# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1896_S31
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

of the Ev. Luth. Synodical Conference of North America. 1896. 31

practice be quite rotten. How does it stand in the Council? What have they not put on paper there about the Four Points! But they have taken good care not to be too clear in setting forth the principles. It is not at all the case that in the Council officially, with regard to these matters, even a clear doctrine was being conducted. The whole history of the Four Points proves that in every stage of the development of this dispute they were always anxious not to speak too clearly. When at last they had a form of which most thought that it would pass, so that one could know how it stands with the Four Points, certain people saw to it that the formula was changed, so that they could accept it. It is therefore, first, not true that in the Council it was said clearly and distinctly how these matters of practice should be handled; and it is, second, not true that they then also practiced according to what is right, so that, for example, throughout the whole Council people were put under church discipline if they join the lodge, etc. One must not let oneself be deceived by phrases which cannot even stand the test of history. In sum: when we have to judge how it stands with practice in a church fellowship, we want not only to hear what they teach, but we want to see what they do. And when we see perverse things there, and see them again and again, even after all teaching and admonishing, then we say: You hold fast to false practice, to ungodly ways; put away this denying practice first, then we will go together, when you then also stand right in doctrine.

Now one could of course hear the objection: With your theses you seem to be getting onto Donatist paths; you want to make the life in the Church, and indeed the life in the congregation, indeed the perfection of life, the mark of the true Church. To this we answer: With our thesis we do not come upon Donatist leaps, for it does not read: "Insofar as the departure from the divine norm in church practice shows that the church life still has defects" — but it says: "insofar as in the disregard of the divine norm in church practice there lies an open denial of the truth." We know well enough that with life, indeed that also with practice, with the functions of church life as such, it goes defectively not only in other church fellowships but also among us, that not everything is perfect there, indeed that we shall not bring it to perfection. And we would deny ourselves the glory of the right Church, the true visible Church of God on earth, if we wanted to make the perfection of church life, the perfection of church practice, a nota, a mark of the true, visible Church. On the other hand we can assert of ourselves that among us the divine norm of church practice is not disregarded; but the attention of preachers and hearers is again and again