# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1896_S23
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

of the Ev. Luth. Synodical Conference of North America. 1896. 23

against the imperial constitution of the Church, when a congregation wants to make laws about things that God's Word has left free. We have one law, that is God's expressed will, the will of Him who in His Church is as King not only the highest but the only lawgiver. So great a difference exists, then, with regard to church practice between the things which God has governed and the things which are left free in God's Word.
Here the 2nd Thesis was adopted.

Thesis III.

Insofar as church practice is governed by God's Word, the unity of the divine norm also requires uniformity of church practice as a divine demand for the whole Church.

Our Lord and Savior says, as He takes leave of His disciples, in His farewell command to His Church: "Teach them to observe all that I have commanded you. And lo, I am with you always, to the end of the world." In these words there are two things; first, that the Church is to observe, at Christ's command, all that Christ has commanded it. Where He has said: Do this, and: So do, there it is the Savior's will and command that the whole Church conform to it. For as certainly as the command: "Go into all the world and teach all nations, and baptize them" — is given to the whole Church, not only to the apostles but to the whole congregation, not only to one congregation but to all congregations, so certainly all and everything that Christ has commanded His Church, also with regard to church practice, now holds for the whole Church. And when the apostles in their letters to the congregations exercise their teaching office also with regard to such things as belong to church practice, they do so at the command: "Teach them to observe all," etc. And to every congregation to which St. Paul's letter to the Romans, or the Epistle of St. Paul to the Galatians, is addressed, there now also apply all the prescriptions which are contained in these letters with regard to matters of church practice. The apostles are to teach to observe nothing but what Christ has commanded them. Where the apostles teach, there can be no contradiction among the apostles, that the one should command something that the other should forbid, or even that the one had commanded something that the other had stamped as free; but when the apostles teach, they teach what Christ has commanded; and that in Christ Himself, the mouth of truth, there can be no contradiction, He Himself has assured us by this very thing, that He says: I am the truth. Also with regard to these words of Scripture by which church practice is governed, the saying holds: "Scripture cannot