# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1853 06 21_S147
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

147

teachers for admission into the Synod, who until then were not members of recognized orthodox church bodies, they shall, before their admission, submit to a colloquium to be held before the Synod with the examining commission or its appointed substitutes.

§. 3. The District President delivers the synodical address and reads the annual report.

§. 4. The District President submits a summary report of the matters to be discussed in the present meeting. Whoever wishes to lay such matters before the Synod must hand them in writing to the District President four weeks beforehand, and only as an exception first on the day of the opening of the Synod.

§. 5. In order to avoid prolixity, the District President assigns certain matters to individual committees for deliberation and report and for proposals for the resolution of the Synod. Nevertheless, in important cases every member of the Synod has the right to protest against this measure.

§. 6. Every summary report together with proposals is first laid before the Synod for acceptance; if it is accepted, it lies before the Synod for deliberation. After careful consideration of the reasons and counter-reasons, the president calls for a resolution or, respectively, a vote.

§. 7. The District Synod requires of its president a report of the results of his visitation journey made in the past year according to instruction, in order to supervise the doctrine, life and conduct of office of the pastors and schoolteachers. Should it happen in this connection that the District President accuses to the Synod a pastor who, even after repeated admonition by the District President, the congregation concerned and the Ministerium, persisted in false doctrine or offensive conduct, then the Synod in its entirety makes the last attempt to convert the accused from the error of his way. If the one thus punished does not hear the Synod either, he is excluded by it, and his congregation, where this has not yet been done, is to carry out against him Christ's command, Matt. 18, 17: "If he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican." Moreover, the District President is to report on the churchly condition of the congregations visited, among other things whether he has found in them anything which contradicts the conditions named under Chap. II, without having been able to move the congregation concerned to do away with it.

§. 8. The District Synod, which in its entirety has the oversight of how the cure of souls is carried on by the pastors belonging to it, inquires about this and judges what is reported; at the same time it asks its pastors how matters stand in the congregations with regard to Bible reading, family devotions, the training of children, announcements for confession, church attendance, partaking of the Lord's Supper, the choice and use of religious writings, and whether any separatistic tendencies, conventicles and participation in secret societies (lodges) are to be found in the congregations, and what the churchly and moral condition of the same is in general.

§. 9. The District Synod investigates and discusses in its annual sessions in common which articles of the doctrine of the church are chiefly to be urged in word and writing, against which false doctrines and faults in life the contest is especially to be directed, and how to proceed in such doctrine and defense. It judges the previous achievements of the editors of the periodicals of the Synod and gives for their further activity the admonitions which seem necessary to it.

§. 10. The assembled District Synod deliberates upon the needs of the Lutherans within its district who are found there and are forsaken in churchly matters, and takes the steps necessary for the relief of those needs.

§. 11. In case pastorless Lutheran congregations apply to the Synod for pastors, it is to take earnest care that these be provided as soon as possible with faithful shepherds, in that the Synod proposes candidates for the vacant pastorate to these congregations. But should the petitioning congregation be one hitherto mixed, that is, consisting of Lutherans, Reformed and so-called Evangelicals or Unionists, then it is indeed not simply turned away with its petition; yet, as the honor of God, Christian sincerity and purity, and true love of the neighbor require, a pastor is promised it by the Synod only under the following conditions:

a. if it declares that it will unconditionally submit to the Word of God, as the Lutheran Church alone does;

b. if, in consequence, after previous instruction, it confesses the doctrine of the Ev. Luth. Church, which alone is faithful to Scripture, particularly concerning the holy Sacraments and the Office of the Keys, and rejects the contrary doctrine as contrary to Scripture;

c. if those formerly non-Lutheran assent to the declaration that by receiving the holy Supper from the hand of a servant of the Lutheran Church they publicly enter into the communion of the Lutheran Church and herewith cease to be Reformed, so-called Evangelical or Unionists and the like.

§. 12. Only in such cases may the Synod be applied to for the giving of theological opinions and counsels and for the settlement of existing disputes, when in this connection neither worldly quarrels are drawn into its sphere, nor the rights belonging to every individual congregation impaired, nor the rules of Christian love and churchly order in general passed over and violated.

If the Synod is requested to do so at the time of its sessions, what is asked is done by the present assembly, unless an investigation on the spot is necessary; but if such a request comes to the District President outside the time of the Synod's sessions, the matter, if it is urgent, is settled by the District President or by a committee chosen by him.

§. 13. The examination of those who wish to become candidates for the teaching office or are to be installed in a school position is to be conducted by the pastor of the place, if possible with the assistance of one of the neighboring pastors, who are to issue to the examined person a certificate on this to be presented to the Synod. The subjects of the examination, as the highest aim, are: knowledge of the Bible and understanding of Scripture, doctrine of the faith, with special reference to the symbolical books, particularly the Catechisms of Luther, church and Reformation history, world history, geography of the fatherland, the German language, arithmetic, penmanship, geography, music. Besides, the candidate must hand in a written catechization and hold the same, also prepare a written treatise on a pedagogical subject assigned to him by the examiner. The new schoolteacher is to be installed in his office by the pastor of the place, publicly and solemnly, in the school, with obligation to the symbolical books of our Church.

§. 14. The ordination and installation of newly called pastors into the office is performed by the District President concerned, under the restrictions given in Chap. VI. A. §. 9; he does this in company with at least one of the neighboring pastors and, where possible, before the congregation concerned, with solemn obligation to all the symbolical books, and indeed according to the form of a recognized orthodox Agenda.

Ordination is given only to him who has received a regular call from and to a definite congregation, and who after previous examination has been found sound in faith, apt to teach, and of blameless conduct. So-called licenses, customary here, are not given by the Synod, because they are contrary to Scripture and to all church practice.

§. 15. The District Synod supports only such congregations for the maintenance of the ministry as absolutely need it and give evidence of a sincere desire for the full enjoyment of the means of grace.

§. 16. The District Synod sees to it that its pastors give confirmation to catechumens only when they can at least recite from memory the text of the Catechism without explanation, and when the understanding of it has been so far imparted to them that they are able to examine themselves according to 1 Cor. 11, 28. The Synod requires that more capable catechumens, where possible,