# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1876_S17
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

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end. No, here it is: either — or! Either I can serve a Unionist congregation, or not. We say: a Lutheran pastor cannot.

This follows already from the word "serve." For to serve undoubtedly means as much as to administer the office. To the office, however, belong all the parts of the office, not merely preaching, but also absolving, the administration of the Holy Supper, etc. And of such a full service of a Unionist congregation there can be no question for a Lutheran pastor. He cannot, in the most important parts, exercise his office among it at all. For as long as the congregation in fact stands on a Unionist confession, he cannot give it the Holy Supper, nor can he absolve it. In the proper sense he cannot, therefore, be its pastor. Nor can he possibly regard it as his congregation, to which he himself belongs as a member, for in doing so he would in fact enter the Union. From such Unionist congregations a Lutheran pastor could accept a call only for particular cases and functions, and indeed for such in which the Lutheran pastor does not deny his faith. In that sense he could serve them, namely by preaching God's Word to them. For if, for example, even a Catholic congregation asked me merely to preach to it, I would accept this with joy, but say to it: I am not your pastor, but I will only preach to you. So a Lutheran pastor must also declare to a Unionist congregation: You stand wrong, and only then can I become your pastor, when you accept my faith.

To this belongs the office of the congregation. The pastor exercises it in the congregation's stead. How can a proper Lutheran pastor exercise the office of a congregation that is in fact Unionist, without himself becoming in fact Unionist? In orthodox congregations the Creed is sung, for precisely this reason, not after but before the sermon, so that the congregation may sing ahead to the pastor what it believes and what he has to believe if he wants to preach to it. It calls out to him thereby: See that you do not preach anything other than what we have sung to you. A preacher may not preach whatever occurs to him. Whoever will do so nevertheless may go to the Turks. We preachers are servants of the congregation and therefore have to preach the faith of the congregation.

No Lutheran pastor can therefore accept the serving of a Unionist congregation; if he did so nevertheless, he would bind his own hands, so that he could not bear testimony against the Reformed doctrine. For a congregation that is in fact Unionist is one in which the Lutheran and Reformed confession have equal right. Such equal right we can never concede, not for a moment. From this follows of necessity that we also cannot serve such a congregation, in fact Unionist, for a moment, for thereby we would treat both confessions in fact as