# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1876_S28
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

— 28 —

The Wittenberg Faculty declared in 1638: "The vocations to church and school offices, in which one party is to give the other a quarter year's notice without other substantial causes, are not at all approved in our Lutheran churches." (Cons. Witeberg. III, 55. a.)

From this we see: if we approve the temporary call within our body, we lose the character of a Lutheran synod and are in danger of becoming only a rabble run together, among which a number of vagabonds are found. One must be ashamed in this country of such synods and preachers. For the most part the hired preachers are also people who have learned nothing, no longer want to sit on the cobbler's stool, and throw away the plane. If such dissolute fellows can only chatter well, the congregations put them for a couple of years into their pulpits.

With what many and grave sins a synod makes itself partaker which tolerates such disorder among it! It makes itself guilty of all the sins that such a preacher and the congregation commit. As the king of Judah, Uzziah, trespassed against the LORD his God when he burned incense in the temple, so that God struck him with leprosy all his life, so every temporarily called preacher trespasses against the holy office and thereby against God himself. How difficult the preaching office is! Souls are to be led to God, the frivolous, secure and impenitent sinners are to be awakened from their sleep, the troubled, sorrowful and tempted are to be comforted and raised up, cheerful courage is to be given to the dying. The preacher is to teach the Word of God rightly and divide it, to check and ward off all corruption: who is capable of that without God's grace? Such a frivolous preacher, as described above, is, however, without God's grace. How many souls are lost through his fault! The synod, too, that tolerates him shares in these sins.

By the rejection of the temporary call, however, the temporary serving of a vacant congregation is by no means to be condemned too. For a congregation may well borrow for a time a preacher who has his regular call in another congregation. The preacher performs there a call of love. Bugenhagen, for example, remained pastor at Wittenberg and yet was often for years lent to Pomerania, Lübeck, Hamburg and Denmark, where he organized the churches.

Hereupon the question was put: If nothing of the temporary is in the call, but it stands in the congregational constitution, is it then enough if the preacher declares: I do not acknowledge the constitution, but nevertheless accept the call? The answer was that one should not accept the call until the congregation has removed this point from its constitution. Congregations are often glad to resolve to promise the later striking out of such a paragraph, only to get a good or popular pastor. But once they have him, then the execution