# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1894_S9
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

of the Ev. Luth. Synodical Conference of North America. 1894. 9

asts are mostly moved; by the swarming of thoughts which, like a swarm of bees, "flutter about through and among one another." This might be indicated by the fact that Luther also calls the enthusiasts "flutter-spirits." But when one hears how Luther laments, as the terrible calamity of the enthusiasts, on John 17:11 (X, 24), that they either shamefully distort the finest sayings of Scripture or "flutter and run over them," one can no longer be in doubt what meaning Luther really gives to "swarming." Namely, this is the swarming with the tongue, like the bees, that the enthusiasts, like the bees, roam about in the air and flit about without any firm hold or ground. This is what the mark of the enthusiasts always comes down to in Luther, that, however many other marks he also cites, he always cites as the chief mark that they do not found the having of the Spirit, the enjoyment of his gifts and the life from the Spirit upon the one ground set by God.

This ground is Scripture. Spirit not without Scripture, Scripture not without Spirit; these are the two principles which Luther constantly testifies and proves from Scripture, as divine principles, against the enthusiasts. To reject both is characteristic of the enthusiasts. Their antithesis is: Scripture without Spirit! Scripture is a dead letter; the Word can at most point out and teach. But Word and Scripture do not give what they teach. Word and Scripture do not give the Spirit. Therefore one cannot obtain him through Scripture. Let us let Luther speak: "When such a thing sounds in the ears, the Holy Spirit goes with the Word into the hearts, where he wills; for he does not breathe upon them all; therefore they do not all grasp it. — Yet the Word does not go away without fruit; therefore one must preach, hear, handle and promote it constantly, until the Holy Spirit comes at last. Otherwise there is no other way to it. That you sit in a corner, gape at heaven, and wait for when you will see him coming, is sheer juggler's trickery. The Word is the one bridge and path by which the Holy Spirit comes to us. So one reads in Acts 10." (XI, 446.)

In the Acts of the Apostles, chapter 10, we are told of the whole house of Cornelius: "While Peter was still speaking, the Holy Spirit fell on all who heard the Word." Here there is not a letter to the effect that we are only stirred up by the Word of God, in order now to rise up and press into God without the Word. No: through the Word preached by Peter the Holy Spirit came with his gifts upon the hearers. And in the Epistle to the Galatians 3:2 it says: "This only would I learn of you: Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?" By no manner of enthusiastic preparation of our own, by no work that we can do, but solely through the preaching of faith we receive the Holy Spirit and his goods as an undeserved gift.