# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1884_S30
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

28 Proceedings of the tenth convention

After the occasion for our theme had been set forth, the Conference proceeded to the proofs for the theme proposed. It is namely so reprehensible to want to establish matters of faith from the writings of the Fathers and to bind consciences to their doctrinal decisions,

I. because it is contrary to Scripture; for it is

A. contrary to the authority that belongs to Holy Scripture alone,

a) of being alone the pure source of all knowledge of the faith,

b) of being alone the infallible rule and norm of all doctrines and teachers, and

c) of being alone the legitimate judge in all religious controversies.

It may seem unnecessary still to treat of the fact that Scripture has this threefold authority. For not only we confess this, but all who wish to be Lutherans. Even the Ohioans do not expressly deny it. But the more generally a principle is accepted, the more easily is action taken against it. Daily experience shows this. One thinks: that goes without saying, that Scripture is the sole source, rule and judge; that is simply settled and no one will credit me with denying it. And yet precisely in the time of controversy the principle is abandoned most quickly. For example, all Christians know that the chief rule for a Christian life is: You shall love God with all your heart and your neighbor as yourself. Everyone will say: do you think I do not acknowledge that? And yet it is a fact that precisely this chief principle of so-called Christian morality is transgressed daily and hourly without one's knowing it. So it also fares with the established principle that Holy Scripture has such an authority as nothing else in the world has. And what is this authority? It is, first, alone the pure source of all knowledge of the faith, the one fountain from which the divine, pure, saving truth flows and can and should be drawn. To be sure, Ps. 46 says of the Church of God that it has little brooks. But that says nothing other than that she has many writings of prophets and apostles; there is an Old and a New Testament. Those are the different little brooks, which all, however, well up out of the one fountain of God.

In proof that Scripture alone is the pure source of all knowledge of the faith we cite first Deut. 4:2: "You shall not add to what I command you, and you shall not take away from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God, which I