# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1894_S26
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

26 Proceedings of the fifteenth convention

and yet it is a power of God that creates saving faith. The Gospel is incomprehensible to human reason, and yet the deep mystery makes itself understandable to human reason. The Gospel opposes man, and yet the Gospel is the means that makes the deeply resisting man obedient. What, then, is so wonderful as the divine Word? The finest seeds contain a germ from which, with proper care, a great tree grows. In this lies a mystery which up to now no physiologist, no man of science has explained. "Lord, how great are thy works," we must exclaim with the Psalmist already at this. But how infinitely greater is the work of the Word, by whose seed the whole soil it takes hold of is transformed! Now we understand why the Psalmist cries: "Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law." And again: "Lord, thou hast made thy name glorious above all through thy Word. All the kings of the earth give thanks to thee, Lord, because they hear the word of thy mouth." Enthusiasm, however, says: What is there to give thanks for? It is nothing with the word of Scripture; yes, Bibel, Bubel, Babel! [Bible, bubble, Babel] they said in Luther's time and say still. The song of our Church, however, is the praise of the divine wisdom, which we heartily admire precisely in the gift of the divine Word. —

b. Further, enthusiasm is such an abominable evil because the enthusiasts most impudently make themselves lords in the Church and push the Word aside. While the Lord says: Everything in my congregation according to the Word and through the Word of Scripture, which is to be mistress; the enthusiasts say: That is not the order that is of any use; rather, what we establish is to count. But thereby they take from God the lordship in his Church. Luther also testifies to this (XIX, 434): "Further they say: What need is there that Christ's body be in the Sacrament? Faith can well be strengthened without it through the Gospel as it is otherwise preached. That is right; so we will once more bring God before the court and hold under his nose what concerns him of need, or what we require of it, that he sets before us such his Word and work? Is he now going to make fools of us, as though we ourselves did not know so well what is needful for us and for him as he does? Does he think, though he is a God, that he alone is wise on that account, and wants to lord it over us, the spiritual? . . . That is the other abominable blasphemy of Oecolampadius. For whoever asks why it is needful what God says or does, wants indeed to go beyond God, to be wiser and better than God. That is the true Münzer spirit."

At the same time it is also the attempt at a satanic violation of God. Enthusiasm boasts that precisely in its ways and by its manner it draws God to itself. They have God in their power, and he must also prove himself with them. Luther has them boast thus (IX, 431): "The sectarian spirits say: The scribes