# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1894_S16
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

16 Proceedings of the fifteenth convention

their own invention. What is brought forth out of their own thoughts is to count as a divine pronouncement; and on the other hand true divine pronouncements are to be interpreted and explained according to the enthusiasts' mind.

St. Peter, however, also describes the enthusiasm of the false prophets of the Old Testament through his positive statement in verses 2 and 3 about the coming false prophets, who have their prototype precisely in those of the Old Testament. "By whom the way of truth shall be blasphemed. And through covetousness with feigned words shall they deal with you." Yes, to deal with people by one's own invention — to deal with them by one's own thoughts, in order to bring them to the Spirit, to make them God's people, to make them partakers of grace and gifts of grace, to bring them to confident, undisturbed faith — that is enthusiasm indeed.

Let us then look into the Old Testament. Right at the beginning we find confirmed Luther's often expressed judgment that the enthusiasts and enthusiasm are of the devil. We hear Satan himself, the murderer from the beginning, dealing with enthusiasm with man, who was still living in the state of created righteousness, and poisoning their ears with the principle that the good of man is not to be sought through the Word of God, but through one's own thoughts. God had promised the first human beings continued life in blessed paradise if they remained in obedience to his Word; Satan wants to persuade them that what they have by remaining in the Word will be nothing compared with the glorious state that will fall to them if they exalt themselves above the Word. By your remaining with the external Word you keep your present modest state; but if you exalt yourselves above this Word by your own mind, you will be like God.

Here we have the enthusiasts' principle: The revealed, external Word given by God is not what brings us to perfection, to all heavenly, high blessedness, to the right divine condition. The devil invented this principle, not the first human beings. But they let it be drummed into them, so that they fell and now want to share in divine fellowship not through the Word but through their own thoughts.

The Smalcald Articles speak thus to the matter (Part 3, Art. 8): "This is all the old devil and old serpent, who made Adam and Eve also into enthusiasts, leads from the external Word of God to spiritualism and self-conceit, and did so too through other external words. Just as our enthusiasts also condemn the external Word, and yet do not keep silent themselves, but fill the world with chatter and writing, just as if the Spirit could not come through the Scripture or the spoken word of the apostles, but had to come through their writing and word