# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1908_S15
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

of the Ev. Luth. Synodical Conference of North America. 1908. 15

or no Christ and Christendom is; for he is to be an Antichrist, therefore he must be among the Christians. And because he is to sit and rule there, he must have Christians under him. It is indeed called God's temple, not a heap of stones, but the holy Christendom, 1 Cor. 3:17, in which he is to rule. . . . We do not rave like the factious spirits [Rottengeister], so as to reject everything the Pope has under him; for then we should also reject Christendom, the temple of God, with all that it has from Christ; but this we attack and reject, that the Pope will not let it remain with such goods of Christendom as he inherited from the Apostles, but adds his devil's addition to them and over them, and uses such goods not for the improvement of God's temple but for its destruction, so that one holds his commandments and order higher than Christ's order; although in such destruction Christ nevertheless preserves His Christendom."

Gerhard: "Meanwhile there always remain" (under the rule of a corrupted ministry) "some who keep the foundation of faith; and God begets sons and daughters even through a corrupted ministry, who belong to the invisible, universal (catholica) Church. We therefore distinguish between the inner splendor of the Church, which consists in faith, hope, love and the inward gifts of the Holy Spirit, and the outer, which consists . . . in the purity and clearness of the publicly sounding doctrine, in the uncorrupted ministry." (Locus de ecclesia, § 86.) —

On the necessity of the Sacraments the essayist [Referent] added that it is perverse to teach that regeneration is wrought only through Baptism; it is also an effect of the Word of the Gospel, as is evident from 1 Pet. 1:23. But where one has faith, there one is born again and a member of the Church even without Baptism. — The Sacraments belong among the fundamental articles in the sense that God has given us also Baptism and the Lord's Supper as a foundation or as supports of our faith. But not only the Sacraments, but also, and first of all, the Word of the Gospel. Many in the sectarian churches do not know what to do with Baptism and the Lord's Supper; but since they hold to the Word of the Gospel, they are members of the Church. — Why then, besides the Gospel, also Baptism and the Lord's Supper? Because God is so exceedingly gracious and offers us the forgiveness of sins in manifold ways. (Cf. Smalcald Articles, p. 319.)

Thesis II.

It is God's will and order that those who believe in Christ in their hearts should also enter into outward, visible fellowship with one another, by joining together first of all into local congregations in which the Gospel is purely