# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1892_S31
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

of the Ev. Luth. Synodical Conference of North America. 1892. 31

cordia, p. 713 (41): "Few receive the Word and follow it; the greatest crowd despises the Word and will not come to the wedding. The cause of such despising of the Word is not God's foreknowledge, but man's perverse will, which thrusts away or perverts the means and instrument of the Holy Spirit that God presents to him through the call, and resists the Holy Spirit, who wills to be effective through the Word and works, as Christ says: How often would I have gathered you, and you would not, Matt. 23.

"Thus many receive the Word with joy, but afterwards fall away, Luke 8. The cause, however, is not as though God were unwilling to give the grace of perseverance to those in whom he has begun the good work, for that is contrary to St. Paul, Phil. 1, but the cause is that they willfully turn away again from the holy commandment, grieve and embitter the Holy Spirit, entangle themselves again in the filth of the world, adorn again for the devil the lodging of the heart, with whom the last becomes worse than the first. 2 Pet. 2. Luke 11. Heb. 10."

Page 721 (78): "That, however, not all who have heard it believe, and therefore are so much the more deeply damned, is not because God had not granted them salvation, but they themselves are to blame, who have heard the Word in such a way, not to learn but only to despise, blaspheme and desecrate it, and who have resisted the Holy Spirit, who wished to work in them through the Word, as was the case in the time of Christ with the Pharisees and their following."

To what extent this conduct of those who are lost is rightly imputed to them as guilt will be dealt with in the fourth thesis.

Thesis 4.

The guilt of the evil conduct toward the means of grace, by which the working of grace by the Holy Spirit is resisted, is evident in those who have had the Gospel for this reason: that, according to the testimony of Scripture, this evil conduct is founded wholly and exclusively in their corrupt nature.

The fact that those who are lost bring upon themselves their unbelief and damnation by their conduct toward the means of grace was established in the treatment of the last thesis; now it is to be shown as precisely as possible to what extent their conduct is culpable, for which they alone are to be held responsible. In answering this question, however, one must be careful, keep strictly within the limits set to our knowledge by Scripture, not wish to explain what the