39. Endorsed by the General Synod.--"According to the conception of

prominent leaders," says Dr. Jacobs, "the General Synod was nothing more

than the realization of Zinzendorf's dream of 1742, which the coming of

Muhlenberg had so quickly dissipated." (_History_, 304.) But judged by

its minutes, what Jacobs limits to its "prominent leaders" is true of

the General Synod as such. Synod certainly did not discourage Schmucker

in his union schemes. In 1839, at Chambersburg, the General Synod was

immediately interested in his "Plan of Apostolic Protestant Union." The

committee appointed in the matter recommended "that Synod approve of the

several features of the union plan, and submit it for serious

consideration to its District Synods." (19.) A following convention

appointed Schmucker, Krauth, and Miller as a Committee of Conference on

Christian Union to confer with similar committees and prominent

individuals of different denominations "on the great subject of

Christian Union." At New York, 1848, Synod resolved that the report on

Christian Union be adopted, and the Committee on Christian Union be

continued." (15.) At Charleston, 1850, the Committee of Conference

remarked in its report: "As the general principles of the Apostolic

Christian Union, _adopted by this body_, were fully detailed in our last

report, it is deemed unnecessary to enlarge on them in this place."

(21.) Schmucker continued his efforts till the year of his death, 1873,

when again he made an appeal to the General Synod "for an advisory union

among all Evangelical denominations" as an "additional aid to the

promotion of the designs of the World's Evangelical Alliance." (53.) The

committee to whom Schmucker's letter and his printed appeal was referred,

recommended the resolution: "Resolved, That while this General Synod

approves of the ends contemplated by the appeal, and commends the

fraternal spirit of its author, yet it does not deem it necessary for

the present to take any further action towards Christian union than that

which is already upon record." (53.) Schmucker's ideas concerning

Christian union, however, were not abandoned by the General Synod.

Moreover, in a way, his plans materialized in the Federal Council,

consisting of about 30 Protestant bodies, at the organization of which,

in 1905, the General Synod was represented by Wenner, Remensnyder,

Grosscup, and Bauslin. (_L. u. W._ 1906, 33.) Theologically the Federal

Council does not even measure up to the ideals of Schmucker, inasmuch as

it reduced the nine points of the Evangelical Alliance, which Schmucker

viewed as essential, to the meager confession of "Jesus Christ as their

divine Lord and Savior," which even Unitarians will not hesitate to

subscribe to. Besides, Seventh-day Adventists, Christians, Friends, and

other bodies tainted with Unitarianism are even now connected with the

Federal Council. In 1909 the General Synod "heartily endorsed the work

of the Federal Council." (115.) In 1917 Synod adopted the report of its

delegates to the Council which said, in part: "It was a great privilege

to have participated in this historic council. As the federation idea

originated in the United States in the mind and heart of a learned and

devout Lutheran, Dr. Samuel S. Schmucker, it was a great joy and

satisfaction to see and participate in this consummation of Dr.

Schmucker's hope of all Protestant bodies in council and cooperation in

the one common task of propagating the kingdom of God in society and

throughout the world." (27.) The ultimate aim of the Federal Council

evidently is an amalgamation of all Protestant Churches. And there are,

even now, General Synodists who are ready to countenance this

eventuality. In the _Christian Herald_, December 12, 1917, Dr. J. B.

Remensnyder spoke of the essential unity of Protestantism separated

only by minor differences, and of "the practical possibility of a larger

union,--one world-wide Protestant Church of Christ," to be brought about

by mutual surrender of secondary differences. "It will not come about,"

says Remensnyder, "by one denomination insisting absolutely on its

doctrinal type." In the _Lutheran Church Work and Observer_, May 23,

1918, p. 7 f., a General Synod pastor wrote: "With forms of religion and

denominational differences we have nothing to do.... Let each one have

his own faith, his own light and hope." "There come moments when we

forget our differences and our various labels, when we arise above the

partial, the individual, and sectarian, when a common impulse drives us

headlong into the arms of trust and general comradeship...."

THEOLOGY REFORMED.

40. Championing Reformed Doctrines.--Wherever Lutherans unite with the

Reformed, the former gradually sink to the level of the latter. Already

by declaring the differences between the two Churches irrelevant, the

Lutheran truths are actually sacrificed and denied. Unionism always

breaks the backbone, and outrages the conscience, of true Lutheranism.

And naturally enough, the refusal to confess the Lutheran truth is but

too frequently followed by eager endorsement and fanatical defense of

the opposite errors. This is fully borne out by the history of the

General Synod. As the years rolled on, the Reformed lineaments, at first

manifesting themselves in unionism, came out in ever bolder relief. The

distinctive Lutheran doctrines of the Lord's Supper, the person of

Christ, Baptism, absolution, infant faith, the means of grace, the

Sabbath, abstinence, separation of State and Church, etc., were all

rejected and assailed by the most prominent leaders of the General

Synod. And the unionistic spirit, with which also the most conservative

within the General Synod were infected, paralyzed the courage of the men

who, in a measure, saw and loved the light, and should have been bold in

confessing the truth and uncompromising in defending it against the

opposite errors. In 1831, in deference to sectarianism, the publication

of the _Lutheran Observer_ was transferred to Baltimore, with Dr. Morris

as editor, because it was feared that the Presbyterians might take

offense at the title "Lutheran" if, as was originally planned, it was

published at Gettysburg with the professors as editors! It was in the

interest of eliminating the specific Lutheran doctrines that, in 1845,

at Philadelphia, a committee (Schmucker, Morris, Schmidt, Pohlman,

Kurtz) was appointed to formulate and present to the next convention an

abstract of the doctrines and usages of the American Lutheran Church, on

the order of the Abstract requested in 1844 by the Maryland Synod, in

which the Lutheran doctrine of the Real Presence was rejected. The

report was made at Charleston, S. C., 1850, but "laid on the table, and

the committee discharged from further duty." (27.) In 1855 a bold effort

was made to abandon the Augsburg Confession in favor of the notorious

Definite Platform, from which all specifically Lutheran doctrines had

been eliminated in order to open the way officially for the tenets

peculiar to Reformed theology. Some of the fanatics were not even

willing to tolerate Lutheran doctrine in the General Synod. When in 1852

the Pennsylvania Synod resolved to reunite with the General Synod, and

called upon all Lutherans in America to follow her example, the

_Observer_, December 21, 1852, published a declaration stating that the

Augsburg Confession taught the real presence of the body and blood of

Christ in the Lord's Supper and several other things, which were

rejected by almost all of the friends and promoters of the General

Synod, and that it was sinful to unite with Lutherans who adhered to

such doctrines. (_Lutheraner_, Dec. 21, 1852.) Former members of the

North Illinois Synod declared in the _Observer_ of January 20, 1860: "We

do not believe in the bodily presence, baptismal regeneration, the

ceremonies of the mass, and in similar nonsense." (_L. u. W._ 1860, 93.)

As late as 1896 the Allegheny Synod refused to ordain a candidate

because he did not hold that the Sunday was of divine institution.

(_L. u. W._ 1896, 281.)

41. Sailing under False Colors.--Foremost and boldest among the Reformed

theologians within the General Synod were S. S. Schmucker and B. Kurtz,

who nevertheless insisted on sailing under the Lutheran flag. Brazenly

claiming to be the true representatives of Lutheranism, they at the same

time assailed the Lutheran and defended the Reformed doctrines with

ultra Calvinistic zeal and bigotry. They opposed the adoption of all the

Lutheran symbols (especially of the Formula of Concord), as well as the

unqualified subscription to the Augsburg Confession, because they were

imbued with the Reformed spirit and absolute strangers to, and enemies

of, everything distinctive of, and essential to, true Lutheranism.

(_L. u. W._ 1866, 21.) In his _Popular Theology_, published for the

first time in 1834, Schmucker says: "But whilst the Reformers [Luther

and Zwingli] agreed in rejecting this papal error [transubstantiation],

it is much to be regretted that they could neither harmonize among

themselves as to what should be substituted in its stead, nor consent to

walk together in love, when they could not entirely accord in opinion....

Alas! that men, distinguished so highly for intellect, and chosen of God

to accomplish so great a work, should betray such a glaring want of

liberality toward each other; that, having gloriously cooperated in

vanquishing the papal beast, they should turn their weapons against each

other, for a point not decided in Scripture, and therefore of minor

importance!" (Edition 1848, p. 297.) With respect to the presence of

Christ in the Lord's Supper, Schmucker, in his _Popular Theology_,

distinguishes between the substantial, the influential, and the

symbolical presence and the bald symbolical representation. Then he

continues: "After a protracted and unprofitable struggle, the Lutheran

Church has long since settled down in the happy conviction that on this,

as on all other subjects not clearly determined by the inspired Volume,

her sons shall be left to follow the dictates of their own conscience,

having none to molest them or make them afraid. In the Lutheran Church

in this country each of the above views has some advocates, though the

great body of our divines, if we mistake not, embraces either the second

or third." (305.) Also in his _Portraiture of Lutheranism_ (1840)

Schmucker maintained that the Lutheran Church no longer demands the

acknowledgment of the real presence in the Eucharist, Luther himself,

toward the end of his life, having admitted that he had gone too far in

this matter.

42. Moses Stuart's Declaration.--Referring to the statements quoted from

Schmucker's _Popular Theology_, Prof. Moses Stuart of Andover said in

the _Bibliotheca Sacra_ of 1844: "I should not do justice to the

Lutheran Church of recent times if I did not say that many within its

precincts have loudly called in question the old doctrine of Luther and

his compeers and successors in respect to consubstantiation [real

presence]. The battle has been fought of late with great power; and

scarcely a doubt remains that the more enlightened of the Lutherans are

either renouncing his views, or coming to the position that they are not

worth contending for. In this country such is clearly the case. Dr. S.

