# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1876_S39
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

— 39 —

So it counts for nothing, for example, if someone pledged himself to the devil on the condition that he make him a rich man (as has indeed already happened), even if he had signed a contract with the devil with his own blood. Such a person must now not think: I have promised this once, therefore I must keep it. Oh no! Such a contract one must not keep at all, because one has first sworn to God in Baptism. The first oath is above everything. So also in the call. That I have vowed to God to preach his Word is above everything and cancels everything perversely promised. Therefore even the call of the papists is a right one if only it says that one is to preach God's Word clearly and purely. If someone, however, were called only to say Mass, his call is nothing at all, for such a one has entered only into the devil's service and not into God's.

God indeed has the right to call only for a time, but he then does so also in an immediate way, as once with the prophet Jonah, who had to preach repentance to Nineveh.

One might now say that he who is called temporarily is nevertheless also called by God insofar as he is called by a congregation which has the right from God to call to a divine work. Preaching and administering the sacraments is indeed a performing of divine works. It is quite certain that the temporary call is something altogether ungodly; but whether the call, regarded as a whole, becomes an ungodly one on account of this reprehensible part in it, is questionable. One might well say: God has called me, since the chief thing which makes a call a divine one, namely the obligation to preach God's Word and administer the sacraments, is contained in it, only that something is added which is not divine.

To this it was replied: The congregation has the right only to put into the office persons whom Christ appoints. It cannot say: this week let Hans preach, next week Peter, then again someone else, etc. For the preaching office is to remain with one man and not go round in turn, like the watch duty in an institution. God has rather said most definitely how he wants the call to the preaching office to be held. Only where one arranges it as he has instituted it is that which God has instituted. If one arranges it differently, one does something that God has not commanded. Now God has not commanded that I should serve it as preacher for, say, one year. I can well serve it for a time in the call of love; that is then divine, because it does not happen from wantonness, but for the sake of love. This is a good work. Then I am called only to a work and not to the office. The distinction must be maintained.

Hence it also says in the 14th Article of the Augsburg Confession: "Of Church Government it is taught that no one in the churches