# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1904_S42
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

42 Proceedings of the twentieth convention

no extensive explanation. Here man can do nothing of himself, there he can do everything; here nothing goes forward without the LORD JESUS Christ, there everything goes without him; here God's Word rules over captive reason, there unfettered reason triumphs over the Word held captive. The lodge corrupts the teachings of the Gospel to the point of Antichristianity.

Luther writes on 1 Pet. 1:18, 19: "Ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible silver or gold from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ," as follows: "What is not washed by the blood is all poisoned and accursed through the flesh; from this it now follows: the more a man undertakes to make himself pious, and has not Christ, the more he only hinders himself and falls ever deeper into blindness and wickedness, and is damned by the precious blood. The outward gross sins against the second table are still slight compared with this, that one teaches how a man is to become pious by our own work and merit, and sets up a divine service according to our reason, which are sins against the first table, whereby the innocent blood is most highly dishonored and blasphemed. . . . Therefore human piety is sheer blasphemy and the greatest sin a man commits."

With this word of Luther the opinion is also judged of those who say that one must grant the lodges this much, that with their moral efforts at education among the coarse, fallen, uncouth people they still accomplish some good and useful things for human society. We might perhaps subscribe to this if the lodge did nothing more than demand plain natural morality on natural grounds; but where it teaches and how it teaches, it casts out devils by the prince of devils, it improves nothing, but only corrupts, as Luther says here: "The more a man undertakes to make himself pious, and has not Christ, the more he only hinders himself and falls ever deeper into blindness and wickedness."

Where such things are taught, our pearls do not belong. Here the comfort of the Gospel is not to be spoken. The preaching of the Gospel is not to be withheld, the comfort which the Gospel reveals is not to be kept silent, but what a Sacrament does is not to be done. That is out of place there, it is not appreciated there, they are not prepared for it there. What does a Sacrament do? "A Sacrament is a holy act, ordained by God, in which heavenly gifts of grace are dispensed through certain outward means, whereby God offers, applies and seals to men the promises of grace of the Gospel." Whoever partakes of the Holy Supper not only hears the message that Christ died for the sins of the world and obtained forgiveness of sins; to him is