# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1888_S7
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

of the Ev. Luth. Synodical Conference of North America. 1888. 7

teach, true Christians, children of God, are to be found in the Reformed church, in the Reformed sects, indeed even in the Roman church. These, the children of God, are one with us in the actual foundation of faith, namely in the article of justification. They believe with us that they become righteous and saved by grace alone, for Christ's sake. Without this faith no one can be a Christian. Therefore the children of God even under the papacy have this faith. The papacy as such, to be sure, not only rejects the article of justification but outright curses this foundation on which every true Christian stands, and thereby reveals itself as the antichristendom. But in the papacy there is still read, as Luther is always pointing out, e.g., the text of the Gospels and Epistles. When a poor soul hears the word of Scripture: "For God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, that all who believe in him should not be lost, but have eternal life" — then, through the working of the Holy Spirit, it may well receive this Word of God in spite of the blasphemies of the papistic priest, who extols Mary and the saints as saviors. We Lutherans therefore maintain, indeed, that the Lutheran church is the orthodox one, because it has the whole Word of God pure and unadulterated; but we do not declare the Lutheran church to be the only one that saves. We do not maintain that children of God are born only in the Lutheran church. Rather we concede that there are Christians everywhere where essential parts of the Word of God are still to be found. As Luther remarks on Gal. 1:2: "Where the Word and Sacrament remain essentially, there a holy church remains also." When, accordingly, the question is put to us: "Can not those also who err in one or another point of the doctrine revealed in God's Word have faith and be saved?", we answer with a decided Yes! There are Christians who err out of weakness. Such there are also within the orthodox church. There are also within the Lutheran church weak, erring Christians, Christians who have not attained the right understanding in all parts of Christian doctrine, or who have at least for a time become confused again in this or that article. These we do not at once declare to be non-Christians, nor do we treat them as such.

But this concession, that there are Christians who err in some articles of Christian doctrine, cannot move us to define unity in faith otherwise than has been done in Thesis I. We are speaking of unity in faith as it is to be constituted according to God's will. And that is agreement not merely in some, but in all articles of Christian doctrine.

This is how the Lutheran church has understood the unity in faith that God wills. In the 7th Article of the Augsburg Confession it defines the "true unity of the Christian church" thus: "that there in harmony