S. Schmucker, the able and excellent exponent of the Lutheran theology

in this country, in his work, called _Popular Theology_, has told us

that they are 'settled down in the happy conviction that on this, and on

all other subjects not clearly determined by the inspired Volume, her

sons shall be left to follow the dictates of their own conscience,

having none to molest or make them afraid.' The great body of Lutheran

divines among us, according to the same writer, doubt or deny the

corporeal or physical presence of Christ in the elements of the

Eucharist. It is not difficult to predict that ere long the great mass

of well-informed Lutherans, at least in this country, will be

substantially united, in regard to this subject, with the other Reformed

Churches." (Spaeth, _C. P. Krauth_, 1, 115.)

43. Reformed Attitude of the "Observer."--Commenting on B. Kurtz, editor

of the _Lutheran, Observer_, Dr. Spaeth says: "For years and years he

was indefatigable in his coarse and irreverential, yea, blasphemous

attacks upon what was set forth as most sacred in the Confessions of the

Lutheran Church. The loyal adherents of the historical faith of the

Augsburg Confession were denounced as 'resurrectionists of elemental,

undeveloped, halting, stumbling, and staggering humanity,' as priests

ready 'to immolate bright meridian splendor on the altar of misty, musky

dust,' men bent on going backward, and consequently, of necessity, going

downward!" Every distinctive doctrine and usage of Lutheranism was

ridiculed and assailed, in the _Lutheran Observer_, by Kurtz and his

theological affinities. In its issue of June 29, 1849, C.P. Krauth, in

an article on the question of Christ's presence in the Eucharist, wrote:

"From this high position [of the Lutheran confessions, held by some

Lutherans in America] there are almost all shades of dissent and

descent, not only to that which is popularly called the Zwinglian, and

of which the _Lutheran Observer_ may be considered the exponent, but yet

lower to that which we may call, for want of a better name, Socinian."

(Spaeth I, 162.) A few weeks prior (June 8) Kurtz had declared that in

the 60 Lutheran congregations in Maryland not 30 American-born members

could be found who knew what "bodily presence" in the Lord's Supper

meant, much less believed in it. The more the free-thinking, practical,

and common-sense people the United States got acquainted with this

doctrine, the less they would take to it. The same was true of other

obsolete doctrines, such as baptismal regeneration. (_Lutheraner_,

October 30, 1849.) In January of 1854 the _Observer_ announced that an

old manuscript had been discovered in Germany, according to which

Luther, shortly before his death, retracted his controversy against the

Sacramentarians. (_Lutheraner_ 10, 108; cf. 2, 47.) In November of the

same year the _Observer_ declared that Profs. Heppe and Ebrard had

proved that the doctrine of the Lutheran Church on the Lord's Supper was

not the one of Luther, but that of the later Melanchthon. (_Lutheraner_

11, 71.) Anspach, coeditor of the _Observer_, stated in its number of

November 12, 1858: "Difference of opinion concerning the Sacraments is

tolerated in the General Synod, and although there are some among our

brethren who believe in the real presence of our Savior in the Lord's

Supper in a higher sense than others, they nevertheless hold that this

takes place in a spiritual and supernatural manner." (_L. u. W._ 1859,

30.) In its issue of June 29, 1860, the _Observer_ protested: "We can

never subscribe to the errors of the Augsburg Confession.... Let a

separation take place. Let those who are able to swallow the errors of

the sixteenth century, which have long ago been hissed from the stage,

rally around the banner: 'The true body and the true blood of Christ in

a natural manner in the elements,' and on the back side: 'Regeneration

by Baptism and priestly absolution essential to true Lutheranism'! This

is the theology of the symbolists. This papistical theology we cannot

and will not subscribe to in America. For it is a theology which is not

drawn from the Bible, but from the Roman Bible." In 1861 the _Observer_

remarked that the Missouri, Buffalo, and other Old Lutherans practise

ceremonies and adhere to doctrines which are as odious to many of us as

those in vogue in the Roman Church. (March 8.) Two years prior the

_Observer_ had blasphemously scoffed at the Lutheran Communion Liturgy

as "altar antics." (_L. u. W._ 1860, 31.) _Observer_, February 12,

1864: "Christ is at the right hand of God in heaven. How, then, can we

speak of Christ's body and blood as present in the Sacrament since no

such body did exist for these 1800 years, never since His ascension into

glory?" (_L. u. W._ 1864, 125.) November 7, 1862: "But who exercises

faith in infant baptism? Not the child, but the father or the sponsor,"

etc. (_L. u. W._ 1862, 373.) In 1904 the _Observer_ denied that a child

believes and is regenerated by Baptism. (_L. u. W._ 1904, 471.)

According to the _Observer_ of 1901 a man may become a true Christian

even without any knowledge of the Gospel and of Christ. (_L. u. W._

1901, 306.) _Observer_, March 27, 1868: "God's Book is a total

abstinence book, and God's Son never made intoxicating wine." In 1867

the _American Lutheran_ (published by the Hartwick Synod and later

merged with the _Lutheran Observer_), teaching the baldest Zwinglianism,

maintained that Baptism is a mere sign and seal of membership in the

visible Church on earth and no more regeneration itself than the

sign-board "Hotel" is itself the hotel. (_L. u. W._ 1867, 125.) The

_Lutheran Evangelist_, merged in 1909 into the _Observer_ and always

disowning every doctrine distinctive of Lutheranism, stated January 20,

1899: The pastors of the General Synod are too sensible to believe "so

foolish a dogma as infant faith." (_L. u. W._ 1899, 27.) The same paper

had declared in 1892: "They are bad Lutherans who do not view the

Sabbath as commanded by God. If the Augsburg Confession had been written

in our day, it would have delivered no uncertain testimony with respect

to the divine obligation of the Day of the Lord." The _Lutheran Church

Work and Observer_, the official organ of the General Synod, wrote

September 12, 1918: "The General Synod has always stood on the side of

temperance.... Almost all her ministers have been abstainers and

advocates of total abstinence. They have ever aligned themselves with

the temperance forces of the country to put the American saloon out of

business." The first resolution in favor of the temperance cause,

referred to in the minutes of the General Synod, was adopted in 1831 by

the Hartwick Synod. (9.)

44. General Synod Involved as Such.--In spite of its noncommittal policy

as to doctrine, the General Synod also as such has not been able to

conceal its distinctively Reformed complexion. The letter of 1845 admits

and approves of the fact that Luther's doctrine of the bodily presence

of the Lord's Supper had long ago been abandoned by the great majority

of the ministers of the General Synod. It was the Reformed theology,

taught in the books of Schmucker, in the books of Kurtz, in the

_Observer_ edited by Kurtz, and in the _Hirtenstimme_, published by

Weyl, against which Wyneken protested in 1845, at Philadelphia. But his

appeal for true Lutheranism over against Reformedism impressed the

General Synod merely as funny (spasshaft), and his motion in the matter

was tabled. Wyneken was compelled to sever his connection with a body

whose every prominent feature was Reformed. The confessional Resolution

adopted 1864 at York rejects, as will be explained later, the Lutheran

doctrines of the real presence, absolution, and the Sunday. The minutes

of the General Synod contain frequent resolutions in favor of the

sectarian views of the Sabbath, total abstinence, the introduction of

the Bible into the State schools, etc. At New York, 1848, Synod declared

"that we heartily approve of the 'New York City Temperance Society,

organized on Christian principles,' and believe it to be the only system

of operation that will be ultimately successful and triumphant; that we

commend this Society to the attention of the Synods in connection with

this body, and to our churches generally, and urge them to prosecute

this great and philanthropic enterprise upon the Christian principles

adopted by this Society." (8.) At Harrisburg, 1885, the resolutions were

adopted "that we do hereby declare our belief in the divine authority of

the Christian Sabbath as a day of sacred rest and religious instruction

and worship of Almighty God; that we recommend to the respective Synods

of the General Synod that they take such action from time to time as

shall lead to more frequent and earnest appeals from all the pulpits of

our Church upon this all-important subject; that with uplifted hands to

that God who is the Father of us all we unceasingly implore that the day

be hastened when all the earth shall be freed from the power of sin, and

when life shall be one universal Sabbath to the ends of the earth."

(69.) (_Proceedings_ 1848,44; 1853,28; 1864,45; 1883,46; 1887,61; etc.)

In 1854 T. N. Kurtz of Baltimore published a "Lutheran Almanac,"

featuring on its title-page the pictures of Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin

as "those great Reformers," and listing as "great theologians of the

Lutheran Church" also the names of Herder, Paulus, Ammon, Bretschneider,

Wegscheider, Gesenius, Roehr, etc. (_Lutheraner_ 10,15.) This is a

true-to-life picture of the General Synod in her palmiest days--

Zwinglianism, Methodism, Rationalism being the most protruding features.

(4,198.)

45. Verdict of Contemporaries.--In his pamphlet _The Distress of the

German Lutherans in America_, Wyneken said with special reference to the

English part of the General Synod: "They have totally fallen away from

the faith of the fathers. Though enthusiastic over the name 'Lutheran'

and zealous in spreading the so-called 'Lutheran' Church, they, in a

most shameful and foolhardy manner, attack the doctrines of our Church

and seek to spread their errors in sermons, periodicals, and newspapers,

notably the doctrines of Baptism and the Lord's Supper and the connected

important doctrines of grace, of the two natures in Christ, etc. ...

