. Dr. Graebner says: "It has been pointed out
how this [hierarchical] trait plainly appeared already when the
Pennsylvania Synod was founded; later on we meet it everywhere and in
all synods organized prior to the General Synod. According to the
conception generally prevailing a synod had its real foundation, its
essential part, not in the congregations, but in the preachers. This
idea governed their thinking and speaking. The 'preachers of the State
of Ohio united with some of the preachers in Pennsylvania living nearest
to them, and established a conference or synod of their own.' Some
'preachers west of the Susquehanna' were granted their petition of being
permitted to form a synod. In agreement herewith they preferred to speak
of a synod according to its chief and fundamental part, as a
'ministerium.' The constitution of the Pennsylvania Synod began: 'We
Evangelical Lutheran preachers in Pennsylvania and the neighboring
States, by our signatures to this constitution, acknowledging ourselves
as a body, name this union of ours The German Evangelical Lutheran
Ministerium in Pennsylvania and the neighboring States, and our
individual meetings A Ministerial Assembly.' Lay delegates of the
congregations, though admitted to the synodical conventions in
Pennsylvania and at other places, were nowhere recognized as members
having equal rights with the ministers. It was as late as 1792 that the
lay delegates obtained the right to vote in Pennsylvania, and even then
only with restrictions. In the affairs of greatest import (doctrinal
matters, admission of new members, etc.) they were privileged neither to
speak nor to vote. On this point the ministerial order of the
Pennsylvania Synod declared: 'Lay delegates who have a right to vote
shall sit together at one place in the assembly; they are privileged to
offer motions, and to give their opinion and cast their votes in all
questions submitted for decision and determination, except in matters
pertaining to the learning of a candidate or a catechist, to questions
of orthodoxy and heterodoxy, the admission to, and expulsion from, the
ministerium, and other, similar cases, for the ministerial assembly has
cognizance of such as these.' The constitution of the New York
Ministerium contained the same provision, chap. 7, Sec.4: 'Each lay
delegate shall have a right to take part in the debates of the House, to
offer resolutions, and to vote on all questions, except the examining,
licensin