ge of Pastors (Collegium Pastorum)
and remains in the closest connection with them, as being our regular
teachers. . . . Accordingly, we have the desire to be embodied and
incorporated in the United Congregations in Pennsylvania, and to be
recognized and received by them as brethren and members of a special
congregation of the Ev. Lutheran Church, and consequently to share in
the pastoral care of the College of all the Rev. Pastors of the United
Congregations. In accordance herewith we most publicly and solemnly
desire, acknowledge and declare all the Rev. Pastors of the United
Church-Congregations to be our pastors and ministers (Seelsorger und
Hirten); we also give them complete authority to provide for the welfare
of our souls, how and through whom, also as long as, they choose. We
furthermore promise to regard the Rev. College of Pastors of the Ev.
Lutheran Congregations in Pennsylvania as a lawful and regular
presbyterium and ministerium and particularly as our pastors- and
ministers-in-chief, also to respect and regard, them as such, without
whose previously known advice and consent we do, order, resolve, or
change nothing; hence to have nothing to do with any [other] pastor, nor
even, without their previously known advice and consent, to undertake
anything in important church-matters with the pastor whom they have sent
to us; on the contrary, to approve of and with all our powers to observe
and execute whatever, in church-matters of our own and the
congregations, the whole Rev. College of Pastors will resolve, and
properly indicate and make known to us. Furthermore we promise to
recognize, receive, respect, honor and hear the teacher [minister] as
our lawful and divinely called teacher as long as the Rev. College of
Pastors will see fit to leave him with us; nor to make any opposition in
case they should be pleased for important reasons to call him away and
to put another in his place; moreover, to receive and regard his
successor with equal love and duty. We furthermore promise, if (which
God forfend) a misunderstanding or separation should arise between the
whole congregation or part of it and the teacher, or between members of
the congregation, to report this immediately to the Rev. College of
Pastors, and to await their decision, and to abide by it." (301 f.)
_Graebner:_ "One's indignation is roused when reading how the elders of
the Lancaster congregation were treated at the first synod. These men
defended th