Besides, they are ardent advocates of 'new measures' and altogether

Methodistic in their method of conversion." In 1845, after severing his

connection with the General Synod on account of its refusal to renounce

the Reformed doctrines and usages advocated by Schmucker, Kurtz, and

Weyl, Wyneken denounced the General Synod as "Reformed in doctrine,

Methodistic in practise, and laboring for the ruin of the Church, whose

name she falsely bears." (_Lutheraner_ 1845,96.) In a letter to Walther,

dated December 11, 1844, Dr. Sihler wrote: "Our main enemies here in

Ohio are not only the Methodists, but also the false brethren, the

so-called General Synod, which, as generally known, is decidedly

Reformed in the doctrine of the Sacraments, and in its practise

decidedly Methodistic." Again, in 1858, Sihler branded Kurtz, Schmucker,

and others as "open counterfeiters, Calvinists, Methodists, Unionists,

and traitors and destroyers of the Lutheran Church." (_L. u. W._ 1858,

137.) The _Lutheran Standard_, October 27, 1847, declared: "History has

already recorded it for posterity that the General Synod is not an

Evangelical Lutheran body, inasmuch as it fails to adhere to just those

doctrines by which the Evangelical Lutheran Church differs from other

denominations. History declares that the General Synod has expressly

and without disguise renounced the distinctive doctrines of Lutheranism,

and at the same time declared herself in favor of Union and Methodistic

practise." (_Lutheraner_ 2,56; 4,46.) The _Evangelical Lutheran_,

published at Springfield, O., remarked that Schmucker and his compeers

were engaged in selling Reformed goods under the trademark of

Lutheranism. (April 9, 1868.) Dr. Mann, who himself for many years had

intimate connections with Philip Schaff, wrote in the _Lutherische

Zeitschrift_ of November 17, 1866: "It is the peculiarity of the

un-Lutheran party [of the General Synod] that it is essentially

committed to Reformed sentiments. Dr. Schmucker has long ago openly

confessed views which are in open conflict with the doctrines of the

Lutheran symbols, but harmonize with those of the Reformed confessions,

especially of the Zwinglian type. In this sense many of his publications

are written, and in this sense he has taught for many, many years in a

Lutheran seminary. He is inspired by a Zwinglian-Reformed spirit, and

has endeavored to imbue his scholars with it. It has never dawned on him

and them what is properly the Lutheran view of Christianity. He himself

has not the least sympathy for it." (Spaeth, _A. Mann_, 189 f.) In 1873

the _Lutheran Visitor_ in the South charged the General Synod with

fostering disloyalty to, and causing defections from, the Lutheran

Church by destroying the peculiarly distinctive marks of Lutheranism.

(_L. u. W._ 1873,94.)

REVIVALISM.

46. "Justification by Sensation."--According to the Bible and the

Lutheran Church the divine measures for converting sinners are the

preaching of the pure Gospel and the administering of the unadulterated

Sacraments. "New-measurism," then, as the very term indicates, is a

human makeshift. Indeed, the Lutheran Church approves of all methods,

also new measures, which merely serve to bring the divine means of grace

into motion and men in contact with them. But it condemns all methods

and measures, new or old, which hinder or corrupt or eliminate the

divine means of grace. The new measures introduced by revivalism,

however, are just such corruptions of, and substitutes for, the divine

means of grace. "Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of

God"--of this truth New-measurism is a denial _in toto_. New-measurism

denies the Gospel-truth that God is already reconciled and has already

pardoned sinners. It denies that this pardon is freely offered in the

unconditional promises of God's Word and in the Sacraments, the seals

of grace. It denies that justifying and saving faith is the mere trust

in these promises of God. It denies that faith in these promises alone

engenders divine assurance of pardon. It mistakes, as C. P. Krauth put

it, justification by sensation for justification by faith. (Spaeth 2,

35.) It holds that one cannot be assured of grace without certain

peculiar sensations, emotions, and feelings in his heart. It denies that

faith is purely a gift of God, and teaches that man must cooperate in

his own conversion. It insists that special measures must be resorted to

in order to frighten men into doing their share of conversion, and to

produce the emotional and neurotic conditions which warrant assurance of

grace. As such measures it prescribes emotional appeals, shrieking and

shouting in preaching and praying, special prayer-meetings, the anxious

bench, protracted meetings, camp-meetings, etc. Revivalism brands men as

spiritually dead and unconverted who, like Walther and Wyneken, base

their assurance of grace, not on alleged feelings and spiritual

experiences, but on the clear and unmistakable promises of God in His

Word and Sacraments. New-measurism condemns and ridicules the old

methods of catechetical instruction, doctrinal preaching, and of

administering the Sacraments as spiritually ineffective and productive

merely of head Christianity and dead orthodoxy. "Jist git the spirit

started," said a Methodist to C. P. Krauth, "and then it works like

smoke." "Very much like smoke, I guess," answered Krauth. (1,67.)

Indeed, Pelagianists, who believe that conversion is a mere outward

moral improvement, effected by man's own free will; Romanists, who teach

that man can and must by his own efforts and works earn the grace of

God; Arminians and Synergists, who believe in man's ability to cooperate

in his own conversion and salvation; Calvinists, who, denying universal

grace, base their insurance on special marks of grace in their own

hearts and lives; Reformedists and enthusiasts, who deny that Word and

Sacraments are the only means of grace, collative as well as operative;

Pietists, who insist that the terrors of conscience must be of a

peculiar nature and degree, and that faith must be accompanied by a

happiness and a sanctification of a special kind and measure before a

sinner may fully be assured of his pardon and conversion,--they all may

be, and, in fact, naturally are, in sympathy with one or the other form

of New-measurism and revivalism; but Lutherans, who believe in a Gospel

of real pardon and power--never. If the Lutheran doctrine of grace and

the means of grace is Scriptural, then the work-nerve-and-emotion

Christianity of New-measurism is wrong, and _vice versa_. Not

Lutheranism, but Arminianism, Enthusiasm, and Reformedism are the

premises of revivalism. The fact that New-measurism was enthusiastically

hailed, defended, and extensively introduced by her leading men, is but

a further proof that the spirit then rampant in the General Synod was

not the spirit of Lutheranism.

47. Lutherans Vying with the Fanatics.--The pietism and unionism of

Muhlenberg and his colaborers was the door through which, in the days of

Wesley and Whitefield, revivalism had found an early, though limited,

entrance into the Lutheran Church. And in the course of its history the

General Synod was zealous in cultivating and developing the evil

inheritance of their fathers. It sounds like a warning against the

threatening contagion when D. F. Schaeffer, in the Pastoral Letter of

1831, admonishes: "Let us faithfully adhere to the Word of God and

follow its precepts unswervingly; let us not follow after those whose

enthusiastic behavior is more apt to promote disorder and confusion than

true edification. Against such we would warn in a most friendly manner,

even if they be never so beloved. As Lutherans we admonish you: 'Be ye

therefore followers of God, as dear children; and walk in love, as

Christ also hath loved us, and hath given Himself for us an offering and

a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savor.'" (25.) But the General

Synod herself had already opened the door for, and encouraged, the

movement. According to Chapter XVI of the constitution adopted 1829 for

the District Synods, the annual Special Conferences were to meet for two

days, especially in order "by practical preaching to awaken and convert

sinners and to edify believers." (41.) In the following year the

Hartwick Synod was organized, in order more fully to satisfy the craving

of their members for revivals. At the convention of the General Synod at

Frederick, 1831, a committee reported that the Hartwick Synod, having

unanimously voted to join the General Synod, was divided into two

conferences which were to meet as often as possible, and whose chief

business it was "by earnest and practical sermons to awaken and convert

sinners, and to encourage and edify Christians." (9.) At Baltimore,

1833, the Ohio Synod was censured for certain utterances against the

"new measures" adopted within the General Synod. Finding revivalism in

the Hartwick Synod not advanced enough, a few of its members, in 1837,

organized the Franckean Synod, in order to press "new measures" to the

extreme. On the Hartwick Synod the withdrawal acted as an impulse for a

greater activity in the same direction. At Chambersburg, 1839, a

committee reported on the meeting of this synod held in 1838: "We take

particular pleasure in remarking that the proceedings of this Synod,

especially the statements contained in the annual address of its

President, afford the most satisfactory evidence that this Synod is

decidedly in favor of revivals of religion. Protracted meetings have

been held in various parts, and the Lord has especially blessed them;

from which we have reason to believe that true and undefiled religion

is more and more abounding within its limits. All the religious

operations of the day, such as Tract Societies, Temperance Societies,

etc., etc., enjoy the hearty support of this Synod." (13.) The minutes

of the General Synod, of the District Synods, the _Lutheran Observer_,

etc., soon began to teem with reports on revivals, visitations,

outpourings, refreshing showers, etc. (_L. u. W._ 1857, 27.) At the

convention of the Maryland Synod in Frederick, 1842, Harkey proposed the

publication of the _Revivalist_, a monthly to be devoted to the history

and defense of revivals, revival intelligence, the best measures and

means of promoting and managing revivals--a plan which Synod declined as

"inexpedient." At the same convention B. Kurtz, the advocate of the

wildest revivalism, succeeded in having a committee appointed to draft a

minute expressive of the views of Synod in regard to "new measures." The

report was discussed for two days, when it was referred back to the

committee, and at the next meeting of Synod the committee was excused

from further consideration of the subject. (Spaeth 1, 111.) As late as

1876 the _American Lutheran_ declared that the great majority of the

pastors and congregations of the General Synod favored revivals; that

they managed them on the lines of those conducted by Moody and Sankey;

that some of the congregations employed sectarian preachers for

protracted meetings. (_L. u. W._ 1876, 182.) When, in 1877, the

_American Lutheran_ merged into the _Observer_, Dr. Conrad solemnly

promised to continue defending revivalism. (_L. u. W._ 1877, 60.) In

1908, referring to revivals still occasionally reported in the

_Observer_, the _Lutherische Herold_ remarked that this sort of

enthusiasm, formerly the rule in the Eastern and Central States, had as

yet not nearly died out, _e. g._, in the General Synod congregations of

Eastern and Central Pennsylvania. (_L. u. W._ 1908, 322.) Down to 1918

occasional revivals were held or participated in by congregations and

ministers of the General Synod. Several years ago Rev. Bell cooperated

in a revival conducted by Billy Sunday in Toledo, etc. According to

_Church Work and Observer_, November 9, 1916, the General Synod church

at Gettysburg, Pa., conducted a joint revival with Presbyterians,

Methodists, and United Brethren.

