LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1971, Page 240

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240 PRESIDENT’S REPORT

nothing more in respect to divine things which pertain either
to man’s salvation or damnation besides that which is found
in the Apostolic Creed.” (Dissert. Instit. ad Collat. Carthag.,
p. 67.)

tation as hair-splitting micrology. But he who looks beneath

Church. If we uphold this principle, we shall preserve the
treasure of our Church; should we sacrifice it, we would
throw our treasure away. If our Church insists only on
symbolical and not at the Same time upon canonical unity,

Church is posited, while all other Biblical doctrines are more
or less irrelevant, mere subjects “concerning which every

sincere Christian may hold his own private and individual
convictions.” It is indeed strange that men who constantly

and believe in its supreme authority as well as in its clarity,
and those who do not.

We hope we have incontrovertibly proved to every atten-
tive reader that also the hypothesis of a successive develop-
ment of dogmas whereby some men try to bolster up the
modern theory of open questions is a false argument.

A fourth false argument for the modern theory of open
questions is the appeal to certain points of doctrine in which

same point? Should he because of such deviation be charged
with heresy, deprived of fellowship, and denied the rights
and privileges of a minister in the orthodox Church? Would
it not be unanswerable to subject any teacher within the

Would it not be ultra-Lutheranism to insist on more strict-
ness in doctrine now than men did in the golden age of
Lutheran orthodoxy?

At the present time ( 1868) the leaders of the Iowa Synod
in particular are advancing also this argument in their en-

it being an open question.

It is a most disagreeable task to prove to Protestants, to
Lutherans, and in general to men who claim to be theologians
and Bible students par excellence how utterly groundless

questions is. The argument “This is the position of the
Church Fathers, and who will dare to declare them heretics?”

fathers?

Some men indeed raise this objection: “Is it right to
condemn an error in a contemporary fellow-Lutheran and
thereby condemn as heretics also such great theologians as

era: “Patres fuerunt lumina, non numina, indices, non iudices,
ministri, non magistri” (the fathers were lights and not

our care, and instead of being an honor to our fathers, we
should disgrace them in their graves. Our fathers did not
declare the Church Fathers to be heretics when they rejected
the errors which the papists had drawn from that source and
were doggedly defending. And today, in rejecting errors
espoused by contemporary men, we do not with the same
breath condemn as heretics those old faithful witnesses and
teachers of the truth because they entertained the same
errors, They were not admonished, and hence, owing to
human weakness and not to hardness of heart, they did not
see their errors.

Augustine recognized this point and wrote: “Whatever
agrees with the authority of Holy Writ in the writings of
Cyprian I accept with his praise; whatever does not agree
I reject with his permission.” (Ad Crescon. Grammat.)
Kromayer expressed a similar thought in these words: “The

or wrote while advancing. For it would be quite difficult

and therefore reprehensible motive of fostering indifference
in doctrine. On the other hand, those errors must be con-
sidered in a spirit of love, be covered up in order to preserve