# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_November 1863_S340
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

340 Report of the sixth ordinary synodical convention of the Norwegian Evang. Luth. Church.

—as though God's Word, without their help, were not clear enough. As a splendid proof against this, appeal was made to Questions 8, 9, and 10 in the introduction to Pontoppidan's Exposition in our Children's Catechism. According to the rules laid down there, Clausen does not proceed rightly, for he wishes to found a doctrine that is to be believed unto salvation — namely, that of the divine necessity of Sunday — upon such things as these: 1) that the Lord rose again on this day, etc.; 2) that Paul preached on this day; 3) that Paul exhorted the Corinthians to works of love on this day; 4) that it is called the Lord's Day. Against this he must, at the clear passages Romans 14:5–6 and Colossians 2:16, seek a way out by claiming that Paul, when he says "all days," must have excepted Sunday. But could one really say that the apostle had spoken clearly and plainly enough? The apostle, after all, expressly calls them "feast days" in writing to the Colossians; how then could Sunday be excepted? — Clausen's entire array of proof-texts is: Mark 2:27; Genesis 2:3; Acts 20:7; 1 Corinthians 16:2; Revelation 1:9. But is it taught clearly and plainly in any of these that we are to keep Sunday holy, or else be subjected to the punishment of divine wrath? Where is the simple Christian who can find this even in a single one of these passages? As for the resurrection, etc., Scripture only relates that these events took place on the first day of the week. Clausen ought to look only at these proof-texts of his own and at nothing else — not even at the circumstance that we have kept Sunday for [illegible] years now and would not want to be without it for anything in the world. Had God meant by these words what Clausen wishes to read into them, one could with good reason accuse him of dark and unclear speech.

To all this Pastor Clausen replied that Sunday is not a commandment but a gift, from which the obligation follows to make use of it — not in slavish fear, but in a childlike spirit. Moreover, he derives the obligation not from any single passage, but from several passages taken together. No single one by itself proves anything; nor is the keeping holy of Sunday explicitly commanded in God's Word; but because this day, on account of the resurrection, etc., is called the Lord's Day, and was used by the apostles for divine assemblies and works of love, it is clear that it was kept especially holy by them, and that it is therefore not a human but a divine ordinance, for the apostles did all their works under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. To call the custom and practice of the apostolic Church a human ordinance he regards as false doctrine, just as his opponent's teaching on Sunday, he said, is very pernicious, and could serve to embolden the impudent, worldly-minded, ungodly crowd — one already hard enough to move to come to church. As for the passages Romans 14 and Colossians 2, these, he said, do not deal with Sunday at all, but, insofar as they may not concern the pagan feast days, etc., with the days appointed in the Old Testament, which the