48. "The Lever of Archimedes."--In the revival agitation which swept

over America in the decades following 1830 practically all of the

English Lutheran churches (the German churches, in part, stood aloof)

caught the contagion in a malignant form and in great numbers. While

even Prof. J. W. Nevin, Schaff's colleague at Mercersburg, in his book

_The Anxious Bench_ (1844), antagonized the extravagances of a movement

which was germane to his own church, Lutherans such as Schmucker, Kurtz,

Harkey, Passavant, and many others, became extremists in practising,

and fanatics in advocating, "new measures" as the most needful and only

effective methods of accelerating and deepening conversion and reviving

the Lutheran Church. Vying in their wild extravagances with the most

fanatical of the sects, Lutherans, in not a few places, condemned as

spiritually dead formalists, head and memory Christians, all who adhered

to the sound principles and old ways of Lutheranism. (Gerberding, _The

Way of Life_, 197 ff.) S. L. Harkey, himself a fiery New-measurist,

describes a revival held in connection with the convention of the Synod

of the West, in 1839, as follows: "In an instant every soul in the house

was upon the knees, and remained there weeping and praying for mercy."

"The whole congregation became more or less moved. The place became

truly awful and glorious, and it seemed that the time had come when a

decided effort must be made upon the kingdom of darkness, and that under

such circumstances to shrink from the task and, through fear of

producing a little temporary disorder, to refuse to go heartily into the

work, would have been nothing short of down right spiritual murder." "At

one time during the meeting it was found necessary to invite the

mourners to withdraw from the church and remove to the parsonage that

the synod might have an opportunity to proceed with the transaction of

business before it." (Neve, 97.) Dr. Kurtz wrote in the _Observer_ of

November 17, 1843: "The so-called 'anxious bench' is the lever of

Archimedes, which by the blessing of God can raise our German churches

to that degree of respectability in the religious world which they ought

to enjoy." (Neve, 95.) The _Lutheran Observer_ of March 21, 1862, while

defending revivalism and misrepresenting the "symbolism" of the

Missourians as the doctrine according to which one is saved by the

Sacraments _ex opere operato_, without repentance and faith, condemns

the Lutheran system of baptizing, catechizing, confirming, communing at

the Lord's Supper, etc., as Romanism and Sacramentalism, as unbiblical

and not at all the religion of Christ and His apostles, as fundamentally

wrong and utterly ineffective, and disgusting also to Lutherans, as

soon as they were enlightened by the Spirit of God. The _Observer_

continues: The success of Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, and even

of the Congregationalists among the Germans is due to revivals. "The

Lutheran Church in Germany and in this country is in need of religious

revivals. Nothing else will save them." (_L. u. W._ 1862, 152.) In 1900,

reporting numerous conversions in consequence of revivals held in

congregations of the General Synod, the _Observer_ remarked: "If half a

dozen of our best preachers would turn evangelists--no greater blessing

could come to our Church." (_L. u. W._ 1900, 179.) The _Lutheran World_,

January 17, 1901: "In our own General Synod any of our churches came to

look upon the Catechism as unfriendly to vital piety, and they cast it

out. Today even there are still those among us who oppose and resist the

use of the Catechism under the false notion that it is the enemy of

practical religion. Their idea of religion is the Methodistic notion.

Fitness for church-membership, according to their view, comes through

the pressure and appointments of the big meeting. Sinners must come to a

bench for mourning, or they must stand up in the congregation, or they

must hold their hands, or they must send in their card asking for the

prayers of the church. Human devices and appointments are fixed on as

requisites for having a genuine conversion and being filled with the

Spirit of God. This is Romanism in disguise." (_L. u. W._ 1901, 54.)

49. Reports on Revivals.--To what an extent over a long period revivals

were indulged in by the congregations of the General Synod appears from

its minutes. The Committee on the State of the Church reported in 1857:

"Revivals have been enjoyed in every quarter, many souls have been added

to the Lord, and whilst the congregations have thus been largely

increased, there is every reason to anticipate that the addition thus

secured for the ranks of the ministry will not be a small one." (30.) In

1859: "The most extensive and powerful revivals of religion ever known

among us have been enjoyed by a very large number of our churches during

the past two years." (59.) In 1864: "Frequent and extensive revivals and

numerous additions to the Church are reported by the brethren." (55.) In

1866: "Many of our churches are rejoicing in special seasons of grace,

refreshings from on high, revivals of religion, in which sinners are

converted, whilst God's people are awakening to new life." (42.) In

1869: "Revivals of religion have been quite general during the year, and

many have been born into the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ." (59.) In

1875: "In most of the synods there have been seasons of special extended

quickening. Large numbers have professed conversion. In some instances

hundreds have been added to a single church in a twelvemonth." (23.) In

1848 the Synod of Western Virginia reported: "Almost all our churches

have been blessed with revivals of religion. In some upwards of one

hundred persons have professed to have passed from death unto life; in

others seventy-five, in others fifty, and in some not so many." (45.) In

1859: "The two institutions, Roanoke College and Wytheville Female

College, have also been blessed with gracious visitations from on high,

which resulted in the conversion of a number of students in both

institutions." (53.) The Virginia Synod, in 1859: "We have shared to

some extent the great revival blessings which God has poured out upon

the land." (51.) The New York Ministerium, in 1850: "The churches

generally are in a state of prosperity, and many of them have been

favored with special visitations of the Holy Spirit." (31.) In 1859:

"The great revival has had its influence upon our churches; many have

been added to our number, and the vital piety has increased." (61.) The

Synod of West Pennsylvania, in 1850: "Interesting revivals of religion

have occurred since the last General Synod in different places." (29.)

In 1853: "The influences of the Holy Spirit have descended as the dew

upon the labors of most of them, whilst there have been refreshing

showers in the case of many. Revivals are known to have been enjoyed by

eight of the pastoral districts within the last two years. This number

embraces nearly half of the charges of the Synod. Some of these gracious

seasons were of great power, resulting in the hopeful conversion of many

souls, and furnishing a number of students having the ministry in view."

(28.) In 1859: "Nearly all the churches have enjoyed revivals of

religion more or less extensive; conversions have been numerous." (49.)

In 1864: "In some pastorates there have been special awakenings, and

many have been added to the Church of Christ." (55.) In 1871: "Many of

the churches have been blessed with precious seasons of refreshing

grace." (44.) East Pennsylvania Synod, in 1850: "Many sections of the

Church have been blessed with special visitations of the Spirit of God."

(32.) In 1862 the Synod of Central Pennsylvania reported: "In mercy God

poured out His Spirit upon a number of the charges and congregations,

and many souls professed conversion; and although the sad effects of the

war are, in this Synod, clearly seen in her churches, still we are happy

to state that much good has been accomplished." (45.) In 1871: "There

have been extensive awakenings in several of our pastorates, and there

is a steady and commendable progress in spiritual attainments

generally." (47.) The Hartwick Synod, in 1853: "Precious seasons of

refreshing have been vouchsafed to its churches. The Lord is in the

midst of His people, making glad their hearts with the tokens of His

presence and His love." (30.) In 1862: "Although there have not been,

within the past three years, revivals so numerous and so extensive as in

the two years previous, yet seasons of refreshing have been enjoyed on

the part of many of the churches, and such progress made as to evince

the Lord's presence and blessing." (41.) In 1804: "In several of our

churches the Lord has graciously revived His work, believers have been

quickened into higher life, and sinners have been converted." (57.) In

1871: "Many of our congregations have enjoyed special seasons of grace,

and large accessions to the Church have been the result." (44.) In 1859

the Alleghany Synod reported: "Extensive revivals have been enjoyed and

a large number of members added." (52.) In 1862: "The Synod has had some

precious revivals of religion in many of its congregations. In many

respects the Synod has prospered in vital piety." (42.) In 1869: "Some

of the charges have made large additions, as results of religious

awakenings, during the past winter." (58.) The Melanchthon Synod, in

1859: "Extensive revivals of religion have been enjoyed in many of the

congregations, and large additions have been made to the membership."

(58.) In 1862: "The churches within the bounds of this Synod enjoyed

extensive revivals during the first two years after the last meeting of

the General Synod, at which time the rebellion, so disastrous to both

State and Church, took place and blasted many of our most cherished

enterprises, and laid low many of our fondest hopes. During the past

year, accessions to the Church within our bounds have been comparatively

few, revivals of religion rare, whilst there has been a marked decline

in vital godliness." (46.) In 1869: "During the past year quite a number

of revivals of religion have occurred." (59.) The Synod of Kentucky, in

1859: "Some of our charges have enjoyed revivals of religion, which

greatly refreshed both ministers and people, and considerably increased

our numerical strength." (57.) The Maryland Synod, in 1859: "Extensive

revivals have been enjoyed by many of the churches." (49.) The Synod of

New Jersey, in 1862: "Our body has an existence of only one year. Yet we

have enjoyed revivals of religion." (42.) In 1869: "A number of revivals

of religion have been reported." (61.) In 1871: "Several of our churches

have enjoyed seasons of special religious interest and revival." (48.)

The Franckean Synod, in 1869: "Practical religion has been well

sustained. Several precious revivals have been enjoyed." (62.) In 1871:

"Synod is engaged with more or less success in establishing and

unfolding a true religious life in the membership of the Church of God

as the grand object of being, endeavoring to promote revivals of

religion." (48.) The Susquehanna Synod, in 1869: "This Synod is in a

prosperous condition. During the past year, and, more particularly,

during the past winter, extensive revivals of religion were enjoyed and

large numbers of souls hopefully converted to God and added to the

Church." (62.) In 1871: "There has been a large increase in the

membership, mostly through judiciously conducted protracted meetings and

catechization." (48.)

50. Reports on Revivals (continued).--In 1869 the Synod of New York

reported: "Some of the congregations have been visited with special

showers of divine grace, and, as a consequence, large additions have

been made to its membership." (58.) The English Synod of Ohio, in 1853:

"There are but few congregations in connection with our Synod but what

have, during the past year, enjoyed greater or less manifestations of

the Spirit of God in the conversion of sinners." (34.) The East Ohio

Synod, in 1859: "In all of our churches most precious seasons of grace

were enjoyed. The Spirit of God 'came down like rain upon the mown

grass,' and righteousness flourished in all our borders." (52.) In 1862:

"The state of religion is healthy. The past few years have been marked

with the gifts of the Divine Spirit, and, while sinners have been

converted to God, the professed people of Christ have been stadily [sic]

growing in spirituality and church-love." (43.) In 1869: "We have had

many precious seasons of revival during the past year, and large

accessions to the number of those who shall be saved." (59.) In 1871:

"Many precious revivals of religion have been recorded, and large

accessions have been made to the churches." (45.) The Olive Branch

Synod, in 1853: "Almost all the churches connected with this Synod,

during the year, enjoyed precious revivals of religion." (37.) In 1859:

"Many of them have enjoyed refreshing seasons from the presence of the

Lord, by which they have become much strengthened and encouraged."

