# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1882_S73
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

— 73 —

can you keep your position. From this you should see that you are surely on a false path when you are compelled to polemicize against the pure Gospel of grace. Rather bring the works in as well, then, so as to add a third cause to the two causes of election of grace! I know well that you will finally say: Oh no! — But you have said it. Are we to accept so patiently that you grasp our Lutheran Church by its crown? The confession of grace, however, is its crown. With the doctrine of free grace it fought victoriously against the papacy. Through it the Lutheran Church here in America has come back to life. And scarcely has God given us this grace when we get a whole host of opponents who assert: No, man must also do something toward it! When Scripture speaks again and again of God's 'good pleasure' as the true ground of election, it is mocked incessantly in 'Alten und Neuen' [Old and New, a periodical]. Schmidt does so as against us, but he does so against the Holy Spirit. There it stands, it is God's good pleasure, grace, mercy! No! says one, that is neo-Missourian; in man, in man, there one must look for something! Where will these people end up? They may adorn themselves with ever so fine a show; to us it is no fine show. Through this thin covering we see the evil Enemy, who wants to rob us of the grace through Christ."

Thereupon Pastor Muus had the following to remark: "It is very bad that we have got into the position of having to speak of so many things at once. It is very bad. If one could treat one point by itself, it would be much better. But one must take circumstances as they are. — When Dr. Walther repeats once more that I sought to prove that he was mistaken because the dogmaticians had taught otherwise, I am surprised. Why does Dr. Walther do that? He has no ground. For the first time I called his attention to it, that it is not so. Why does he do it again so? I would not have said this if there had not been other affairs earlier. But it is remarkable that Dr. Walther without any ground wants to drum it in that I, for example, wish to prove the truth here from the dogmaticians. Not a word has fallen from me in that sense. It is really bad when, in such matters, one absolutely wants to attribute to one's opponents grounds which they themselves reject from the heart. In that way one only rejects oneself and gets no truth out of it. Now, Prof. Walther says: There are several interpretations by dogmaticians of the 'intuitu fidei.' Yes, that is certainly true. One dogmatician says, for example: faith is the cause of election. Another says: Faith is not the cause of election. Literally they say the opposite. And so in many other respects. But what I have seen of the dogmaticians has caused me to hold the same doctrine