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Henry Melchior Muhlenberg, by common consent the patriarch of the Lutheran Church on this continent, through whose efforts the Ministerium of Pennsylvania, 'The Mother Synod, was established in 1748. In missionary zeal, in pastoral tact and fidelity, in organizing ability and personal piety, he had no superior."
In the Public Worship, the administration of the Holy Sacraments as well as all other ministerial acts and ministrations, the Pastors shall conform to the Agenda and usage, which have been introduced, until such time as the United Ministerium and the congregation shall deem it necessary and profitable to make a better.
I called on the oldest of them, Mr. Du Bois, who received me cordially. Thereupon I visited the youngest of the Dutch Reformed Ministerium. I visited also the third member of this body, who, together with his wife, carried on a beautiful and edifying conversation, so that I was truly delighted." Pemberton, the pastor of the English Presbyterian congregation, for the first time.
Thus, for instance, in the case of J. A. Weygand it was held that he was given the right to perform all the functions pertaining to his office, not by the call of the congregation which he had accepted, but by his subsequent ordination. Obedience to Ministerium and Fathers in Halle. In the ordination the pastors were pledged to obey the Ministerium.
This was certainly not the attitude of the German Lutheran ministers of the Pennsylvania Synod, some of whom, going to the other extreme, were in danger of viewing the English, as compared with the German, as impregnated with the spirit of rationalism and infidelity. Riding, as it were, on the language, rationalism had made its public entry into the New York Ministerium.
The first regular ministrant to the German congregation at Philadelphia was the Swede, John Eneberg, and it is probable that it was organized by him. Pastor Dylander held service for the Germans regularly in the Wicaco Church, and Muehlenberg's services were held there mainly until the erection of St. Michael's. The Swedish ministers met with the Germans in the earlier meetings of the ministerium.
It was 1763, fifteen years after its organization, before he became a member of the Pennsylvania Ministerium. Concerning Stoever and the Agenda of 1748, Muhlenberg relates the following: "We were minded to employ the very words of our Lord Jesus: Take and eat; this is the body of Jesus Christ, etc. Take and drink, this cup is the New Testament in the blood of Christ, etc.
To me it is no less than a matter of admiration how Camero could so far forget himself as to say, that in things pertaining unto religion, dirigere atque disponere penes magistratum est proprie, penes ecclesiasticos ministerium atque executio proprie, telling us further, that the directing and disposing of such things doth then only belong to ecclesiastical persons when the church suffereth persecution, or when the magistrate permitteth that the matter be judged by the church.
The New York Ministerium separated from the General Synod on confessional grounds and took part in the organization of the General Council. Thereupon most of the English-speaking members, occupying a milder confessional basis, left the Ministerium, formed the Synod of New York and united with the General Synod. The author's connection with the work in New York began about this time.
In 1786 the New York Ministerium was organized in Albany, N. Y., by Pastors Kunze, of New York City, H. Moeller, of Albany, and J. S. Schwerdfeger, of Fellstown, and two lay delegates, one from New York, the other from Albany. Eight of the eleven pastors in this district took no part in the organization. Six years elapsed before another meeting convened.
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