(54.) In 1862: "The churches are, with few exceptions, in a prosperous

condition. Some of them have enjoyed seasons of refreshing." (43.) In

1871: "A number of charges have had precious seasons of revival,

resulting in large additions to their membership. The state of religion

in our churches is more favorable than it had been in the few years

previous." (46.) The Miami Synod, in 1859: "Revivals have been enjoyed

in almost every charge, and large numbers have been brought to the

knowledge of the truth." (52.) In 1871: "Several of them have enjoyed

special seasons of grace." (45.) The Synod of Iowa, in 1859: "Some of

the churches have been visited by revivals of religion, and there a more

healthful state of piety is seen." (58.) In 1862: "The most extensive

revivals of religion ever known among us have been enjoyed during the

past winter. Our laity are becoming more of a praying as well as a

working people. A deeper tone of piety exists among us. There is more

heartfelt and prayerful longing for the gracious outpouring of the

blessing of God, and more earnest efforts are being put forth for the

conversion and salvation of souls. It is therefore our decided

conviction that at no former period of our brief history have we been so

fully and generally awakened to our great mission in this distant West

as at the present." (46.) The Synod of Northern Illinois, in 1859: "Our

Swedish and Norwegian brethren are very active, and a living practical

Christianity is making powerful progress among them. During the last two

years extensive and powerful revivals have been enjoyed by many of the

churches connected with this Synod." (54.) In 1871: "A number of

refreshing seasons of divine grace has been enjoyed during the past two

years." (47.) The Synod of Northern Indiana, in 1859: "In the last two

years many of its churches have enjoyed revivals of religion." (57.) In

1862: "Many precious revivals of religion have been enjoyed." (44.) The

Wittenberg Synod, in 1859: "During the past two years our churches have

enjoyed the special visitations of the Holy Spirit and the number of our

members has been greatly enlarged." (52.) The Synod of Illinois, in

1859: "Many of the churches have enjoyed refreshing seasons from the

presence of the Lord, and vital piety is advancing." (53.) The Synod of

Southern Illinois, in 1862; "Some of our congregations have enjoyed

refreshing showers from the presence of the Lord, during the last

winter, and are in prosperous condition." (46.) In 1864: "Amid all

these hindrances, some of the churches have been revived by gracious

outpourings of the Spirit." (59.) In 1869: "Although new elements of

wickedness, such as rationalism, pantheism, etc., are making their way

into our midst, yet Christians are awake to their baneful influences

and are setting themselves against them." (61.)

51. Coming to Their Senses Gradually.--New-measurism was resorted to by

the General Synod in order to revive the dying Church. The true cause of

her apathy, atrophy, and decay, however, was not diagnosed correctly. It

was the prevailing confessional indifference, religious ignorance, and

the neglect of Lutheran indoctrination by catechization, especially of

the young. Dr. Hazelius, himself a revivalist, as early as 1845, pointed

out the real cause and cure. "The attachment of the Church"--said he--

"has been weakened so much that the causes of this alarming fact have

frequently been made the subject of inquiry in our churchpaper

[_Observer_], and we are sorry to say that among all the causes

assigned, we have missed the one which is at the root of the evil,

_viz._, the remissness of many of our pastors in the religious

instruction of youths." (Wolf, _Lutherans in America_, p. 484.) If this

was the disease, it stands to reason that a cure could not be brought

about by the quack methods of New-measurism, by exciting the nerves and

emotions, but only by enlightening the mind and moving the will by the

Word of God. Pastor Loehe, presenting in _Kirchliche Mitteilungen_ of

1843 a description of revivals and camp-meetings in America, remarked:

"They intoxicate themselves with spiritual drinks which are worse than

whisky." (Nos. 2 and 5.) Indeed, Methodistic revivalism has been found

wanting, and worse than wanting, everywhere. In a Lutheran congregation

it must necessarily result in a total annihilation of whatever there

may be left of true Lutheranism.--The inoperativeness of revivalism was

occasionally admitted also by its friends within the General Synod. At

New York, 1848, regretting the decrease in the number of theological

students, the Executive Committee of the Parent Education Society

stated: "This subject becomes more painful when we consider that since

1842, when the Church at large was blessed with extensive revivals of

religion, the number of beneficiaries has diminished constantly until

the present time, whilst there has been no corresponding increase

perceptible in the number of theological students who sustain

themselves. During the same time there has been no corresponding

increase in the benevolence of the Church in any other direction; on the

contrary, the contributions of the whole Church for all benevolent

purposes may now be easily covered by the annual charities of a single

congregation in this city." (64.) But the ministers and congregations of

the General Synod were slow in coming to their senses. It was one of the

symptoms pointing in the right direction when, in 1864 at York, the

Committee on the State of the Church reported: "It is a hopeful sign of

substantial growth and prosperity in the Church that the time-honored

custom of catechization is coming more and more into favor with the

pastors. This means of preparing the baptized children of the Church for

an intelligent profession of faith in Christ and the privilege of

communicant membership, had, in many places, fallen into neglect on

account of the frequent abuse to which it had been subject in the hands

of those who employed it as a mere formal mode of introducing the young

to the communion without any evidence of piety; but we believe it is now

becoming more and more a means of conversion and salvation to our rising

membership." (1864,55.) At Altoona, 1881, the same committee presented

the following report, which Synod adopted: "Ministers, from every

quarter, report with delight that catechization is regularly practised

and grows in favor. We are foolish to throw away this noble heritage. It

affords, as nothing else, an opportunity for the children of the Church

to become professing Christians. The pastor can train, educate, and

indoctrinate them through it. By its help our churches, every year, can

have a healthful growth, and not depend alone upon special seasons, or

revivals of religion. We, therefore, may expect in the future still

larger accessions--accessions which, trained by a godly and devoted

ministry, should be, not nominal, but living Christians, understanding

the great truths and doctrines of the Word of God." (60.) In the

following decades, as related, revivals decreased rapidly within the

General Synod. A thorough and permanent cure of the Methodistic

infection, however, can be effected only by the doctrine of grace, the

Gospel of unconditional pardon and truly divine power, as taught by the

Lutheran Church.

"AMERICAN LUTHERANISM."

52. A Misnomer.--Essentially Americanism signifies liberty of thought,

speech, press, and assemblage, based on democracy and national

independence, religious freedom and equality being its most precious

gem. Lutheranism, therefore, standing, as it does, for the complete

separation of State and Church, as well as liberty and equal religious

rights for all, is inherently American; while the Reformed confessions,

inasmuch as they advocate religious intolerance, civil legislation

favoring their own religious tenets, etc., are in conflict with the

principles of American freedom. A Reformedist, in order to become a true

American, must sacrifice some of his confessional teachings, while the

Lutheran symbols are in need of no purging to bring them into harmony

with American ideals. Indeed, in the atmosphere of American liberty the

Lutheran Church, for the first time in her history, on a large scale was

able to develop naturally and normally by consistent practical

application of her own innate principles, without any corrupting or

dwarfing coercion on the part of the State whatsoever. Yet the very man,

Dr. Walther, who did more than any other theologian in America towards

the building up of a Church at once truly Lutheran and truly American,

was stigmatized by S. S. Schmucker and his compeers as a "foreign

symbolist," neither Lutheran nor American. But the brand of American

Lutheranism proposed and propagated by the leaders of the General Synod

was, in reality, a counterfeit American Lutheranism. The new school

movement, headed by Schmucker, Kurtz, and Sprecher, and constantly

prating "American Lutheranism," was essentially Calvinistic,

Methodistic, Puritanic, indifferentistic, and unionistic, hence nothing

less than truly Lutheran. From his professor's chair and in the press

Schmucker denied and assailed every doctrine distinctive of Lutheranism.

In every issue of the _Observer_ B. Kurtz ridiculed and attacked what

was most sacred to Luther and most prominent in the Lutheran

Confessions. In this he was seconded by Weyl in _Lutherische

Hirtenstimme_ and other publications in the General Synod. Thus, while

professing and pretending to Americanize the Lutheran Church, the

leaders of the General Synod, in reality, were zealous in denaturing,

corrupting, and inoculating it with views and ways prevailing in the

Reformed churches ever since the days of Zwingli, Bucer, Calvin, and

Wesley. The coryphaei of the General Synod, in order to impart to the

Lutheran Church, as they put it, "the warmth of Methodism and the vigor

of Presbyterianism," disemboweled their own Church of heart and lungs,

and filled the empty skin with sectarian stuffings. American

Lutheranism, according to Schmucker, was not Lutheranism in sympathy

with American institutions and the English language, but abolition of

the Lutheran symbols and rejection of the Lutheran doctrines

(absolution, real presence, baptismal regeneration, etc.) in favor of

the corresponding Reformed tenets and the nine articles of the

Evangelical Alliance. Reynolds said in a letter of January 7, 1850: "The

fact is, there is a large body of men in our Church who have no

knowledge of her history, no sympathy with her doctrines, no idea of her

true character, and whose conception of the Church is that of a kind of

mongrel Methodistic Presbyterianism, and of this party Drs. S. S.

Schmucker and Kurtz are the coryphaei." (Spaeth 1,179.) In 1873 _Lehre

und Wehre_ wrote: "So-called American Lutheranism is but a new edition

of Zwinglianism, which, in a dishonest fashion, appropriates the

Lutheran name. The more one agrees with Zwingli and disagrees with the

16th century Lutheranism, the more genuine an American Lutheran he is."

(29.)

