# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1886_S46
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

46 Proceedings of the eleventh convention

*) Oh, there is something lofty and precious about this testimony of the Holy Spirit to the divinity of Holy Scripture! Through it man gains not a human but a divine certainty, a rock-firm conviction that in Holy Scripture he has and hears God's own Word, a certainty that is not shaken or overthrown even by human arguments, which proves itself in all kinds of temptations, indeed in the midst of death. Let each one, however, now examine himself well whether he also has such a conviction, that he is not merely humanly but divinely certain that Scripture is from God, so that it may not become clear to him only in temptation or even in the bitter little hour of death that his faith in the divinity of Scripture was not a divine work, hence no true faith at all, but only a human holding-for-true. And here it is very comforting to know that such a divine conviction, as a true Christian must have, can be had also by every Christian, the most learned as well as the simplest; for he has indeed the Scripture, which certainly and which alone can give and sustain such certainty. Therefore it behooves us diligently to read the Scripture, in order to be and remain convinced of its divinity ourselves, and diligently to work with the Scripture, in order to convince others of its divinity and keep them convinced.

We are, then, divinely certain that Holy Scripture is God's Word; we are certain that we have in it the testimony of the Holy Spirit; when we read in the Bible we feel a voice within us that says to us: That is right, what the Scripture says. The newer men do admit this divine testimony, but it is to refer only to the doctrines of salvation contained in Scripture: but if one reads other things in Scripture, e.g. the dates, one does not get this impression, and so that has nothing to do with the testimony of the Holy Spirit. With this testimony, then, nothing is gained for the divinity of the whole Holy Scripture. But that is false; for Scripture itself says: "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God," and "We speak not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth," etc. — If we deny that the whole Scripture is inspired by God, then we must reject the whole Scripture; for it says of itself that it is God's Word in its whole content. It is not true that this testimony refers only to the system according to which God wishes to save us. No, it refers to the whole Scripture. Every Christian also experiences this when he reads in this Word. It is true: this or that in the Bible may strike a Christian which he cannot resolve; but he who has this testimony in his heart does not then say: "Now the Scripture cannot be God's Word," but he says: "It may well be that I cannot grasp this here, but that cannot make me err as to the divinity of Holy Scripture."

*) On Saturday forenoon, from here on, Pastor Burmester kept the minutes.