# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1916_S28
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

28 Proceedings of the twenty-sixth convention

This paganism expresses itself precisely in connection with the basic error of work-righteousness [*Werkerei*] in Rome's sacramentalism. The purely natural human things it despises on the one hand, and on the other it deifies them in a mystical way and practices with them a kind of fetish worship.

In its doctrine of the ministerial office Rome despises the universal priesthood of the simple Christian, through which he is in possession of all that Christ has obtained, and by which he has right and claim to provide, together with other Christians, in any form for the preaching of the Gospel. Instead Rome speaks of a consecrated priesthood, which by its "character indelebilis" is more and can do more than simple Christians.

In worship Rome despises the activity of the ordinary Christian, namely that through his personal active participation he confesses his faith and enters into communion with God. Instead a consecrated priesthood must perform the service for him.

In the doctrine of the sacraments Rome despises the natural elements into which God has put his Word. Instead it has the elements transformed into something higher by a consecrated priesthood.

In the life of the people Rome despises the work of the calling of ordinary Christians, with which they live, according to God's will, within the circle of the Ten Commandments. Instead it sets the higher holiness of the self-chosen works of the saints — and so on.

Thus Rome shows throughout a mystical sacramentalism. And just this, in the two respects described, is also a characteristic of paganism, also of the cultivated kind, as the history of philosophy amply shows. Hence the attraction that Rome exerts on the natural heart.

To this is added that according to 2 Thess. 2:11, 12 Rome is cursed by God to this end, that it cannot do otherwise than insist on the Tridentinum. It stands there and remains as a constant temptation by which Christians are to be tested. Therefore one must not underrate the dangerousness of Rome.

II.

God has bestowed on the true Lutheran Church of our country, out of grace, in full streams, the unspeakable blessings of the Reformation, the pure Gospel of Christ, and has preserved them to her down to this day. Thereby he has made our dear Church more fit than all others and called it to the struggle against the chief enemy of his kingdom, the great Antichrist at Rome. Through the Gospel we are enabled to recognize the mystery of iniquity in the Roman papacy in its deepest ground, and in this Gospel we possess the only really effective weapon against this dangerous enemy.