53. Spirit of the Movement.--The true inwardness of the "American

Lutheranism" with which the General Synod was infected from its very

birth, and which reached its crisis in the Definite Platform of 1855,

was revealed in all its nakedness by the _American Lutheran,_ a paper

into which the _Lutherische Kirchenbote_ of Selinsgrove, Pa., had been

transformed in 1865. Its standpoint is characterized by _Lehre und

Wehre_ as being beneath that of the _Observer_ "the hollowest so-called

American Lutheranism, a concoction of rationalism and sentimentalism."

(1865,61.) When Prof. Sternberg, a fanatical anti-symbolist (opponent

of the Lutheran Confessions), had been removed from Hartwick Seminary,

the _American Lutheran_, June 22, 1865, wrote: "The days when

compromises with and concessions to symbolism were made are passed. If a

clash between symbolism and American Lutheranism is unavoidable within

the General Synod, the sooner it comes, the better it is." (_L. u, W._

1865, 253.) In its issue of July 20, 1865, the _American Lutheran_

published a number of letters in which the hope is expressed that the

day was near when the Lutheran Church in America would shake off the

yoke of symbolism and step forward, recognized by the great Protestant

world. "The attempt"--the correspondent continues--"to live in one and

the same house with the symbolists is useless. We thank God that we have

a paper which says in its first year: No compromise any longer with

symbolism! Hallelujah! May the whole Church hear it." (_L. u. W._ 1865,

277.) Revealing both its ignorance and animus, the _American Lutheran_,

Rev. Anstaedt then being the editor, said in its issue of January 24,

1867: "The difference between the symbolists [Lutherans true to their

Confessions] and American Lutherans is a radical one, going down to the

innermost heart of Christianity and involving eternal interests, the

salvation and hope of immortal souls. The _American Lutheran_ believes

that religion is a personal and individual matter, while the symbolist

believes that it is but a congregational matter. Their articles of faith

are: 1. All men are born in sin. 2. The Church must redeem us from sin.

3. The Church consists of the priests and the Sacraments. 4. The priests

have the power on earth to administer the Sacraments and to forgive

sins. 5. The Sacraments have in themselves the power to save. 6. Baptism

regenerates the child. 7. The Lord's Supper nourishes the seed implanted

in Baptism. 8. Hence man is not saved by the individual experience of

something, but in a mass. I know that our symbolists will say that this

is slander. But I affirm that it is a sincere and honest presentation of

the matter.... The advocates of symbolism probably have never been

converted, or they have backslidden again. This is a severe judgment. So

it is. But must we not judge them by their fruits? How many souls have

been converted by these symbolists? Go into their congregations and

speak to their members on religion; what do they know of it? In 19 out

of 20 cases their members, when awakened, seek Christ in other churches.

We have held back too long with our testimony. I fear that by our

negligence souls have gone to hell. And what have we won by our

pusillanimity? The advocates of symbolism have grown and become more

impudent by their success." (_L. u. W._ 1867, 88.) In a subsequent issue

the same paper, after boldly defending the baldest Zwinglianism,

remarked with respect to the symbolists that, in a way, their success

involved a certain blessing, inasmuch as they would serve as "an

ecclesiastical sewer into which sooner or later the dead formalism, the

cold, heartless ritualism, and the lager-beer Lutheranism of this

country would find its way." (_L. u. W._ 1867, 125.) Even the _Lutheran

Observer_ was censured by the _American Lutheran_ for becoming too

conservative. (_L. u. W._ 1875, 375.) But the difference was one of

degree only. In its issue of October 3, 1873, the _Observer_ charged the

Germans and Scandinavians, because of their adherence to the Lutheran

Confessions, with sectarian presumption, enmity against other

Christians, foreign bigotry, dead orthodoxy, cold dead faith, etc. "The

position," the _Observer_ continued, "which these bigots assume in our

enlightened land of churches, where the Lord Jesus is more universally

honored than in any other country of the world, is ridiculous.... For

while these short-sighted men set themselves against the liberal and

enlightened spirit of the General Synod and against the times and the

country in which they live, other churches annually lead away thousands

of their most intelligent members." (_L. u. W._ 1873, 375.) Enmity

against Lutheranism--such was the spirit of the counterfeit American

Lutheranism championed by Schmucker and his compeers. Nor is the

assumption warranted that this spirit died with its early protagonists.

In 1885 Dr. Butler characterized the Americanization of Lutherans in the

_Lutheran Observer_ as follows: "It is a great mission of the _Observer_

to open the blind eyes and to convert our Teutonic people from the

fetters of its language and customs to the light and to the liberty of

this Bible-loving, Sabbath-keeping, water-drinking, church-going and

God-fearing country." (_L. u. W._ 1885, 120.) As late as 1906 the

_Observer_ wrote: The General Synod is in possession of the American

spirit in the greatest measure. It is her mission to inject this spirit

into the Lutheran Church in America. This spirit embraces: adoption of

the English language; acknowledgment and toleration of the lodges;

fellowship with the sects. "The American spirit is that of fellowship.

Failure to be American in this is sure to bring us into ridicule and

even disrepute with the mass of the best Christian people of the land."

(_L. u. W._ 1906, 229.)

DEFINITE PLATFORM.

54. Now or Never!--Believing that the Lutheran Confessions, though not

an authority above, or alongside of, the Bible, are doctrinally in

perfect agreement with the Word of God, Walther, Wyneken, Sihler,

Craemer, and others, since 1840, boldly, aggressively, and victoriously

unfurled the banner of Lutheran confessionalism. Gradually, though

timidly and rather inconsistently, the same spirit began to enter, and

manifest itself in, some of the Eastern synods. A conservative tendency

was developing and increasing. Especially since the return of the

Pennsylvania Ministerium in 1853 the number of the so-called

conservatives in the General Synod, who refused to go all the lengths

with Schmucker and Kurtz, was materially strengthened. Among these New

School men the powerful growth of confessionalism in the West and the

silent increase of the conservatives in the larger Eastern synods

gradually began to cause alarm, fear, and consternation. They first

despised and ridiculed the movement as chimerical and utterly futile in

America, then feared, and finally hated and fanatically combated what

they termed "foreign symbolism." They felt the fateful crisis drawing

nearer and nearer. To be or not to be was the question. Nor was there

any time to be lost in protecting the General Synod against what they

regarded as the Western peril. "Now or never!" they whispered. Indeed,

Schmucker and his friends had long ago decided that a new confessional

standard was needed. As early as 1845, at Philadelphia, the General

Synod had appointed Schmucker, Kurtz, Morris, Schmidt, and Pohlman to

formulate and present to the next convention an abstract of the

doctrines and usages of the American Lutheran Church on the order of the

Abstract requested by the Maryland Synod, in 1844. And though, in 1850,

at Charleston, the report of this committee was laid on the table and

the committee discharged from further duty (27), Schmucker did not

abandon the idea of substituting a new "American Lutheran Creed" for the

Augsburg Confession. Moreover, the conviction of the dire need of an

American restatement of Lutheranism grew on him in the same proportion

as confessionalism swept the West and threatened the East. His

brother-in-law, S. Sprecher, was of the same opinion. In 1853 he wrote:

"I hope that this unhappy condition of the Church will not continue

long, and that the churches of the General Synod will do as the churches

of the Augsburg Confession did in 1580--exercise their right to declare

what they regard as doctrines of the sacred Scriptures in regard to all

the points in dispute in the Church. I do not believe that the present

position of the General Synod can long be maintained; it will either

result in the Old-Lutheran men and synods gaining the control of the

General Synod, and reintroducing those doctrines and practises of the

symbols which the churches in this country and everywhere ought to

abandon and condemn, _and say that they do;_ or the friends of the

American Lutheran Church must define what doctrines they do hold, and

what they do reject, and refuse to fraternize with, and to make

themselves responsible for, and to give their influence as a Church in

favor of, men and doctrines and practises which they hold to be

anti-Scriptural and injurious to the spiritual kingdom of Christ. I do

not see how we can do otherwise than adopt the Symbols of the Church, or

form a new symbol, which shall embrace all that is fundamental to

Christianity in them, rejecting what is unscriptural, and supplying what

is defective. _A creed we must have_, or we can have no real church

union, and we must have a catechism which shall be a standard in the

catechetical instruction of our children, in which there shall be no

doctrines which we do not want our children to believe, and which shall,

notwithstanding, be thoroughly orthodox, so that our children may be

made strong in the faith of the Gospel in these times of doctrinal

looseness and confusion. As long as the General Synod regards with equal

favor, and is ready to receive, the Old Lutheran as well as the American

Lutheran Synods, the symbolical men have a vast advantage, and they, no

doubt, regard it as a triumph when the General Synod, meeting after

meeting, continues to hold out its arms to every Lutheran synod, and

recommends as heartily the reviews and institutions which are laboring

to upturn its present foundations, as it does those which are known to

hold the sentiments which it has hitherto fostered." (Spaeth 1, 347.)

Five months before the readmission of the Pennsylvania Synod, Sprecher

declared: "I fear there will be divisions, no matter what course is

taken. As to the hope of gaining over the Symbolic Lutherans, I consider

it altogether delusive. If they ever join the General Synod, it will be

with the hope of controlling it eventually into their own views and for

their own purposes." (353.) Thus, realizing the giant strides which

Western confessionalism had already made, and the steady growth of the

conservative element in the East, and, at the same time, fully

understanding that Lutherans loyal to their Confessions would give no

quarters to a counterfeit substitute of Lutheranism, Schmucker, Kurtz,

Sprecher, and others decided on a _coup d'etat_ in order to force the

issue, to create a test-question, to separate the parties, to eliminate

the "symbolists," and thus forever to make the General Synod immune

against genuine Old School Lutheran confessionalism and safe for their

own mongrel Puritanic-Calvinistic-Methodistic-American Lutheranism.

55. Casting Off the Mask.--In the early part of September, 1855, leading

ministers of the General Synod received a pamphlet: "Definite Platform,

doctrinal and disciplinarian, for Evangelical Lutheran District Synods;

constructed in accordance with the principles of the General Synod."

