# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1873_S21
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

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III.

Only the Apostles had a general call to the whole world; the mediately called preachers, however, are to have their particular flock of God (to en humin poimnion tu theu, 1 Pet. 5:2), their clerus, their portio gregis Dominici [portion of the Lord's flock], the particular portion of God's people allotted to them (v. 3), their particular congregation, over which alone the Holy Spirit has set them to shepherd it (Acts 20:28), over whose souls they therefore also are to watch and for which they are one day to give account (Heb. 13:17).

IV.

Who or how many are to belong to the district of each preacher, that is, to his parish, is not determined in God's Word; it is therefore in itself not of divine right [*juris divini*] but of human right [*humani*], and thus a matter of Christian freedom and of agreement (Gal. 2:9).

V.

Following the apostolic precedent of appointing the elders or pastors kata polin, that is, city by city, from town to town, from place to place (Titus 1:5), the parishes or pastorates should not be determined by an arbitrary number of heads and changing persons but be geographically bounded and have their own territory, for

1) in the Church everything should proceed decently and in order (1 Cor. 14:40); without territorial delimitation, however, when the members of different congregations live intermingled, some holding to one place, others to another, nothing but disorder, confusion and perplexity can result;

2) the preacher should know which are the souls that are committed to him and which are not (1 Pet. 5:2), over which he is especially to watch and for which he is especially to give account (Heb. 13:17), and not intrude into another's office or be an allotrioepiscopos [one who meddles in another's bishopric] (1 Pet. 3:15 [as printed]) and not build on another's foundation (Rom. 15:18–20) and so wish to reap and harvest where others have planted and sown; all of which is not possible without the division of congregations into paroikeseis [parishes];

3) Christians should not attach themselves to preachers on account of their gifts and separate for their sake; but if the congregations are not geographically determined, an arrangement is thereby made that one picks out the preachers and holds to those one happens to like; instead of looking to the Word, one looks to the gifts, instead of to the office, to the person, and even if one does not then call oneself Pauline, Cephan, Apollonian, that is what one is in fact; but that is fleshly, not spiritual (1 Cor. 4:1–5, 21);