# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_November 1864_S323
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

The Doctrine of the Lutheran Church Concerning Sunday. 323

one says that a woman commits sin who goes out bareheaded without
giving offense to people. So it is with the ordinance concerning Sunday, the
celebration of Easter, of Pentecost, and similar feasts and customs. For
those who suppose that the ordinance of Sunday was established as
necessary in place of the Sabbath are greatly mistaken. For Holy Scripture
has abolished the Sabbath and teaches that all ceremonies of the old law
may, after the opening of the Gospel, be discontinued; and yet, because it
was necessary to appoint a certain day so that the people would know
when they should assemble, the Christian church appointed Sunday for
this, and had all the more pleasure and willingness for this change, so
that people would have an example of Christian liberty, so that it might
be known that neither the keeping of the Sabbath nor of any other day is
necessary. There are many mistaken disputations about the change of the
law, about the ceremonies of the New Testament, about the change of the
Sabbath, all of which have sprung from the false and erroneous opinion
that Christendom must have such a form of worship as would correspond
to the Levitical or Jewish worship, and as though Christ had commanded
the apostles and bishops to devise new ceremonies necessary for salvation.
These same errors have become entangled in Christendom, wherever the
righteousness of faith has not been taught and preached purely and clearly.
Some dispute about Sunday in this way, that one must keep it, though not
by divine right (non quidem juris divini esse, sed quasi juris divini, that
is, yet in a certain sense by divine right), and lay down form and measure
as to how far one may work on the holy day. But what are such
disputations other than a snare of conscience? For although they venture
to soften and mitigate [epieikeia] human statutes, one can achieve no
epieikeia or mitigation so long as the opinion stands and remains that
they are necessary. Now that same opinion must remain, so long as one
knows nothing of the righteousness of faith and of Christian liberty.
Further, it is stated thus in Luther's Large Catechism, in the
exposition of the Third Commandment: "We have called it 'holy day'
[Feiertag] after the Hebrew word Sabbath, which properly means to rest,
that is, to stand idle from work, whence we are accustomed to say, to
make evening rest, or to give a holy evening. Now God, in the Old
Testament, set apart the seventh day and appointed it for resting, and
commanded that it be kept holy above all other days; and, as concerns
this outward observance, this commandment is given to the Jews alone,
that they should stand still from heavy labor and rest, so that both man
and beast might recover and not be worn out by constant labor