# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1896_S21
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

of the Ev. Luth. Synodical Conference of North America. 1896. 21

feature of Carlstadt's fanaticism, that what held for the Old Testament and Old Testament church life was to be made law for the New Testament Church. And that leads us now to the second part of the thesis.

Of precisely such Old Testament church institutions, which were governed for the Old Testament church by God's Word, we read in the New Testament, as said for the New Testament Church: "Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink," etc. That is: "Do not let it be imposed on you that for God's sake, as by God's commandment, you must conduct yourselves here with regard to food and drink." These are matters belonging to personal Christian life, what we are to eat or drink. Then the apostle goes on: "Or in respect of a holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days." Insofar as the individual Christian observes this, that belongs to personal Christian life; it belongs to church life insofar as the individual as a member of the Church observes it in his Christian life; but it also belongs to church life as such, that is, to church practice, that a congregation observes festival days. Here the apostle says expressly, let no one make a conscience of it for you, or more exactly: "Let no man judge you." In judging, a distinction is made, a separation is made, there judgment is passed on right and wrong. Here the apostle says: These things do not belong to the realm where God's Word has established what is to be right, but whoever comes to you with them, as with a matter on which you are to be judges, and wants to make you a conscience about it, lays on you a yoke which you need not bear, indeed which you should throw off, if it is imposed on you. And Rom. 14:6 the same apostle says of holy days: "He that regards the day, regards it unto the Lord; and he that regards not the day, to the Lord he does not regard it." So one cannot speak of things which God has not left free. One cannot say: "He that steals, does it unto the Lord, and he that does not steal, to the Lord he does not steal." It is therefore quite clear that days, church festival days, are not things of which God's Word as a divine norm has set for us — namely for the Church — the prescription for all times by which the Church would have to conduct itself for all times. So also our Confession stands in this matter, as regards the order of Sunday, when it says in the 28th Article of the Augsburg Confession: "Thus the order of Sunday, of the Easter celebration, of Pentecost and similar observance and manner. As for those who think that the order of Sunday has been set up as necessary in place of the Sabbath, they err greatly. For Holy Scripture has abolished the Sabbath and teaches that all ceremonies of the old law, after the opening of the Gospel, may be relaxed." And in the Formula of Concord, Epitome, Art. X, it says under the Affirmative: "2. We