# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1874_S16
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

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peace and good order are maintained. It was also pointed out that external orders are not so important at all; it is God's Word through which order and peace are brought about, and where that does not happen, all external orders help nothing.

Chiefly, however, the grounding of the 5th Thesis did not seem quite convincing to some. It was thought to be too strong when the first reason says: "nothing else can arise than disorder, confusion, perplexity." They would accept it if it stood: "there is great danger that disorder, confusion, perplexity might arise." It seems, they said, that the author of the Theses [Thesensteller] had a quite different contrast in view from the one with which we are concerned, namely the contrast of territorial delimitation and none at all. In the latter condition the reasons given certainly have their full force; but not with such a delimitation as we now have everywhere where no territorial delimitation exists.

In reply it was pointed out: 1) that the context shows clearly that the absent author of the Theses does indeed hold territorial delimitation to be the only normal order, introduced by the apostles, and treats of it in the Theses. A delimitation by constitutions, by heads and changing persons, is therefore an abnormal condition, and if experience teaches that in such places where this abnormal condition exists things nevertheless go tolerably, the cause of this lies in the grace of God, who in spite of such weakness and orderly disorder or disorderly order maintains peace. Also 2) experience shows that even in such places where there is no lack of fear of God, precisely because no territorial delimitation had been fixed, frictions and disturbances have arisen. 3) The territorial delimitation is so naturally simple that even a small child can see that a delimitation other than territorial is not the normal condition willed by the Holy Spirit; for otherwise one could with the same right represent it as a normal condition if the husband belonged to one church, the wife to another, and the children to a third.

After this had been read from last year's minutes, there followed two testimonies as historical proof of how the Jus parochiale [parochial right] had formerly been grounded: one a testimony of a recognized, faithful Lutheran, Deyling, and the other from a man who cannot be counted among the wholly faithful Lutherans but was a significant historian. This is Mosheim.

As to Deyling first, he writes: "A parish is a neighborhood or holy neighborliness, or a gathering of neighbors to one church, enclosed within definite boundaries, so that the tract of land and region in which the parishioners live is designated at the same time. . . . Böhmer holds that the parishes were introduced in imitation of the heathen. The mere resem-