attitude, and meet the question: Shall I yield to these holy
influences or not? One or the other of the two courses must be pursued.
There must be a yielding to the heavenly strivings or a resistance. To
resist at this point requires a positive act of the will. This act man
can put forth by his own strength. On the other hand, with the help of
that grace already at work in his heart, he can refuse to put forth that
act of his will, and thus remain non-resistant." According to Gerberding
man "may be said, negatively, to help towards his conversion." (167 ff.;
_L. u. W._ 1917, 214.) Prior to 1901 Rev. C. Blecher, by order of the
pastoral conference of Connecticut, belonging to the Council, published
a pamphlet which was recommended for the widest possible distribution by
the _Lutherische Herold_. In it Blecher, in direct opposition to the
Formula of Concord, Art. 11, section 60 ff., maintains: Two persons are
never in equal guilt when the one resists the grace of God from
inherited blindness and weakness, like Peter, while the other resists
contumaciously and purposely, like Judas." (_L. u. W._ 1901, 65; 1902,
144.) In 1900 Dr. Seiss had maintained in the _Lutheran_: "Conversion is
largely one's own act. God first makes it possible; but then the
responsibility rests upon ourselves to determine whether or not we will
comply with the truth brought to our understanding." (_L. u. W._ 1900,
243. 246.) Misstating historical facts and revealing his own synergistic
attitude, Dr. G.W. Sandt wrote editorially in the _Lutheran_ of March
27, 1919, concerning Dr. Stellhorn's polemics against the Missouri
Synod: "When the controversy with Missouri was at its height, he
[Stellhorn] could do no other but cast his soul into it and stand for
the defense of the universal call to grace and salvation as over against
the special call as Calvin and others teach it. He resented the charge
of synergism which came from his opponents, and renounced it as strongly
as any Missourian could."

136. Synergistic Predestination.--Synergism in the doctrine of
conversion naturally leads to synergistic teaching on predestination.
Moreover, the doctrine of predestination is, as it were, the
bacteriological test whether one's Lutheran blood is really and
absolutely free from synergistic infection also in the doctrines of
conversion and justification. However, also in these tests as to the
doctrinal purity of the General Council the results, as a rule, were
neg