# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1894_S28
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

28 Proceedings of the fifteenth convention

"God so loved the world" — when God has said so, it has nothing to mean; the secret will must decide. — Other hidden enthusiasts proceed thus. There stands the Word of God: "So then he has mercy on whom he will, and hardens whom he will. You will say to me: Why does he then find fault with us? Who can resist his will? Yes, dear man, who are you that you would dispute with God?" Rom. 9:18–20. Again it is written: "To the elect strangers according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ." 1 Pet. 1:2. Again it is written: "And as many as were ordained to eternal life believed." Acts 13:48. These words of God stand there. What do the newest hidden enthusiasts do with them? Oh, they say and write, such words that speak of the special mystery of an election by God must not be taken as special words, but as words that say nothing other than all the passages about God's universal will of love and his universal order of grace.

The abomination of enthusiasm appears clearly in this. God did not let the angels be redeemed, but human beings; for human beings God devised the way of salvation through Christ's blood and death and founded the kingdom in which precisely human beings are to become partakers of his grace. That the Word now praises and extols this act of grace of God is the greatest honor, the highest glory of this Word. But now these very people come and, as far as in them lies, overturn everything God has established, as a vain thing, together with the Gospel and Christ, who in the end is only a vain name. Enthusiasm is a constant assault against the highest glory of divine grace. —

The various forms of enthusiasm are:

A. The Gross (Avowed) Enthusiasm.
1. The Antichristian Enthusiasm.

That the papacy is enthusiasm, gross and undisguised, God's Word tells us plainly in 2 Thess. 2:4: "He who is an adversary and exalts himself above all that is called God or worship, so that he sits in the temple of God as a god, and gives himself out to be God." Let us ask: How can a finite creature set itself above the infinite God, drive God out, and substantially put itself in his place? Answer: No creature can do that, even when it acts in the power of the devil. Essentially no one can push God out. But we know that God has set his majesty, outwardly perceptible, on the throne of majesty in his Word, perceptible and recognizable. Now someone can set himself above God. The pope says glorious things about the Word; but, he says, I am still above the Word; my Word creates