# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_December 1860_S355
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

The General Synod. 355

and from enmity against God. The love of God and of the brethren is made
alive in his heart through the Holy Spirit, and drives him to good works in the
service of his neighbor. Thus, through the preaching of the gospel, the will of
God as revealed in the Law is also fulfilled. Romans 3:31: "Do we then make void
the law through faith? God forbid! Rather, we establish the law." Compare
Galatians 3:5, etc.

If, then, it is according to the testimony of Holy Scripture incontrovertibly
certain that the task of the Church, both as a whole and in individual
congregations or synods, is the preaching of the gospel alone, and that only
through this can she carry out the whole will of God in every respect — then it
is equally certain that the General Synod is disobedient to the Word of Christ
and contends against it, when she makes it her task, not merely in her
constitution but in her entire synodical practice, to promote brotherly love and
maintain an external harmony, to the exclusion of all controversy over doctrine.
Christ and the apostles make the preaching of the gospel the sole work of the
Church; the General Synod, by contrast, makes it the practice of brotherly love
and harmony. Now it is true, as shown above, that the gospel necessarily
includes both love and faith in itself, since it works the former through the
latter. But love and harmony do not necessarily include the other principle,
namely the gospel, since love and harmony can, in an external way, be present
even without and against the gospel. Indeed, on account of human sinfulness it
often happens that the gospel cannot coexist at all with outward love and
harmony. The Lord himself has said: "I came not to bring peace, but a sword!"
From this it is evident that a synod which, in a one-sided way, makes the
practice of love and harmony its principle instead of the preaching of the
gospel, will every time have to set itself against the gospel wherever a pure
and unfalsified confession of it — say, in the face of some intruding error —
would disturb the outward harmony and love. Such a synod will rather abandon the
gospel in one or several points of its doctrine, against the express command of
the Lord: "Teach them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you,"
Matthew 28:25, than give up its outward love and harmony. She will rather
mutilate and falsify the word which her Lord has entrusted to her, than let her
fellowship come into danger of division and splintering. It is, alas, plain
before all the world that this is the abominable practice of the General Synod,
on the ground of its one-sided and therefore reprehensible principle. Merely to
preserve the synodical union, its members — its leading men in particular,
where they do not themselves hold false doctrine — fail to bear vigorous witness
against falsehood and to confess freely and publicly the truth as it is laid
down in God's Word and in the confession of our Church and theirs, to God's
honor and the Church's salvation. They are ready to traffic away chief articles
of the gospel, fundamental articles of Christian doctrine