Spaeth: "The new Confession came without a confessor. It appeared as an

anonymous document, proving by that very fact that the men who concocted

it were not called by God to lead the Church on this Western Continent

to a better, fuller, purer conception and statement of the faith of the

Gospel than that of the Fathers." However, it was not long before

Schmucker was generally known to be its author. Soon after its

publication Krauth, Sr., wrote: "My colleague don't disclaim the

authorship, so that it has a daddy." Ten years later Schmucker wrote:

"Although my friend Dr. Kurtz and myself passed it in review together,

and changed a few words, every sentence of the work I acknowledge to

have been written by myself." (Spaeth 1, 357.) Besides a brief Preface

the Platform contains two parts: 1. "Preliminary Principles and the

Doctrinal Basis or Creed to be subscribed"; 2. "Synodical Disclaimer, or

List of Symbolic Errors, rejected by the Great Body of the Churches

belonging to the General Synod." Part II was not to be individually

subscribed to, but published by Synod as a Disclaimer of the symbolical

errors often imputed to her. (Second edition, 2. 6.) Its chief object,

as appears from the Platform itself, was to obviate the influences of

confessional Lutheranism coming from the West, notably from the Missouri

Synod. The Preface begins: "This Definite Synodical Platform was

prepared and published by consultation and cooperation of ministers of

different Eastern and Western synods, connected with the General Synod,

at the special request of some Western brethren, whose churches desire a

more specific expression of the General Synod's doctrinal basis, being

surrounded by German churches, which profess the entire mass of former

symbols." (2.) Part I expresses the same thought, stating that the

"American Recension of the Augsburg Confession," as Schmucker called the

Platform, had been prepared "at the special request of Western brethren,

whose churches particularly need it, being intermingled with German

churches, which avow the whole mass of the former symbols." (4.)

Furthermore, according to the Platform, Lutherans who believe in private

confession and absolution should not be admitted into the General Synod;

and Part II makes it a point to state: "By the old Lutheran Synod of

Missouri, consisting entirely of Europeans, this rite [private

confession, etc.] is still observed." (25.) Accordingly, in order to

check the progress of the Missouri Synod's Lutheranism, a more specific

declaration of the General Synod's basis was deemed indispensable. In

the interest of truth, they claimed, it was necessary to specify,

without hesitation and reservation, the doctrines of the Augsburg

Confession which were rejected, some by all, others by the great

majority of the General Synod. To satisfy this alleged need of the

Church, the Platform was offered to the District Synods with the

direction, for the sake of uniformity, to adopt it without further

alterations and with the resolution not to receive any minister who will

not subscribe to it. Thus, in publishing the Platform, Schmucker and his

compeers cast off the Lutheran mask and revealed the true inwardness of

their intolerant Reformed spirit--a blunder which served to frustrate

their own sinister objects. The reception which this document met was a

sore disappointment to its author. In the commotion which followed the

publication of the Platform the conservative element was strengthened, a

fact which, a decade later, led to the great secession of 1866, and

gradually also to the present ascendency of the conservatives within the

General Synod, and the subsequent revision of its doctrinal basis,

completed in 1913. H. J. Mann wrote in 1856: "The Platform controversy

will, in the end, prove a blessing. The conservative party will arrive

at a better understanding. In ten years Schmucker has not damaged

himself so much in the public opinion as in the one last year." (Spaeth,

178.)

56. Viewed Historically.--In explanation and extenuation of the Platform

blunder Dr. Mann remarked in 1856: "The more thoroughly we investigate

the history of the Lutheran Church of this country, the better we will

comprehend why all happened just so. No one is particularly guilty; it

is a common misfortune of the times, of the conditions." (Spaeth, 175.)

H. E. Jacobs explains: "The ministers, in most cases, did not obtain

that thorough and many-sided liberal culture which a college course was

supposed to represent, and this was felt also in their theological

training. ... It may serve as a partial explanation of the confusion

that prevailed that there was not a single professor of theology in the

English seminaries in the North who had obtained the liberal training of

a full college course, except the professor of German theology at

Gettysburg. The controversy connected with the 'Definite Platform,'

prepared and published under a supervision characterized by the same

defects, may be more readily understood when this in remembered."

(History, 436.) The explanation offered by Dr. Jacobs might be

reenforced by the report of the Directors of the Seminary in 1839: "It

is to be regretted that the students generally spend so short a time in

theological studies. But few attend to the full course of studies as

laid down in the Constitution. The average time of the stay of the major

part is only about two years. Thus the theological education of those

who go out from the Seminary is necessarily defective." (23.) C. A.

Stork admitted with respect to the students at Gettysburg, notably the

scholars of Prof. J. A. Brown (since 1864): "It is true, our young men

did not know Lutheran theology thoroughly; on many minor points they

were cloudy." (Wolf, _Lutherans_, 371.) Howbeit, explanation does not

spell justification. Nor is it correct to view the Definite Platform as

a mere derailment, a mere incidental blunder, of the General Synod. It

was, on the contrary, the natural result and full development of the

indifferentistic and unionistic germs which the General Synod inherited

and zealously cultivated during the whole course of its history. Dr.

Neve: "If Schmucker and his friends had not made this mistake, now

condemned by history, others would surely try to do so now. These men

therefore have rendered our Church a service. We have learned much from

their mistake." "Sic non canitur"--such indeed is the lesson which

Lutherans may learn not only from the Platform movement, but also from

the greater part of the history of the General Synod.

57. Platform Theology.--The Platform charges the Augsburg Confession

with the following alleged errors: Approval of the ceremonies of the

mass, private confession and absolution, denial of the divine

obligation of the Sunday, baptismal regeneration, the real presence of

the body and blood of the Savior in the Eucharist. Of the Augustana

eleven articles are mutilated and eight (the eleventh and the last

seven) entirely omitted. The following declaration takes the place of

the Eleventh Article: "As private confession and absolution, which are

inculcated in this Article, though in a modified form, have been

universally rejected by the American Lutheran Church, the omission of

this Article is demanded by the principle on which the American

Recension of the A. C. is constructed; namely, to omit the several

portions which are rejected by the great mass of our churches in this

country, and to add nothing in their stead." (11.) In all the articles

the condemnatory sections are omitted. Even the deniers of the Trinity

are not rejected. The Apostles' Creed is purged of "He descended into

hell." The Athanasian Creed is omitted. The rest of the Lutheran

symbols are rejected, on account of their length and alleged errors.

(5.) The Platform declares: "The extraordinary length of the other

former symbolic books as a whole is sufficient reason for their

rejection as a prescribed creed, even if all their contents were

believed to be true.... The exaction of such an extended creed is

subversive of all individual liberty of thought and freedom of

Scriptural investigation." (20.) Part II of the Platform, the

"Synodical Disclaimer," contains a list of the symbolic errors with

extracts from the Lutheran symbols, "which are rejected by the great

body of the American Lutheran Church," to wit: I. Ceremonies of the

mass (A. C., Art. 24; Apology, Art. 12). 2. Exorcism (Luther's

_Taufbuechlein_). 3. Private confession and absolution (A. C., Art.

11. 25. 28). 4. The denial of the divine institution and obligation of

the Christian Sabbath (A. C., Art. 28). 5. Baptismal regeneration (A.

C., Art. 2; Apology, Art. 9; Luther's Catechisms; Visitation Articles,

Art. 3). 6. The outward form of baptism (Large Catechism, Smalcald Art.)

7. Errors concerning the personal or hypostatic union of the two natures

in Christ (Form of Concord, Art. 8). 8. The supposed special

sin-forgiving power of the Lord's Supper (Apol., Art. 12; Catechisms).

9. The real presence of the body and blood of Christ in the Eucharist

(A. C., Art. 10; Apol., Art. 7. 8; Smalcald Art., Art. 6; Small

Catechism; Form of Concord, Art. 7). According to the Platform,

believers in exorcism, in private confession and absolution, and in the

ceremonies of the mass should not be tolerated in the General Synod. To

believers in the real presence, baptismal regeneration, etc., liberty

was to be granted, provided that they regard these doctrines as

nonessential, cooperate peacefully with members rejecting them, and

adopt the Platform. Dr. Mann was right when he characterized the

Platform as "the emasculated Augsburg Confession." (Spaeth, 178.)

58. Spirit of "Synodical Disclaimer."--While the first part of the

Platform eliminates the distinctively Lutheran doctrines, the second

part emphatically condemns them and teaches the opposite tenets of the

Reformed Church. On exorcism the Platform remarks: "In the American

Lutheran Church it was never received, and is regarded as unscriptural,

and highly objectionable, under the most favorable explanation that can

be given it." (23.) On private confession and absolution: "How dangerous

the entire doctrine of absolution and forgiving power of the ministry is

to the spirituality of the Church and to the doctrine of justification

by grace alone through faith in Jesus Christ, is clearly evident." "John

20, 23: 'Whosesoever sins ...' either refers to a miraculous power

bestowed on the apostles to discern the condition of the heart, and to

announce pardon of God to truly penitent individuals; or it confers on

the ministry, in all ages, the power to announce, in general, the

conditions on which God will pardon sinners; but it contains no

authority for applying these promises to individuals, as is done in

private absolution." (26.) On baptismal regeneration: "If Baptism is not

a converting ordinance in adults, it cannot be in infants. ... Of

regeneration, in the proper sense of the term, infants are incapable;

for it consists in a radical change in our religious views of the divine

character, law, etc.; a change in our religious feelings, and in our

religious purposes and habits of action; of none of which are children

capable." Regeneration "must consist mainly in a change of that

_increased_ predisposition to sin arising from action, of that

preponderance of sinful habits formed by voluntary indulgence of our

natural depravity, after we have reached years of moral agency. But

infants have no such _increased_ predisposition, no _habits_ of sin

prior to moral agency, consequently there can be no change of them, no

regeneration in this meaning of the term." "Baptismal regeneration,

either in infants or adults, is therefore a doctrine not taught in the

Word of God, and fraught with much injury to the souls of men, although

inculcated in the former Symbolical Books." (30f.) On the hypostatic

union: "The chief error on this subject is the supposition that the

human and divine natures of Christ, to a certain extent, interchange

attributes. This, in common with all other Protestant churches, we

regard as contrary to the Holy Volume." "The supposition that humanity

in any case acquired some attributes of divinity tends to give

plausibility to the apotheosis of heroes and the pagan worship of the

Virgin Mary." The Platform emphatically condemns the doctrine of Article

8 of the Form of Concord: "Hence we believe, teach, and confess that the

Virgin Mary did not conceive and bring forth simply a mere man, but

_the true Son of God_; for which reason she is also rightly called, and

_she is truly, the mother of God_. ... He consequently now, not only as

God, but _as man_, knows all things, is able to do all things. ... His

flesh is a true, vivifying food, and His blood is a true, vivifying

drink." (35f.) The Platform furthermore rejects the doctrine that the

Lord's Supper "offers forgiveness of sins," and "that the real body and

blood of the Savior are present at the Eucharist, in some mysterious

way, and are received by the mouth of every communicant, worthy or

unworthy." (38f.) The Platform declares: "During the first quarter of

this century the conviction that our Reformers did not purge away the

whole of the Romish error from this doctrine gained ground universally,

until the great mass of the whole Lutheran Church, before the year 1817,

had rejected the doctrine of the real presence." (40.) With respect to

the doctrine that the proper and natural body and blood of Christ are

received in the Lord's Supper, the Platform remarks: "Now we cannot

persuade ourselves that this is the view of a single minister of the

General Synod or of many out of it." (42.)

