# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1894_S36
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

36 Proceedings of the fifteenth convention

why Schwenckfeldt also held high and strict to church discipline. This counted, namely, in his eyes as a means of making man free of all things and of the flesh, so that he can devote himself to inner quiet. Schwenckfeldt taught still other monstrous things, which, however, essentially also stem from ancient times. For example: Christ became man in that Mary received a heavenly humanity; through regeneration we are now transferred into Christ's heavenly nature. Schwenckfeldt did not want to smash and alter the Church in the stormy manner of Münzer and Carlstadt, but withdrew with his followers from the Church. This he called Stillstand [standing still], his followers Stillständer. Here, then, we have the separation, the Separatists. Not a separation in which one withdraws from the godless in order to join the congregation of God; nor a separation in which one withdraws from false teachers and false-believing churches for the sake of the truth; but a separation from the orthodox Church, in order to found a holier and more pious church fellowship. And that is enthusiasm. The wildly degenerate element in Schwenckfeldt shows itself also in the freedom of the regenerate taught by him, according to which he demands for the regenerate freedom of doctrine. Everyone is to be allowed to teach as he wants; the Spirit is not to be bound. Man himself is utterly the measure of all things. That is indeed the wildest degeneration of enthusiasm.

3. The Spirit-Denying Enthusiasm.

By this we designate common rationalism. About the middle of the last century rationalizers in the Church put forward, now more weakly, now more strongly, reason alone as source and judge of religions. Much was disputed whether there could be a supernaturally revealed Scripture. Holy Scripture in our possession is like any other writing; reason must dictate religion from it. We call this exaltation of reason the spirit-denying enthusiasm. Why? Because the old rationalists were very sensitive about any reminder of the Church's doctrine of the Holy Spirit. The doctrine was very repugnant to them, not merely as to the person of the Holy Spirit but also as to his works, his enlightenment and conversion. The church condition, that is, the outward form of the congregation, they still had; but to them the congregation was no longer a body of Christ, but a free association of thinking lovers of Christ. Everything else was to them reprehensible mysticism. Semler, the father of the German rationalists, says: What is said in the Gospel about the kingdom of God is only a Jewish local idea.