# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1916_S53
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

of the Ev. Luth. Synodical Conference of North America. 1916. 53

bigoted person, as a zealot and gloomy fanatic, whose doings do the Church of God only harm. Precisely in the interest of the struggle against the papacy people urge this union of the Protestant churches. How important it would be, what a mighty impression it would make, if the Protestant churches forgot their quarrels and advanced in closed ranks against the Pope and his hierarchy! Then the victory could certainly not fail to come. There is no lack of voices which propose and urgently recommend for the jubilee year of the Reformation such a union at the expense of truth. Let us not conceal from ourselves that this danger threatens us too, that among us too the desire begins to stir to take doctrine no longer so strictly, that among us too the signs of a false union seem to multiply. And yet, if we give room to this unionism among us, if we cease to pay attention above all to the purity of doctrine, if we give up the divine truth, the Word that God has entrusted to us, in this or that point, then we shall soon lose the whole Gospel altogether. And then we have also lost the right weapon against the papacy. Our struggle against this most dangerous power will be more or less only a sham fight. How Luther stood toward the false teachers of his time, toward the Schwärmer [enthusiasts] and the Reformed, he has often set forth. He speaks of it especially in his exposition of the Epistle to the Galatians. There he writes among other things thus: "As highly as they [the false prophets] extol unity of life, so highly must we extol unity in doctrine and in faith. If they leave this unimpaired to us, we shall also at the same time exalt with them the unity of love, which is by no means to be put on a level with unity in faith or in the Spirit. For if you have lost the latter, you have lost Christ; but if he is lost, love can profit you nothing. On the other hand, if you keep the unity of the Spirit and Christ, it does no harm if you are not at one with those who corrupt the Word and thereby sever the unity of the Spirit. I would therefore rather that they and the whole world with them turn from me and be my enemies than that I should turn from Christ and have him as my enemy, which would happen if I forsook his clear and manifest Word and clung to their vain dreams, with which they twist Christ's words to their own opinion. The one Christ is greater to me than countless unities in love." (IX, 727.) We therefore say with our Confession also with regard to the sects and false churches: "It is hard to separate from so many lands and people and to maintain a distinct doctrine. But here stands God's command that everyone should guard himself and not be of one mind with those who lead false doctrine." (M., p. 337.)

The third danger that threatens us, which would take from us the Gospel, this