Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1954, Page 52

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52 Proceedings of the Forty-Third Convention,

divisions that have arisen among theologians of the Augsburg Con-
fession that “it has been our purpose to state and declare plainly
(categorically), purely, and clearly our faith and confession con-
cerning each and every one of these in thesis and antithesis, i. e.,
the true doctrine and its opposite, in order that the foundation cf
divine truth might be manifest in all articles, and that all unlawful,
doubtful, suspicious, and condemned doctrines, wherever and in
whatever books they may be found, and whoever may have writ-
ten them, or even now may be disposed to defend them, might be
exposed (distinctly repudiated), so that everyone may be faithfully
warned against the errors which are spread here and there in the
writings of some theologians, and no one be misled in this matter
by the reputation (authority) of any man.” (De Antithesi, Trig-
lotta, page 857.)

This is not a matter of mere church polity to a true Lutheran,
but a matter of doctrine. If we are to remain true Lutherans, we
eannot brush aside this paragraph of the Formula, De Antithesi,
as though it were no longer of any value in determining whether
or not doctrinal differences have truly been settled. Well may we

take to heart what the sainted Prof. F. Bente says in his Introduc-
tion to the Triglotta: “Wherever the Lutheran Church ignored her
symbols or rejected all or some of them, there she always fell a prey
to her enemies. But wherever she held fast to her God-given
crown, esteemed and studied her Confessions, and actually made
them a norm and standard of her entire life and practice, there the
Lutheran Church flourished and confounded all her enemies.”

In the second place, we object to the Common Confession be-
cause it has been brought about by a violation of Missouri’s own
declaration re the Brief Statement at its 1941 convention. To quiet
the fears of those who were troubled at the thought that its soundly
Lutheran statement of 1932 might be superseded by some statement
less definite and sound, Missouri gave us this assurance at that
Fort Wayne convention: “That this document (single document
called for) be so clearly written that there can be no misunder-
standing in reference to the meaning which the words are to con-
vey; d. In calling for one document, we do not mean to dispense
with any doctrinal statement made in our Brief Statement — for
we believe that it correctly expresses the doctrinal position of our
Synod — but we concede that, for the sake of clarification under
the present circumstances, some statements may need to be more
sharply defined or amplified.” We are now quoting from Missouri’s
centennial volume, A Century of Grace, pages 327, 328. So far from
sharply defining and amplifying the Brief Statement, the Common
Confession has done the very opposite, to which we shall call atten-
tion later.

The objections we now make to the Common Confession are
the same obiections we made on that February day back in 1950,
when the document was brought us personally by Dr. F. H. Brunn
and the Rev. Werner H. Jurgens, the latter then serving as Secre-
tary of Missouri Committee on Doctrinal Unity. Our Union Com-
mittee spent the entire day discussing the document with the above-
named official representatives of the Missouri Synod. While we
had not conferred with our brethren of the Wisconsin Synod, their
objections, we later found, were in all essentials the same as ours,
as has been evidenced by Pastor Wendland’s paper at this con-