# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1884_S39
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

of the Ev. Luth. Synodical Conference of North America. 1884. 37

are the writings of the Fathers to be read, when they, either through the fault of their time, as by a wild stream, have been swept along with it to what is perverse, or when, before agitated controversies, they spoke all too incautiously and thoughtlessly (securius), or when in writing they progressed in knowledge, or wrote in the course of progressing. For not easily will one be found among the Fathers who had not his blemishes (naevi). Yet the nakedness (pudenda) of the Fathers is to be covered, as far as can be done with a good conscience.*) (Th. posit.-polem. P. II. pag. 36.)

The Lord Christ also says of his Christians: "You are the light of the world." He does not say: You are the gods of the world. We should say of all Fathers: they can err and they have erred. Even in Luther's writings there are errors, namely from the time when he had not yet clearly seen through the mystery of iniquity. These errors, however, he later rejected, and expressly begged that one should have compassion on him, for he had to come to knowledge only little by little, since the right doctrine was not immediately given him by the Holy Spirit. But since the year 1523 Luther taught nothing false any more in any article of the Christian faith, although he remained a man capable of error. Noteworthy in the above citation is also that Kromayer says: The younger the Church Fathers are in time, the more errors are found in them also. As for the older Church Fathers, however, they often fell into error in controversy. So it also fared with the Lutheran Fathers, for example, in the controversy over the doctrine of election, when Samuel Huber appeared and taught that all men are elected. To refute him, our Lutheran Fathers said: No, not all men are elected, but only those of whom God foresaw that they would believe in Christ, and indeed in view of this their faith. So this doctrine came into our Church with the best intention, namely in order to refute that spirit of error with it. At certain times, when errors became very general, it also swept many otherwise orthodox teachers unnoticed into this stream, and they swam along, as, for example, happened frequently in that dreadful time after Luther's death until the origin of the Formula of Concord. Otherwise theologians come upon a perverse way of speaking in a doctrine when there is no controversy at all about it; then they become only too easily careless. But when opponents arise, these become, as it were, the grinders of the faithful teachers, who polish them and compel them to express themselves cautiously. Therefore we should also not be so sad about the controversy that has broken out among us. For those who have fallen away it is, to be sure, a terrible calamity. Having got onto false paths, they err

*) This is now made a reproach to us.