# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1916_S55
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

of the Ev. Luth. Synodical Conference of North America. 1916. 55

and the stone that you throw above you toward heaven will fall on your head. The second: You shall pray humbly against the papal regime, as the 10th Psalm, v. 12 ff., does and teaches, and says: 'Arise, O Lord God, lift up thine hand: forget not the humble! Wherefore doth the wicked contemn God, O Lord God, and say: Thou wilt not require it? Thou hast seen it, and knowest his trouble and grief, that thou mayest requite it with thy hand. The poor committeth himself unto thee; thou art the helper of the fatherless. Break thou the arm of the wicked; seek out his wickedness, so shall his godless being be no more,' etc. The third: That you let your mouth be a mouth of the Spirit of Christ, of whom St. Paul says above, 2 Thess. 2:8: 'Our Lord Jesus will slay him with the spirit of his mouth.' This we do if we confidently continue as has been begun, to spread the knavery and deceit of the Pope and the papists among the people with speaking and writing, until he is laid bare in all the world, recognized and put to shame. For with words one must first slay him; the mouth of Christ must do it; thereby he will be torn out of men's hearts and his lies recognized and despised. But when he is out of the heart, so that his thing no longer counts, then he is already destroyed. . . . See now, drive and help drive the holy Gospel; teach, speak, write and preach how human laws are nothing; warn and counsel that no one become priest, monk, nun, and that whoever is within go out; give no more money for bulls, candles, bells, tablets, churches, but say that a Christian life consists in faith and love, and let us pursue this for two years more, and you shall well see where pope, bishops, cardinals, priest, monk, nun, bells, steeples, mass, vigils, cowls, caps, tonsures, rule, statutes and the whole vermin and brood of papal regime will be; like smoke it shall vanish." (X, 367 ff.)

That is a truly excellent counsel of Luther's. We must first of all, if we want to fight rightly against Rome, apply the Gospel to ourselves, so that we remain right, capable fighters and become ever more so. When we see how the influence of the papacy and its power grows in our country, how its kingdom and its church increases, how it ensnares so many people and catches them in its nets, then we want first to look at ourselves. We want to consider that we also, through our ingratitude, through our slighting of the Gospel, are guilty with it. We want again to examine ourselves quite earnestly whether the Gospel is still the light on our way and the lamp unto our feet. We want to turn ourselves in sincere repentance to God, to ask him for grace and forgiveness for our guilt for Christ's sake. It is true that we Christians, especially we Lutheran Christians too, are to blame that the Pope raises his head so threateningly in our country; we are so lazy and sluggish in spreading the Gospel, so sluggish, to