# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_April 1904_S176
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

176 Church and Contemporary History.

The whole, after all, consists only of the individual parts. So the meaning and the demand can reasonably be only this: that one measure every doctrine not only by the sedes doctrinae but also by all the other statements of Scripture that do not treat of this doctrine.

But that is precisely the evil thing Luther charged against Erasmus and Zwingli: that they always sought to prove their opinion with passages of Scripture that had nothing to do with the matter. The inventor of this method of using Scripture is the one who once invited the Lord to leap down from the pinnacle of the temple and quoted a verse of a psalm that had nothing at all to do with the matter. If from the correct, scriptural proposition, I have been justified by faith or in view of faith, I draw the conclusion, Therefore I have also been elected in view of faith, then this latter proposition is no word of Scripture but an entirely arbitrary inference, my very own achievement. Under the trade name of "analogy of faith," "whole of Scripture," "harmony," etc., that side in fact brings its own wisdom, human cleverness, a rationalistic principle into the interpretation of Scripture, into theology.

Luther writes once, against Carlstadt: "To try to interpret clear and certain passages by comparing them with others is to mock the truth shamefully and to bring clouds into the light. In the same way, if one tried to interpret all passages by comparison with others, that would be to throw the whole of Scripture together into an endless, uncertain, chaotic heap." (St. L. ed. XX, 327.)

On the last day of the conference there was still debate over whether it was advisable to continue these free conferences, since no result had been reached so far. Some of those present voiced doubts whether such large conferences in particular were the most suitable means of bringing about an understanding, if such were still possible at all; others, on the other hand, testified that discussions of such weighty questions of faith were always a blessing and that they had learned a good deal from them so far. And so it was resolved to hold a conference in Fort Wayne in the late summer of next year and there to examine the Scripture doctrine of election of grace.

A proposal to open and close the sessions with prayer from now on was dropped when members of the Synodical Conference pointed out that every participant surely prayed for himself in silence, but that public, common prayer is a sign and a part of church fellowship and would create the false appearance that all those assembled were one in spirit and faith and that the existing doctrinal differences had no particular significance.

About 500 persons attended the sessions of the conference in Detroit on average, among them a considerable number of teachers and lay members. The register of those attending showed 305 names of pastors or professors: 124 from the Missouri Synod, 10 from the Wisconsin Synod, 3 from the Minnesota Synod, 4 from the Michigan District Synod, 6 from the English Synod of Missouri, 1 from the Norwegian Synod (these being the members of the Synodical Conference), and 97 from the Ohio Synod, 23 from the Iowa Synod, 18 from the Michigan Synod, 3 from the Buffalo Synod, 1 from the United Norwegian Synod, 10 from the General Council, 5 from the General Synod.

G. St.

Third General Lutheran Conference. In Pittsburgh, Pa., representatives of the General Council, the General Synod, and the United Synod of the South held the "Third General Conference" from 5 to 7 April. The unity which the conference seeks to establish was anticipated, in unionistic fashion, by a joint service of worship. The indifferentist stamp of this assembly also showed at once in Dr. Jacobs' address. According to the "Lutherisches Kirchenblatt" of [continued on p. 177]