# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1882_S60
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

— 60 —

2. The Hon. Synod of Missouri, Ohio and Other States

had already adopted the following propositions in 1881 at its third delegate synod at Fort Wayne, Ind.:

"What We Believe, Teach and Confess Concerning the Election of Grace," etc. (See above, page 23 ff.)

The question was first raised how the agreement to this doctrine of the three synods named was to be understood: whether, when their delegates agree here, all the synods of the Synodical Conference concerned thereby confess such a doctrine.

To this the Conference gave the following answer unanimously: "We answer in the name of our synods only when the subject in question had already been laid before our synods and we therefore merely bring our synods' answer. But if it is something that is yet to be brought before the synod, then it is only the expression of our personal conviction that we bring. If I therefore say yes here now, my synod has by no means yet said yes, but only I have said yes; otherwise we could very often not answer at all in such cases. But it is of great importance when one first knows where we stand on the matter. When we then come back to our synods, we say: We voted thus and so, now you may declare yourselves about it."

After this answer, the statement of the doctrine of election of grace cited above, from the Wisconsin and Minnesota synods, was taken up, read aloud, and deliberated on by the Conference with a view to agreement with it.

Since these two synods declare at the end that they reject the expression "intuitu fidei," that is, in view of faith, a debate arose over the sense in which the "intuitu fidei" was meant to be rejected. The delegates of the Wisconsin and Minnesota synods declared that they had meant to say nothing other than that they must regard the "intuitu fidei," as it is understood by the opponents in the present controversy, as false doctrine. And this addition had been necessary precisely because some had believed that they could well accept the synod's declaration if they were allowed to interpret it in their own sense. But that was to be cut off completely by the rejection of the "intuitu fidei," as it is now used. That this (at least as far as the Minnesota Synod is concerned) was their understanding is also shown on page 63 of the synodical report in question, where it reads as follows:

"That election is a cause of faith and thus of the sonship of those over whom it has passed from eternity, and with which God has taken the perseverance in faith, and thus also the salvation, of His elect into His hand in such a way that they, despite devil, world