# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1884_S21
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

of the Ev. Luth. Synodical Conference of North America. 1884. 21

Note these five passages well. They are irrefutable, and only the most wretched sophistry can twist them and then say: No! first came faith and then God thought: Well, I will elect that man, he was so good as to accept my Gospel. Gerhard did not conduct such a doctrine. He did not say, as Professor Loy: Election depends upon man's conduct. No, God looked only at himself. In us he saw nothing but death, sin, corruption. There he saw only what could provoke him to wrath. —

The Ohio Synod, however, has gone furthest of all the opponents. Since it separated from us because of the doctrine of *Gnadenwahl* [election of grace / predestination], it will be in place to hear what it resolved when it wished to withdraw from the Synodical Conference (*Synodalconferenz*), what doctrine it henceforth holds fast, around what banner it rallies, and why it no longer wishes to work together with us for the kingdom of God. In the year 1881, under the heading "Our Position in the Doctrine of Election," it publicly and solemnly set forth the following as its confession of faith: "Anew (?) we hereby profess the doctrine of election as it is contained in the Formula of Concord, and also as it has, in agreement therewith, been conducted by the teachers of our Church on the whole and in the main (!) at all times; in particular we hold to be in accordance with Scripture and the Symbols (and therefore genuinely Lutheran) the doctrine of our fathers that the ordination of the elect to eternal life took place in view of faith, that is, in view of the merit of Christ apprehended by faith. Therefore resolved, that, as in the past (?), so also in the future the doctrine here professed anew by us shall be the only legitimate one in our institutions, schools, publications and churches." (Proceedings of the 25th Extraordinary Convention of the Joint [*Allgemeine*] Ev. Luth. Synod of Ohio and Other States, held at Wheeling, W. Va., September 1881. p. 39.) Thereupon a protest was made by the men who later withdrew and formed the Concordia Synod, whereupon the Synod later declared further: "That we as a Lutheran synod accept the Formula of Concord as the Church (?) has at all times accepted and understood it, namely so that the doctrine: 'The election of persons took place in view of faith,' is in accordance with it and therefore genuinely Lutheran. Whoever now really has an opposite doctrinal position cannot, indeed, without being a Unionist, remain with us." (Ibid. p. 50.)

With this the Ohio Synod has documented that it has made a deep fall. For 1. it causes all members of its synod to found their faith also on the teachers of old. They do not say this expressly. But consider what they do. Each is obliged to confess what the Fathers have at all times