# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1886_S42
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

42 Proceedings of the eleventh convention

the end of the world and, like Cain, wander about unsettled and fugitive, after it has crucified him whose blood speaketh better than that of Abel. Further the prophecy of the spread of the kingdom of Christ, which had everything in the world against it, and which no great scholar, no mighty general of the earth led on, but which was to be spread by the preaching of the Gospel alone and from the mustard seed become a tree that stretches its branches far and wide through all lands. How gloriously this has been fulfilled! The kingdom of Christ stands there like a mighty tree under which the birds of heaven dwell in the shade. And all this despite persecution, hostility, wit, learning, despite sword and stake, despite the gates of hell.

And how unanimous the holy writers of the most diverse times are in their reports. Moses begins: "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth," and the same teach David, the prophets, the Evangelists and Apostles, that all things were created by God and from him and to him. What confusion, in contrast, is found in the writings of the scholars! What the one has laboriously built up, another mercilessly knocks down again.

Not only are the holy writers, in their unanimous testimony, quite remarkable people, but for their reliability great crowds of witnesses come forward.

Josephus writes: "Since among us it was not permitted to all to compose writings, but only to the prophets, who knew from divine inspiration ancient and long-past things and carefully recorded what belonged to their own time, we do not have among us countless books that contradict one another, but only twenty-two books, in which everything that concerns the whole time is set down in writing, and which are rightly believed. Of these, five are the books of Moses, which comprise what is reported from the creation to his death. This time amounts to not much less than three thousand years. From the death of Moses to the reign of Artaxerxes, who was king of the Persians after Xerxes, the prophets after Moses recorded the events of their time in thirteen books.*) The four remaining contain songs to God and rules of life for men. The history from Artaxerxes to our time is indeed also written, but is not held as credible as the earlier writings, because the uninterrupted succession of the prophets ceased. What confidence we have placed in our writings is evident in fact; for although so long a time has passed, no one among us has ventured to add anything to them or take anything away or change anything. For

*) According to the Jewish count: 1. Joshua, 2. Judges with Ruth, 3. Samuel, 4. Kings, 5. Chronicles, 6. Ezra with Nehemiah, 7. Esther, 8. Job, 9. Isaiah, 10. Jeremiah with Lamentations, 11. Ezekiel, 12. Daniel, 13. the twelve minor prophets.