# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1876_S34
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

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to stop the mouth, 1 Tim. 3:2, Titus 1:9. Second, the Spirit of God expressly reminds us that he makes himself partaker of other men's sins who lays hands on a person not sufficiently fit, 1 Tim. 5:22. Third, experience testifies only too often that those who have been admitted to the holy office without education (*rudes*) remain in their uneducatedness, however much they may have promised diligence in learning. Fourth, what shall we answer to God if many of the hearers are lost before the pastor has learned what he is to instill into others? Ezek. 33:1—3." (System. th. art. de min. fol. 375.)

How important it is that one act conscientiously in the conferring of ordination follows from the passage 1 Tim. 5:22 cited in this quotation: "Lay hands suddenly on no man; neither be partaker of other men's sins." If, therefore, we put such ignorant and unfit preachers into the office, we make ourselves partakers of all the sins and of the harm which such an unfit person does among the congregations. Woe to the synod that takes in anyone who comes to it and knows how to talk well. Even an upright synod may well once in a while let this pass by oversight, as an exception; but where such a mistake turns out, it intervenes at once. A synod, however, in which this is the prevailing practice is an ungodly society. It is truly no joke to lay hands on someone and say to him: You are hereby consecrated to be a servant of God, who is to proclaim God's Word unto death. Whoever now knows: such a man cannot do it, he is either unbelieving or vicious or unfit to administer the office, and one nevertheless does it and lays the hand on him, commits a greater sin than if he murdered someone with the same hand; for such a preacher brings the souls to the loss of eternal life. And one has helped him in, and indeed knowingly. All those who belong to such a synod and do not cry out against it make themselves partakers of these sins.

Jakob Andreä says: "Here it is first to be learned that one is to commit the teaching office to no one unless the man is also fit for it. For on the last day those must answer for it who put fools into the villages and so wretchedly set them over the poor people. If the pastors can do nothing and know nothing, what are they to teach others? Also on the last day our Lord God will require from the hands of these people the blood of all those who were misled, those who promoted them. And in case one wanted to promote someone, and he knows that he is unfit for it, he should be so sensible as to say: I will not do it. Shall I undertake a trade which I cannot do? If I were a tailor, I would not gladly spoil a cloth for someone for a pair of trousers, let alone spoil and mislead the soul of the lowliest peasant. I would rather remain a stable boy or a