disposal, attempts to gain a following for himself, to split the Synodical Conference, to intrude into our congregations and to cause division and offence in them, and has also carried through this his hostile design to tear apart our church in more than one place.

To sit together with such a man, as a brother and as a voting or even merely advisory member of a church-governing body that represents our church, we recognize as an act of the grossest unionism and most flagrant syncretism and indifferentism that has ever disgraced the orthodox church, and we hold that even every honest man, even if he thought we were the erring party, must expect and demand of us that we, as honest men, do not consent to such a fellowship, unless we wished to condemn ourselves by deed and to stand before all the world as hypocrites. The constitution of our Synodical Conference declares "outward expression of the unity of spirit of the synods concerned" to be its first purpose; therefore the recognition of an opponent such as Prof. Schmidt is would cause only distress among the friends of unity of faith, and bring only mockery and scorn from the enemies of the truth upon our fellowship; therefore we in the name of our Synod cannot lend a hand to it, since we received from it at its last convention the measured instruction: "You shall sit in church consultation with no person who has publicly accused us of Calvinism." (Synodical report of 1881, p. 45.)

We therefore repeat hereby our protest before this Venerable Assembly publicly and solemnly. Our protest, however, as we already remarked at the outset, has been only a conditional one. We are namely ready to withdraw it as soon as Prof. Schmidt 1.) retracts publicly and without reservation the charge of Calvinism publicly raised by him against us, and 2.) publicly acknowledges as a wrong on his part the steps taken by him toward splitting our Synodical Conference and tearing apart our and other congregations belonging to our body. Until this has happened we shall not and cannot enter here into any discussions with him. For that it should be unjust to condemn him thus unheard in this case cannot, first, be spoken of, because he has already for years more than enough been heard in his own organ, and because, secondly, this is not at all a matter of an accusation raised against Prof. Schmidt, but only of a statement of grounds for our declaration to the Venerable Synodical Conference, that on the basis of generally known, indisputable facts we can for conscience' sake no longer with