# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_December 1860_S354
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

354 The General Synod.

Dr. Schmucker, in his justification of the above principle, sets forth once
again the doctrinal direction of the General Synod. He says, in sum: "The
General Synod, according to its constitution, was founded for the promotion of
Christian love; therefore the admission of such elements as would provoke
doctrinal controversy is contrary to its purpose. Luther's great principle, that
Scripture is the sole infallible rule of faith and life, and his chief doctrine,
to which this principle led him, namely justification by faith alone, are
recognized by the General Synod, as is everything that necessarily hangs
together with this as antecedent or consequent. But the voluminous confessions
which were imposed on the Lutheran Church in Germany a quarter of a century
after Luther's death are neither approved nor accepted by the General Synod.
Qualified acceptance of the Augsburg Confession is all to which it commits
itself. This doctrinal basis is intended to keep the various doctrinal opinions
within the General Synod in harmony, and to embrace all who wish to recognize
one another mutually as Lutherans."

Accordingly, the General Synod is founded for the promotion of Christian love,
and its purpose excludes all doctrinal controversy — for example, as is known,
over such articles as that of baptism, of the Lord's Supper, of absolution, of
the Sabbath — as disturbing to harmony. The General Synod has thus set itself a
different task than that which the Church, and therefore also every part of the
Church, that is every synod, has to carry out on earth according to the command
of Christ. The Lord says, Mark 16:15: "Preach the gospel to every creature," and
accordingly the apostles too did nothing further than preach the gospel. St.
Paul sums up the whole of his apostolic labor in this word, 1 Corinthians 1:17,
9:16,18, and says that it was God's will to save, through the preaching, those
who believe on it, 1 Corinthians 1:21. But what does this preaching of the
gospel contain? It deals with Christ crucified, 1 Corinthians 1:23; it is the
precious word that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, 1 Timothy
1:15. Accordingly the whole work of the Church, which is laid upon her by her
Lord and Savior to do on earth, is solely and only this: that she preach the
gospel, that she proclaim the work of God in Christ for the redemption of the
people of the world, and that wholly and without abridgment. Only thereby does
she fulfill the will of God toward mankind completely and in every respect. For
through the preaching of the gospel not only is God's eternal decree — to save
mankind through Christ — actually carried out upon the individual people who
hear it in faith (thus accomplishing the greatest work in God's eyes that can be
done by a man, according to his gracious ordinance); but through this very
saving effect of the preaching of the gospel a man is reborn through faith as a
child of God, and as such is freed from the bondage of sin