er also
verbally, whereupon he said with an arrogant gesture and autocratic
tone: 'That is not the point; I only ask, Do you want to, or do you not
want to?' We answered: 'We did not want to.' He declared, 'That is all I
desire to know'; and saying which he rapidly turned about and hastily
ran away from us. In the mean time the multitude of our opponents moved
toward us, proposing the same questions. We answered as before. The
leaders among them endeavored to maintain that, in order to decide the
dispute, we were not bound to the constitution, but only to the majority
of the votes of the preachers and delegates, which majority they had;
and that it was reasonable and fair for us to act according to it in
this dispute. But we thought that the doctrine of the Augsburg
Confession (being assured, as we were, that it can be proved by the
doctrine of the Bible) should be of a greater weight to us than the
voice of a majority of men who are opposed to the doctrine and order of
our Church. After a brief altercation of this kind they went into the
church, and we followed. Here the President [Stork], in a long speech in
German, endeavored to prove what he had asserted before. The Secretary
[Shober] made a still longer speech in English, in which he endeavored
to prove that we were not at all bound to act according to the
constitution or order of our Church; although he himself, with the
approval of Synod, had written the constitution and had it printed, this
was not done with the intention of making it a rule or norm by which we,
as members of Synod, were to be guided in our transactions; it was
merely a sort of draft or model according to which, in course of time,
one might formulate a good constitution, if in the future such should
become necessary. However, it was proved [by the Henkels] from the
constitution itself that it had been received as just such an [official]
document, sanctioned, after previous examination and approval by several
ministers, by Synod and ordered to be printed. To this he [Shober]
answered that such had not been the intention of Synod. Haste and lack
of time had caused him to write it thus without previous careful
consideration; therefore, now everything had to be governed and judged
according to the majority. But we were of the opinion that it would
prove to be a very unreasonable action to reject a constitution which a
few years ago, according to a resolution of Synod, had been printed and
bound in 1,