# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1896_S35
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

of the Ev. Luth. Synodical Conference of North America. 1896. 35

help where the sickness has come to light. There we may have the good confidence that it too is to be a labor that will not be in vain in the Lord. That is the right love; it is exercised among us, and God blesses it, whereas false love can lay claim to no blessing of God, for it is of the flesh and of the devil, and the flesh and the devil bless it. Let us abide by this, that we hold to God's Word, to His speech in doctrine and practice; then we are His true disciples and shall know the truth; so we shall always increase in knowledge, and the truth will make us truly free.

For this we have also the example of the apostle Paul and the other apostles. In the Corinthian congregation it stood very lamentably with practice. Alas, there things occurred of which one should think the whole congregation would have risen up like one man and thrown off the stain which the devil had attached to it. And behold, Paul has to operate on their cataract first! And further, with regard to the praiseworthy order in public worship it stood sadly enough in the same congregation; very ugly excesses occurred. But what do we hear? St. Paul raises the warning finger as soon as he hears of it, and says: Your boasting is not good; take care, and do not think that it will stay at this; a little leaven leavens the whole lump; you are now rich in all things, but if you remain on this road you will become poor and lose everything. And then he is not content that he has told them once, and does not leave it to them whether they act accordingly, but he keeps watch to see whether they give place to it. And behold, the effect which the apostle intended with his warning and reproof comes; he has the joy of seeing that the Corinthian congregation puts away what it had let pass before it was made aware, before it was instructed, admonished and reproved. And that he watched for this he lets the congregation also know, in that he goes into the matter again at length in the second letter. Likewise, where he sees Peter and a part of the congregation in Antioch failing, he does not confer with flesh and blood, does not think: What a gossip there will be if I oppose Peter! a time will come when they will sit in Tübingen and, precisely from the fact that they have learned this, will forge weapons against the truth of the Gospel; they will there construct a Petrinism and a Paulinism and by means of historical criticism cut the dear Bible small; but he steps up to Peter to his face and rebukes him, and rebukes the others, and does what he can to check the damage, and calmly leaves to God what may come of it.

Thereupon Thesis IV was adopted.