# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_November 1855_S346
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

346 Excerpts as Contributions to Pastoral Casuistry.

weakness of the people, as far as can be done with a good conscience, be yielded to, and their hearts won.
(Christenstaat. p. 525–527.)

Is it within a Preacher's Power to Let the Public Worship Service Lapse from Time to Time?

In the casuistry of Ludwig Dunte, formerly pastor at Reval (died 1689), the question is raised: "Whether it is right that, because a preacher refused his office to the whole congregation and let several Sundays pass without performing it, notwithstanding that they had asked him on various occasions to perform his office in the church — whether it is right that the congregation should dismiss such a one?"

To this question Dunte communicates an answer that the whole ministerium at Riga had given on the matter. It reads as follows:

"When a preacher has received his call and commission, he should not imagine that he may conduct himself in the church as he pleases and refuse the congregation his office whenever he wishes. Rather, he must set the congregation of God above himself, and remember that he is a servant of the congregation of God, as St. Paul splendidly sets forth with these words: All things are yours; whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours. And ye are Christ's; and Christ is God's. 1 Cor. 3:21–23. For there St. Paul places the congregation of God above the preacher, just as he places God above Christ, as far as concerns his office. To such a congregation of God a preacher is therefore obligated to render service and to attend to the office entrusted to him. For it is said: Woe is me if I preach not the gospel! 1 Cor. 9:16. If, then, a preacher will no longer perform such an office, the congregation, being higher and greater than the preacher, has the power to put another in his place." (See: Decisiones 1006 casuum conscientiae, a short and accurate discussion of 1006 cases of conscience, drawn together from the writings of many highly learned theologians, etc., by M. L. Dunte. Pages 666, 667.)

We take the liberty here of adding the further remark: since many congregations have no notion of the labor that a good sermon costs, and since not a few of them, misled by the enthusiastic ranters found hereabouts, suppose that where the true "Spirit" is present, a preacher can easily shake a sermon out of his sleeve, such congregations are often so immoderate in their demands upon their preachers that a faithful preacher, who is unwilling to prattle unsalted stuff, cannot meet their demands. It is therefore necessary that whoever undertakes the office should be well on his guard not to promise more than he can perform. To hold school five days, to preach twice on Sunday, and, besides, to deliver yet another sermon during the week — which is what many congregations, in their lack of understanding, expect of their preacher — far exceeds, in the case of most preachers, the measure of their strength.