# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1874_S20
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

— 20 —

hold it to be only a human, though very good, order, but pressed for it as if it were a divine order. And that no one among us wishes to assert. Everyone concedes that God has not expressly commanded territorial delimitation.

It is obviously too strong, if according to the first reason it is asserted: "where this human arrangement is not, nothing else can arise than disorder, confusion and perplexity." For even if one must concede that it is a good, indeed the best order, it does not yet follow that there can be no other arrangement under which things could also go tolerably well. It does not follow that under an opposite order everything must fall into confusion. Might one not also imagine the case that, for the sake of national peculiarity, Christians without territorial delimitation could live in peace beside and among one another?

As to the second reason, it was thought that even if no territorial delimitation exists, a preacher can still know which souls are committed to him and which are not. Only the souls that have called him are entrusted to him; these he must seek out one by one and take care of. His office extends only as far as his call. If, therefore, he only has the doctrine of office and call in his conscience, he would know even without territorial delimitation which are the souls committed to him and not committed to him, over which he has especially to watch, etc. Why is it now asserted that without territorial delimitation a preacher cannot possibly know which souls are committed to him, cannot watch over them, and that it is impossible for him not to meddle in another's office and build on another's foundation? Are these not all things which God has earnestly and emphatically commanded and forbidden in His Word? The preacher who does not comply with this sins grievously. Now it is said that no preacher can comply with such a will of God, to watch over the souls, not to meddle in another's office, etc., without territorial delimitation. From this it would follow that where territorial delimitation does not exist, the preacher sins on and on. We here in America would all be living, because we have no such apostolic order, in sheer grievous sins against clear commandments of God. From this it would also follow further that we must now go at it in haste, that we dare not postpone for a single moment delimiting ourselves territorially. For how could I still let stand what hinders me from carrying out God's commandment! And even if this could not be carried out in practice at once, we would nevertheless have to instruct our congregations without delay; we preachers would have to confess publicly that we are solemnly bound to delimit ourselves territorially, and to raise protest against every other way, above all against the way now existing among us. Only the preacher who has heard nothing of this would still be excusable. Every other, however, who knows it, could not tolerate such conditions contrary to God; he would otherwise run

[In the print, handwritten underlining of "reiche", "weit" and "Beruf" in the line "Sein Amt reiche nur so weit, wie sein Beruf."]