# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1884_S57
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

of the Ev. Luth. Synodical Conference of North America. 1884. 55

law turns into something else. No, love begins with the neighbour. Our dear Luther, on the other hand, followed in the footsteps of his Saviour. When he came forward, he preached not only the gospel pure and clear, but also the law in its right spiritual sense and meaning. It is therefore astonishing that in our Lutheran church that so lax a view concerning the second table of the law could come to light, indeed become a tradition.

That the Saviour in the saying before us means the traditions of men we see, moreover, from comparison with his other ways of speaking. For when he wants to speak of the Old Testament he says: "How do you read?" "What is written in the law?" But here he says: "You have heard."

Further we read in Matt. 15:9: "But in vain do they worship me, teaching such doctrines as are nothing but commandments of men." A great word! If, then, something is a commandment of men and I do it in order to please God by it, it is quite in vain. And if I let my blood be drawn, as the priests of Baal cut themselves with knives and thought their Baal would then hear them sooner, indeed if I fasted myself to death, scourged myself to death, in order to please God thereby, all that is lost, for God has not commanded it of me. Let certain monks, then, rise in the middle of the night to earn a merit, throw themselves on their knees in a cold room and pray for an hour; one thinks, to be sure, if these do not get into heaven, who then will? but it is all lost nevertheless. Their praying, their fasting, their watching, their hard bed, all counts for nothing before God. Why? Because he has not commanded it. For God is God, and he alone will tell us what we have to do if it is to please him. Hence the example of King Saul belongs here. He had God's command to put the enemy's animals all under the ban, that is, to kill and bury them. But Saul thought: Ah, the mass of fat, sleek cattle will make a rich sacrificial feast; of these we will slaughter a hundred, and all the world will marvel how much we sacrifice to our Jehovah. But then the prophet Samuel comes and says: What is this lowing of the cattle? You have rejected God's Word, therefore I will also reject you. For obedience is better than sacrifice. A proverb among us Germans therefore says: It is easier to earn heaven than hell.

Finally our thesis says: "and against the exhortations contained therein to test everything." We have already dealt with this often, also at length in the preliminary remarks. Let us therefore hear only the passages that contain such exhortations.

1 Thess. 5:20, 21 says: "Do not despise prophesying. But test everything and hold fast what is good." If the Holy Spirit first