# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1894_S31
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

of the Ev. Luth. Synodical Conference of North America. 1894. 31

drawn upon, saying: Not everything stands in Scripture that one is to believe, do and leave undone, but the Holy Spirit is yet to teach many things that Christ has not taught; which is directly against the Holy Spirit and quite perverse. For Christ says thus: He will teach you and remind you of all that I have said to you. . . . How then shall we suffer that the pope and bishops step forward and say: that the Holy Spirit teaches what they decree?"

Again Luther writes (XVII, 139): "Since they see that they cannot hinder a council, nor refuse it with any right, they invent that the pope is above the council, without whose authority or power no council can be assembled, none last long, none bind or entangle anyone, but is powerless and unfit to conclude and order anything. Against this, however, that the pope is a sure rule of truth and has power to understand and interpret the Holy Scripture at his pleasure."

In Luther's writing Against the Papacy, 1520, we read (XVII, 484): "There is written enough and to spare in the Bible how we are to conduct ourselves in all things. . . . And even if much good were in them (in the decrees and decretals of the pope), they should nevertheless rightly perish, because the pope holds all canon law locked in his heart's chest, so that henceforth there is only useless study and deceit in them. Today the law of men is not what is in books, but what stands in the wilfulness of the pope and his flatterers. If you have a case in canon law, grounded in the very best way, the pope has his scrinium pectoris (heart's chest), by which all law and the whole world must steer itself."

Finally Luther writes (XX, 271): "There are also many who teach that he is above Holy Scripture, may interpret and change it as he will; as he has also done and boasts in his holy spiritual law that Holy Scripture has it from him that it is called Holy Scripture and counts among Christians; for if he had not confirmed it, it would count for nothing, nor could it be Holy Scripture."

That, then, is Luther's picture of the papacy, in which he sets out the principles of the gross enthusiasm of the Antichrist, namely: a. The pope is lord and judge in the Church over everything. b. No one can prescribe anything to him, nor judge him; rather, by virtue of indwelling truth (scrinium pectoris) he has the power to give doctrine and laws and to judge everything. c. So he is not only the highest but the only authoritative teacher and interpreter of Holy Scripture, indeed he first gives Scripture its authority. d. For the pope is infallible and cannot err in matters that concern the faith and life of Christians. Under threat of eternal curse the congregation of God, the Church