# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1896_S22
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

22 Proceedings of the sixteenth convention

believe, teach and confess that the Church of God in every place and at every time has authority, according to its circumstances, to change such ceremonies as may be most useful and edifying to the Church of God." In the Solida Declaratio [Solid Declaration], Art. X: "Here it is no longer a question of external things indifferent, which by their nature and essence are and remain free for themselves, and accordingly may suffer neither command nor prohibition, to use them or to omit them." M. [Müller], p. 700. Thus here the things indifferent [Mitteldinge, adiaphora] are described, and indeed the churchly Mitteldinge (for it is of these that the Formula of Concord speaks; the so-called pleasure-Mitteldinge came into polemical discussion in the Church only later, in the age of Pietism), as such "which by their nature and essence remain free for themselves," etc. And indeed the right and the possibility of ordering, changing and improving in these free matters must not be underestimated. As little as we are to use it lightly in the Church, so little are we to give up lightly this right of the Christian congregation to order, change and improve in these matters left free by God. Why this should not happen, a later thesis will show.

To these matters of church practice not governed in God's Word belong, then, such things as Sabbath, Sunday observance as such, as observance of this or of any particular day; further such actions as confirmation, the ordination of preachers, the ceremonies in divine service; choir robe, candles, crucifix. To these belong, however, also unessential parts in those liturgical actions which are indeed governed in God's Word; for example, in the celebration of the Lord's Supper the preface, the arrangement of individual parts, such as whether the Lord's Prayer is said before or after the consecration; so in preaching, whether it is delivered from the pulpit or at the altar; whether the preacher reads his text before the beginning of the sermon or after the introduction; whether the general prayer of the Church is said in some definite form, and whether it is read from the pulpit or at the altar, or is performed in the form of the litany with the spoken cooperation of the pastor and the congregation. In all these matters God's Word has given the Church no prescriptions whatever by which it would have to be guided. And whoever imposes a law on the Christian Church, on any congregation, there, climbs upon God's throne, indeed above it; he presumes something to which only God has a right. For only God has the right to give laws to His Church. The Church is not a democracy but an absolute monarchy, since the will of the King is law, and nothing else. The government can make laws; why? Because the King of kings, the Lord of heaven and earth, has granted it the right, has conferred upon it this piece of majesty. But the Church can make no laws, because its King has not granted it this right, and it is an insurrection, a rising