# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1894_S24
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

24 Proceedings of the fifteenth convention

c. Nor should we think: We know well how to meet enthusiasm. From ancient times we are familiar with which words of Scripture we should use as defense and offense, and how we are to apply them. So we should by no means want to rest self-sufficiently, but hold to the axiom: If you want peace, prepare for war. Therefore we should continue with all the earnestness of divine care to equip ourselves from God's Word.

d. Finally, we should not be content to look out from the castle walls and battlements of the Lutheran Church at the strongholds of the false hostile churches, to learn what they are preparing against us. No, we should also inspect our own city, look into our own Lutheran Zion, after St. Paul's admonition: "From among yourselves false teachers will arise, who speak perverse doctrine." Among ourselves too we must ask the question: Whether one does not want to create out of one's own opinion things that only God's Word can create. Through the Word of our God and through diligent pursuit of it we should therefore let the Holy Spirit give us an ever finer hearing, so that we notice even the slightest beginnings of enthusiasm among us and resist them. —

Thesis II.
Enthusiasm is always an abominable evil, although it does not appear so at first glance in all its forms.

The Abomination of All Enthusiasm.

Why is enthusiasm such an abominable evil? Because with it wretched man makes himself guilty of exalting himself against God, indeed of presumption over God. All false doctrine is abominable. But other false teachers always felt the need to settle accounts with Scripture, to want to show that their false doctrine was Scripture doctrine. Enthusiasm, however, sets Scripture aside altogether as authoritative; the conceit of the enthusiasts says: Scripture alone is of no use for spiritual life and walk. Luther already holds this before us, in that he draws a comparison between Carlstadt and the papacy and shows how the papacy, itself enthusiast in and of itself, nevertheless still wants to hang the cloak of Scripture about itself. XIX, 208 Luther writes: "Now that we have laid the ground from Scripture and proved our faith, and refuted Dr. Carlstadt's ground besides, let us now see how finely he speaks of this matter, since he begins to take reason into counsel, which tells him first of all the right ground. For Dr. Carlstadt has now become much madder than the papists ever were. The papists have at least always