# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1884_S14
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

14 Proceedings of the tenth convention

repeated (referimus nos ad ea scripta, eaque pro repetitis habere volumus". That is in German: "So we refer to these writings and wish to have them herewith repeated"). (1st Appendix. Of the Power and Jurisdiction of the Pope. p. 332.)

If, then, we too immerse ourselves in the private writings of the teachers of the Church, we do so on the counsel and exhortation of our own Confession. Here it stands, we are to look into Luther, Brenz, Rhegius, etc. Noteworthy also is the great catalog of Church Fathers which is appended to our Book of Concord. It was originally to go into the Formula of Concord itself. But the book became too large for the dear confessors. This catalog was then appended so that the Zwinglians and others could not say that the Lutherans had brought up entirely new doctrines.

At the close of the "Catalog of the Testimonies of Holy Scripture and of the Ancient Pure Teachers of the Church, as they have taught and said concerning the Person and divine Majesty of the human nature of our Lord Jesus Christ . . ." it says:

"These testimonies of the ancient teachers of the Church have not been put here with the intention that our Christian faith be founded on the authority of men. . . . But because the spirits of error, by the special and cunning craft of Satan, would gladly lead people away from Holy Scripture, which, God be praised, even a common layman can now read profitably, back again into the writings of the Fathers and ancient teachers of the Church as into a wide sea, so that one could not know properly whether it stands with them and their writings as these new teachers cite their words, and so might be left in a troublesome doubt: it has therefore been necessary, out of need, to indicate with this catalog and to show before everyone's eyes that this new false doctrine is as little founded in the writings of the ancient pure teachers of the Church as in Holy Scripture, but is directly contrary to them. Whose testimonies they cite in a false understanding against the Fathers' will." (Book of Concord, ed. J. T. Müller, p. 759 f.)

We see from this: our fathers did just as we do. We do not make the human teachers into idols, but we also do not make them into heretics. Their writings are precious to us, beyond price. If we wanted to reject them on account of some false things found in them, which books could we then accept besides the Bible? In all of them something of hay and stubble is found. Paul therefore does not say: Test everything and throw away also the good, but: "Hold fast what is good."

But it is especially important that the Formula of Concord wants us to hold above all to Luther's writings. Our opponents, on the other hand, have such a respect for Luther as is expressed by: "Best ten paces away from the body." They do not shrink from saying: Up to the year