# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1896_S29
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

of the Ev. Luth. Synodical Conference of North America. 1896. 29

also deny before my Father who is in heaven." Every false doctrine is a denial of the truth, and therefore the apostle also says, Rom. 16:17: "I exhort you, dear brethren, that you take note of those who cause division and offense contrary to the doctrine which you have learned, and turn away from them." Thus false doctrine is church-dividing. The false church we are not to support, not to recognize, but to avoid. But the denial of the truth can also take place otherwise than with words, can also take place with deeds. In the ancient Church "Confessores," confessors, were called especially not those who had recited the creed with words and had therefore been called confessors, but those who in persecution confessed by the deed, in that they let themselves be imprisoned, banished, subjected to all kinds of tortures for the sake of their faith, and remained steadfast. It is true that it happened that Christians thought: O, if I do not curse Christ — for that was a standing demand in the trials of Christians, that they should curse Christ — if I do not thus deny my faith with words, I have not denied. It was often made outwardly easy for them to deny; they could, at some street corner where an idol stood, strew a pinch of incense into a little flame, and do it perhaps before witnesses; that sufficed; with that they had secured themselves for the time being against persecution and needed not say a word. But he who had strewn the pinch of incense had denied, just as he who cursed Christ had thereby renounced Christ; for one cannot serve God and the devil, and what they offered before the idols, that they offered to the devils. Such a person had renounced Christ and His truth as decidedly as any one who openly cursed and blasphemed the Gospel, and was treated as such by the true Christians. And so he who stubbornly practices what is contrary to Scripture renounces the divine truth just as much as he who speaks in favor of practice contrary to Scripture and thus leads false doctrine, though he wants at the same time to be recognized as a Christian and indeed as an orthodox Christian. For what does he say by this but: What I do is right. And when it is said to him: But God's Word says so — then he will have to say, in order not to contradict himself: You understand that wrongly; that is not at all the doctrine of the divine Word; is not at all the norm by which we must act; that is not at all true, what you set forth. Then he denies something that God has said, says No to what God affirms, or affirms what God denies. That is false doctrine. Or else he will have to say: Well, though it may stand in Scripture, it does not bind me; I do not conform to it; I cannot conform to it; I will not conform to it. Then he is plainly disobedient to the Word of Scripture and again denies that