# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1886_S41
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

of the Ev. Luth. Synodical Conference of North America. 1886. 41

So our fathers already collected and set forth certain human proofs for the divinity of Holy Scripture, not in order thereby to bring man to a real conviction of faith, but so that even the natural man may have no excuse if he despises this holy book. Rightly the fathers point to the wonderful simplicity, combined with the most grand majesty, of the holy words. One and all, the holy writers are true masters, their narratives unequaled models of historical presentation.

They further point to the holiness that blows through the whole Bible. Where is such a holy God to be found in the conception of the heathen as the true living God of the Bible? With what vices are their gods afflicted according to the heathen's own account! Where is such a moral teaching as in Holy Scripture, in the contemplation of which every mortal must confess: Weighed in this balance thou art found wanting; according to it there is no man who is holy; but whoever walked so would have reached the highest rung of virtue.

What power Holy Scripture exerts! It shows the sinner first a way to his God such as no sage has ever shown anywhere in the writings of the heathen; shows him a Savior, the LORD Jesus, as no heathen writing has ever shown him. How much ado is made when one finds in a heathen writer a hint of a redeemer of mankind! and this is perhaps only flattery of a prince living at the time; but a Savior as the Bible paints him before our eyes no human mind could have devised. Holy Scripture also, through this its doctrine, makes hearts quiet, in temptation comforted, in tribulation joyful and in death courageous, as the holy martyrs bear most mighty witness.

Where else is there a book at all that so rightly lays claim to being the word of truth as Holy Scripture itself? How many have already come to shame on this book! Again and again, even where the spade is put in, the stones brought out of the earth have raised their voice and had to bear witness, before the unbelieving world and believing Christians, to the truth of Holy Scripture.

To this belongs also the wonderful literal fulfilment of the prophecies in Holy Scripture. Literally there has been fulfilled in Christ Jesus what was prophesied in the Old Testament of the son of a virgin, of the place where he was to be born, and of the lineage from which he was to descend. So it is also with the prophecies of the New Testament, whose fulfilment seemed so improbable, e.g. of the Jewish people, which cried "Crucify!" over Christ, and which was to be driven out of the land and yet to remain until