# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1888_S28
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

28 Proceedings of the twelfth convention

who have recognized and acknowledged one another as brethren in the faith and thus also stand in sacramental fellowship with one another now also adopt the same outward order of worship. Or also in such a way that they, who until now formed separate church bodies, enter outright into a union of church government. But it need not necessarily be so. Unions of church government and orders of worship are adiaphora [things indifferent], which are left to the Christian liberty and to the Christian judgment of the individual Christians and of the individual local congregations. While I may perhaps think that conformity in liturgical usages would be good and practicable under these circumstances, perhaps another, who is just as earnest about the welfare of the kingdom of God, is of quite another opinion, and I have absolutely no right to say: You cannot be quite one with us in faith if you are not now for conformity in the ceremonies or for amalgamation in church government. Whether these things are required by love I must leave to the Christian conscientiousness of the individual.

But there is an outward testimony to inner unity of faith that is necessary under all circumstances. Suppose the Synod of Wisconsin were attacked, reviled, even branded with heretic's names for confessing this or that article of our common most holy faith: then Minnesota and Missouri could not say, "I know not the man" (namely Wisconsin), but Minnesota and Missouri must say: What Wisconsin teaches, we teach also; Wisconsin's doctrine is our doctrine; we are brethren in the faith of Wisconsin. If we did not say so, we should sin gravely; so we should deny in Wisconsin the right faith, Christ himself. That is what is meant when the thesis says: "The necessary outward testimony," etc.

Belonging here are, among others, the passages Matt. 10:32–33: "Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven. But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven." Christ is here on earth confessed and denied in his Word, in the doctrine revealed by him. Whoever therefore denies him who confesses Christ's doctrine denies Christ himself. Further belonging here is 2 Tim. 1:8: "Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner: but be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God." When Paul wrote these words to Timothy he was a prisoner in Rome. In that he now exhorts Timothy to a joyful confession of the gospel, he says not only: "be not ashamed of the testimony of our Lord," but adds: "nor of me his prisoner." Paul was, for the sake of the gospel,