# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_September 1858_S278
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

278 From the General Synod.

decided confession of the pure truth of God — and that is indeed what the
pull toward "strict Lutheranism" is — no other than the pull of the Father
toward the Son; and that the antipathy toward "strict Lutheranism" is
nothing else than the hostility of the flesh against God and his Word. Oh,
those men feel that only too well! How strongly the above article, and
especially its conclusion, declares that its author, at bottom, has no
perfectly certain hope for his cause, but rather regards it as a
church-political experiment which may just as well fail as succeed. How,
indeed, can they have a joyful conscience and a good confidence in their
cause? Does the whole long article of the Review, with a single syllable,
ask what God's Word actually says of the platform of the General Synod,
what the will of God is, how he, the Lord of his church, wills to have
acted in the affairs of his church? That is the main thing. If we act
according to God's will, then our work is God's work, and it must go
forward victoriously. If we act against God's will, then our work is not
of God, and it must come to ruin. But the gentlemen well know what God's
Word says of their equating of the lie and the truth, of their
"tolerance" toward error and their intolerance toward the pure,
unabridged testimony from the Word of God, of their churchly "union" of
the orthodox and the heterodox. They well know that God's Word condemns
their false, man-made union. Therefore they leave that aside, and reckon
up for people only how useful it would be for the outward prosperity of
the church in this land if the great crowd of the General Synod — made
up, to be sure, of "somewhat unharmonious elements," but great
nonetheless — should remain together, and with the mass of money flowing
from so many pockets into the respective treasuries, both the churches
and preachers in the individual congregations, and also the institutions
and undertakings belonging to the whole synod, could be the better
maintained and the further extended (see the Lutheran Observer). What
blindness! As if we could better advance God's cause by letting ourselves
be guided by our own shortsighted calculation and going our own crooked
ways, than by letting God's clear Word be our light and walking God's
way. Union must never be purchased by denial of the truth. No, God will
be Lord alone and give his honor to no other, not even to the platform
manufacturers of the General Synod. Therefore their way is of the evil
one, and can only bring harm and ruin to the church of Christ in this
land. They will not escape God's judgment.

Now we turn to you, faithful Lutherans in the General Synod, who are
devoted from the heart to the confession of our church and wish, in all
things, to act only according to God's clear Word and will. The Review
tells you plainly what, in its opinion, you should do. It is fearful of
the strife which your testimony in the General Synod might cause, and
therefore wishes for your withdrawal. But a Luther-