# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1850 03 05_S106
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

106

to ordain or decide; if it does this, all such ordinances and decisions are null and void.

§ 10.

The right to call, to elect and to accept the preacher or preachers, the schoolteacher or schoolteachers, and all other officers in the congregation shall remain at all times with the congregation in its entirety, and can never be transferred, either to an individual or to a smaller body in the congregation.

§ 11.

The Elders of the congregation for the time being have no more authority in the congregation than, and only so far and so long as, is transferred to them by the congregation. The instructions given them by the congregation can at any time be altered or revoked by the whole body of the congregation.

§ 12.

All property of the congregation is committed to the Trustees chosen by the congregation for the time being, in such a way that they administer it in the name of the congregation as another's goods entrusted to them, conclude contracts concerning it, pay out and receive moneys and give receipts for them, sign documents, appear before a court, and perform all acts which the congregation itself as owner would have to do; yet in such a way that they are not empowered to dispose of and manage these goods according to their own will and pleasure, but perform the said acts only according to valid resolutions and commissions of the congregation. For what the Trustees do upon resolution and by commission of the congregation, the latter is to answer with its property, and to hold the Trustees harmless in every respect; but if the Trustees, without a resolution of the congregation, according to their own will, deal with the goods of the congregation, they are personally responsible to the congregation for it.

§ 13.

All officers of the congregation can be dismissed from their office by the congregation in Christian order. Well-founded causes for the removal of preachers and schoolteachers are: persistent adherence to false doctrine, offensive conduct, and wilful unfaithfulness in the administration of their office.

§ 14.

In the present Trinity Church of the congregation, preaching shall at all times be done in German only, by the preacher installed at it. In other languages divine service may be held only by guests for a specified time, if they request it and it is granted them by the congregation.

§ 15.

For a congregational meeting it is necessary that at least a fourth of the members of the congregation having a vote be assembled, and for a resolution of the congregation the agreement of at least two thirds of those present is required. Every member of the congregation is obliged to attend the meetings if possible, and he who stays away renounces his right to vote in the cases of his non-appearance.

§ 16.

All letters issuing from the congregation (with the exception of those mentioned in § 12) are to be signed by the Elders of the congregation for the time being in its name.

§ 17.

Should a division arise in the congregation, which God in His mercy forbid, the property and all the advantages connected with it shall remain with those members of the congregation who persist in the confession of the Unaltered Augsburg Confession and accordingly desire the preachers and schoolteachers of the congregation to be pledged to all the symbols of the Evangelical Lutheran Church.

§ 18.

Those members in the congregation who are still minors are obliged to present themselves in the church for the catechism examinations to be held with them.

§ 19.

In public divine service only purely Lutheran hymns may be used, and in all official acts only purely Lutheran forms. And in the school, alongside Holy Scripture and Luther's Small Catechism, only such books may be introduced for instruction in the Christian doctrine as are purely Lutheran. Parents who are members of the congregation are bound either to send their children to the congregational school, or otherwise to provide for the instruction of their children in the pure doctrine.

§ 20.

Those who wish to be received into the congregation are to give notice of this to the pastor of the congregation, in order to be examined by him concerning Christianity, and thereupon to make known their request for admission to one of the Elders of the congregation. The latter is to make this request known to the congregation; if it finds no objection, the person to be received, if he is a male who has come of age, is to sign the Constitution in a public congregational meeting; others are entered by an Elder in the list of the members of the congregation.

§ 21.

Of these paragraphs the following shall be unalterable: §§ 2, 3, 4, 6 a, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, and the present § 21.

Addition.

§ 22.

Since at the drawing up of the Constitution only the Trinity Church was in existence, but in the year 1848 a new church, called "the Immanuel Church," has been added, §§ 2 and 14 are also to be referred and applied to this church, as well as to all churches which the congregation may yet build in the future. The present paragraph shall likewise be unalterable.

Calvin on the Observance of Sunday and the Meaning of the Third Commandment in the Church of the New Covenant.

The false doctrine, that Sunday in the time of the New Testament has entered into all the rights of the Jewish Sabbath, and that therefore Sunday is to be kept by Christians by divine institution like the Jewish Sabbath, has, alas! been accepted by almost all Christians, Lutheran as well as Reformed, not only now but already soon after the time of the Reformation. We must therefore fear that among our readers also there will have been some who have received with distrust the testimonies, communicated in the previous number, from our Symbols and from Luther's writings concerning the true Biblical doctrine of the Sabbath. Perhaps, therefore, it may not be unimportant to some reader to read that on this point Calvin once taught nothing different. We therefore communicate the following of what Calvin has written in his book: "Institutio religionis christianae" on the meaning of the third commandment (which he calls the fourth), according to the German extract prepared by Kalthoff:

"The purpose of this commandment is that we, dead to our own desires and works, should strive after the kingdom of God, and should exercise ourselves in this striving by the means prescribed by Him. First, the heavenly Lawgiver, by the rest of the seventh day, desired to picture to the people of Israel the spiritual rest, whereby the believers should cease from their own works, so that they might let God work in them. Secondly, He appointed a day on which they should come together to hear the law and to hold the outward worship, or which they should at least devote especially to the contemplation of His works, in order by such remembrance to exercise themselves in godliness. Thirdly, He thought it good that to servants, and to those who were under the dominion of others, a day of rest should be granted, on which they might enjoy some relief from labor. That this picturing of the spiritual rest was the most important thing in the Sabbath, Scripture teaches expressly, which sets forth the dignity of this mystery so very beautifully. Thus it is said in the second book of Moses (Exod. 31:13, 14, 16, 17): Verily my sabbaths ye shall keep: for it is a sign between me and you throughout your generations; that ye may know that I am the LORD that doth sanctify you. Ye shall keep my sabbath therefore; for it is holy unto you. Wherefore the children of Israel shall keep the sabbath, to observe the sabbath throughout their generations, for a perpetual covenant. It is a sign between me and the children of Israel for ever. Isaiah says (Isa.