# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1888_S32
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

32 Proceedings of the twelfth convention

souls are kept in the right reverence for God's Word, so that they keep a firm Word of God for the hour of temptation and of death. Whoever deals loosely with God's Word may well take care lest the devil, on the evil day, make shaky for him even the Word: "The blood of JESUS Christ, the Son of God, cleanseth us from all sin." The devil can whisper to him: You have given up other words of Scripture; how do you know that this Word stands firm?

We stand in a communion that holds fast the whole Word of God, the whole revelation, in which care is rightly taken of the souls, in which God is given the honor that is due him. What a gift has thereby fallen to us! We cannot praise it enough.

This gift has been bestowed on us by God's free grace. In the kingdom of God only grace counts. So we too have not found our way together to the one right faith by ourselves. Here too the Word holds: "I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy," and: "So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy." It is God who has given us the mind not to swim with the unionistic stream of the time, but to hold high the whole Word of God and accept it in faith. It is God who has given us the knowledge that we do not let ourselves be made to waver by the unionistic talk of love and peace, but know that the first part of love toward God and men is this, that we hold fast to God's whole Word and testify to God's whole Word.

Now it is also necessary to cultivate and preserve this high gift. God's Word expressly calls on us to do so. Eph. 4:3: "Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." Two things are said in this Scripture word: 1. what we are to "keep," 2. how this keeping may be done. We must not forget: What is to be preserved is the unity of the Spirit, the unity in faith worked by the Holy Spirit, as the Apostle afterward expressly adds: "one faith, one baptism." We may allow no other concept of unity to arise among us than the one in accordance with Scripture, the unity in faith, the agreement in all articles of Christian doctrine. It is true that among the purposes of the Synodical Conference [*Synodalconferenz*] there is named "the striving for a delimitation of the synods along territorial boundaries." But that is, as we have seen, not an expression of inner unity of faith that is necessary under all circumstances. Among the purposes of the Synodical Conference there is further named "joint activity for common purposes." We are indeed already active jointly in the Negro Mission [*Negermiſſion*] and the Immigrant Mission. But what would all outward rounding-off along territorial boundaries and all outward cooperation in church works be, if the faith of us all were not rightly rounded off according to God's Word, if we did not remain one