# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1896_S33
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

of the Ev. Luth. Synodical Conference of North America. 1896. 33

truth, according to which everyone has to conform and keep in faith and life, so that whoever does not believe what you preach is condemned, and that whoever does not keep and follow what you preach goes on a wrong way, until he can say that he keeps to the words of the sermon which he has heard. To preach the Gospel according to a pure understanding therefore means not only to present the pure doctrine, so far as it is doctrine, but to present it as the doctrine of divine truth binding the consciences of all men, beside and apart from which there is no other truth, and by which everything is rejected that does not agree with this doctrine. By this let the Council be tested, whether the Gospel is there preached harmoniously according to a pure understanding. Where the Gospel is preached in a pure understanding, there it suffers no other doctrine beside itself. The Gospel is in this respect thoroughly intolerant. In the world, yes, there weeds and wheat shall remain beside one another and mixed together; but in the Church the Gospel alone is to hold, God's Word is to be not in the first but in the only place the norm-giving, as soon as it is to bind the conscience. And how can one who preaches the Gospel thus according to a pure understanding even want to give the appearance, or even be in a position to give the appearance, as though another norm with another doctrine had the same validity as the pure doctrine of the Word and Confession? And this appearance is given in the General Council, and after they have been told so who knows how often, they go on again and again and make themselves guilty also of ungodly, denying pulpit fellowship [Kanzelgemeinschaft] with false believers. To this it is added that to the right, true unity of the Church this also belongs, that the Sacraments be administered according to the divine Word and in conformity with it. That does not happen when one administers it to those with whom one is not of one faith and confession, as certainly as the fellowship of the altar is not only a confession but according to God's Word is to be one.

Further, the seventh article of the Augsburg Confession by no means says: For it is . . . not necessary that it also be right with practice, so far as it is governed in God's Word. The contrast is not that between doctrine and practice, but between what God's Word sets and says and what men say and set. For the article goes on: "And it is not necessary for the true unity of the churches that ceremonies, instituted by men, should be observed uniformly everywhere." So Luther also writes: "We are speaking, however, of the outward Word through men, as through you and me, preached orally. For this Christ has left behind Him as an outward sign, by which one should recognize His Church or His holy, Christian people in the world. Also we speak of such oral Word, as it is believed in earnest and openly confessed before the world, as He says Matt. 10, Mark 8: 'Whoever confesses me before men, him will I confess before my Father