# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1884_S16
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

16 Proceedings of the tenth convention

had. If we therefore take Luther to help us in the interpretation of the Augsburg Confession, we follow our Confession. The Philadelphians, on the contrary, say: we do not wish to speak of Luther here, nor to express ourselves further about him. When Prof. Jacobs formerly, among other things, rejected our doctrine of Church and Ministry and said: one cannot be guided by Luther, the present ringleader of our opponents answered him in the year 1875: "It is not the later dogmaticians who bring light and clarity into Luther, but Luther first brings the true light into the dogmaticians." ("Lehre und Wehre," vol. XXI, p. 311.)

Note also that Luther himself constantly cites Church Fathers in his writings. In the Confession concerning the Lord's Supper he begins with Cyprian and goes down to the sixth century. In spite of the idolatry that was practiced with the Church Fathers in the papacy, he did not wish to throw out the baby with the bathwater. He held the Church Fathers in high esteem as dear men, but he also looked at their writings cum judicio, that is, with sharpened judgment. Therefore he says:

"The old Patres and teachers, such as Augustine, Hilary, Ambrose and others, one should not reject altogether, but hold in honor and esteem (even though they often err), on account of the testimony of faith, since one can nevertheless see in their writings that they too believed in Jesus Christ, just as we do; as indeed the Christian Church from the beginning of the world has believed exactly so, as we also do now. St. Bernard surpasses in his sermons all other Doctors, even Augustine himself, for he teaches Christ very finely. But when he gets into disputationes, he is often against himself, and recants what he had previously taught and preached, becomes quite another man, and ascribes far too much to the law and free will." (Erlangen ed., vol. 62, p. 99.)

When I therefore see that the man believes from the heart in Jesus Christ, I ought not to despise his writings, even though here and there a little grain of sand of false doctrine is lodged in them. Those are not heresies but weaknesses, blemishes.

All this we have prefixed to our theses only in order to bear witness that we do not make the godly theologians into heretics and do not condemn their books, but hold them in very high esteem. How dreadful it would also be if we were suddenly to say to our members: Put these godly books away, they are suspect! And they have hitherto held them in high esteem, but have probably also noticed that here and there something is not quite right. So, for example, the Altenburg Bible Work is an exceedingly precious devotional book. And yet many a one will probably already have noticed, when it comes to speak of the civil authority, that it gives the latter far too much, as when it demands of it, for example, that it see to it that pure teachers are installed. The civil authority as such has nothing to do with this. For Christ says: "My