PLATFORM CONTROVERSY.

59. Champions of the Platform.--"The principal effect of the Definite

Platform," says Dr. Spaeth, "was to open the eyes even of the

indifferent and undecided ones, and to cause them to reflect and to

realize the ultimate designs of the men at the helm of the General

Synod. A storm of indignation burst against the perpetrators of this

attack on the venerable Augustana. Many men who were before numbered

with 'American Lutheranism,' and whose full sympathy with the movement

was confidently expected, had nothing but stern rebuke for it." (1,

360.) Howbeit, the Platform was not in lack of ardent defenders. To some

of the ministers it was not radical enough. Dr. Morris remarks:

"Extremely un-Lutheran, un-churchly, and even rationalistic positions

were assumed by some who defended the Platform." (Wolf, _Lutherans_,

364.) In the _Observer_, December 7, 1855, a correspondent maintained

that it was incorrect to speak of the Augustana as "our confession,"

since of Lutheran theologians not one in twenty was governed in doctrine

and practise by this Symbol. (_L. u. W._ 1856, 28.) In the following

year the _Observer_ published a protest of Rev. Kitz, censuring the

Platform for granting toleration to believers in baptismal regeneration

and the real presence. (_L. u. W._ 1857, 27.) At Gettysburg Seminary,

self-evidently, Schmucker zealously propagated his Reformed theology,

while his brother-in-law, C. F. Schaeffer, who had entered 1856, was the

exponent of a mild confessionalism. E. J. Wolf: "At Gettysburg, in the

same building, one professor in almost every lecture disparaged and

discredited the Confessions, while another one constantly inspired his

students with the highest [?] veneration for them." (_Lutherans_, 441.)

Jacobs: "The students were soon divided, but the gain was constantly

upon the conservative side." (_History_, 427.) But while thus at

Gettysburg conservative influences, in a measure, were counteracting the

Platform theology, Wittenberg Seminary, at Springfield, 0., the

theological center of the Western synods, was unanimous, decided, and

most advanced in its advocacy. Sprecher, the leader of "American

Lutheranism" in the West, wrote concerning the Platform: "It is the very

thing we have long needed in our Church; it will require every man to

declare that he is for or against us, and will secure our American

Lutheran Church against the insidious efforts of the Old Lutherans to

remodel her." "If the New School brethren do not soon decide whether

they will give the Church the positive form which it must take in this

country ere long, the Old School will decide it for them by making all

their synods stand on the Unaltered Augsburg Confession. I do not see

what difficulty can be in the way. If those five dogmas rejected [by the

Platform] are errors at all, they are very serious errors, and I do not

see why there should be so great a desire to be associated with those

who teach them. The difference between the Old School and the New School

party is of such a nature that they cannot agree except by being silent

or separate. If we did not intend to push this matter through, we should

never have agitated it at all." (Spaeth, 1, 359.) It goes without saying

that B. Kurtz acted the champion of the new confession. When, in 1855,

prior to the publication of the Platform, the Synod of Northern

Illinois, in its constitution, declared the Augustana and Luther's Small

Catechism a "correct" exhibition of the divine truth, Kurtz wrote in the

_Observer_: "This is certainly a tremendous leap backward to the

patriarchs of the American Lutheran Church. In this enlightened country

of free thought and action such high-churchism cannot long maintain

itself; its most peculiar fruit is bigotry, ostracism, strife, and

separation." (_Lutheraner_, Feb. 13, 1855:) In the same spirit Kurtz

edited the _Observer_ after the appearance of the Platform. In an issue

of January, 1856, he maintained that the Platform offered nothing new;

in the past every member of the General Synod had practised according to

its principles; now one merely was to do openly and honestly what

heretofore he had been doing with a _reservatio mentalis_. (_L. u. W._

1856, 64.) Several months later Kurtz published the list of rejected

errors of the Symbolical Books, and in a number of subsequent articles

supported the Platform, and, at the same time, attacked the distinctive

doctrines of Lutheranism, misrepresenting them in Calvinistic fashion.

(_L. u. W._ 1856, 140 ff.; 1857,61; 1862,152; 1917,375.) Nor did Kurtz

in the following years repent of, or change, his attitude. In the

_Observer_ of June 29, 1860, he declared: "We are qualified to formulate

a confession of faith not only just as well, but better than those who

lived three hundred years ago. We now have men in our Church who

understand just as much of the Bible and of theology as our fathers. If

this were not the case, we must be stupid scholars, a degenerated

generation." (_L. u. W_. 6, 252.) In the same year: "May those, then,

who are opposed to the progress backwards, to liturgies, to priestly

gowns, to bands, candles, crucifixes, baptismal regeneration, the real

presence, priestly confession and absolution, and all other phases of

the half-papists, stand firmly by the old _Observer_." (_L. u. W._ 1860,

318.) In the _Observer_, December 26, 1862, Kurtz said: Wisdom did not

die with the Reformers; nor would it die with the present generation.

Giant strides had been made in science, history, chemistry, philology.

The progress in astronomy enabled us to understand the Bible better than

our fathers. Geology taught us to explain the first chapter of Genesis

more correctly than a hundred years ago. Even if we were dwarfs compared

with the Reformers, with our increased advantages we ought to understand

the Bible better than they. A dwarf, standing on the shoulders of a

giant, can see farther than the giant himself. A confession of faith,

therefore, ought not to be like the laws of the Medes and Persians, but

subject to improvement and growing perfection. Luther and his colaborers

explained the Bible more correctly than any like number of their

contemporaries. But we do not believe that they understood it as well as

God's enlightened people of the present. Indeed, an intelligent

Sunday-school child has a clearer insight into the plan of salvation,

etc., than John the Baptist, the greatest of prophets. Is it, then, to

be assumed that since the middle of the sixteenth century no progress

was made in Biblical learning? (_L. u. W._ 1863, 92.) However, always

guided by expediency, and hence able also "to do otherwise," the

_Observer_, April 13, 1866, wrote: "We have all agreed that the

Unaltered Augsburg Confession is the only general platform upon which

all of us can stand. There are some among us, to the number of whom the

writer belongs, who have always believed and still think that an

American Recension of this venerable document, as presented in the

Definite Platform, would give us a faith more in harmony with the

Scripture. But where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty, the

greatest liberty compatible with the unity of true Evangelical

Protestantism. To make concessions within reasonable limitations we have

accordingly deemed our religious duty." (_L. u. W._ 1866, 185.) In its

issue of January 17, 1908, the _Observer_ again claims the liberty of

revising the confessions. (_L. u. W._ 1908, 90.) Self-evidently, the

_American Lutheran_ was in sympathy with the Platform. In 1873 it

declared its standpoint as follows: "We American Lutherans adopt the

Augsburg Confession only in a qualified sense, _viz_., as teaching the

fundamental truths of religion in a manner substantially correct, but

containing also some inaccuracies with respect to the Sacraments,

private confession, absolution, and the Christian Sabbath." (_L. u.

W._ 1873, 29.)

60. Opponents of the Platform.--S. S. Schmucker boasted with respect to

the Platform that all intelligent Americans were on his side. However,

his opponents proved to be much stronger and more numerous than he had

anticipated, though most of them were in essential agreement with his

un-Lutheran theology, merely resenting his intolerant spirit and public

assault on the "venerable Augustana." Among the men who fiercely

denounced the new confession was J. A. Brown, who also followed up his

attack with charges for Schmucker's impeachment at Gettysburg, and in

1857, with a book, _The New Theology_. Yet Dr. Brown's theological views

and the views of the Platform were not nearly so far apart as his

assaults on Schmucker seemed to warrant. Brown was a Reformed theologian

and just as determined an opponent of genuine Lutheranism as Schmucker

and Kurtz. Dr. Wolf: "Brown contended with might and main against what

he considered the revival of the Old Lutheran Theology." (370.) And

Brown's case was also that of F. W. Conrad (professor of Homiletics in

Wittenberg College from 1850 to 1855, and part owner and editor of the

_Observer_ from 1863 to 1898), who in 1855, when required by the

Wittenberg Synod to defend the Platform, resigned as professor and as

editor of the _Evangelical Lutheran_, stating that he, too, considered

the "errors" enumerated in the Platform as real errors, but was able

neither to find all of them in the Augustana nor to identify himself

with the intolerance of the Platform men. (_L. u. W._ 1856, 94.)

Occupying a unionistic position similar to that of Dr. Conrad, H. W.

Harkey, in his _Olive Branch_, published at Springfield, Ill., also

opposed the fanaticism of Kurtz, Schmucker, Sprecher, etc., but not

their Reformed theology, which, indeed, he shared essentially. (_L. u.

W._ 1857, 313; 1858, 28.) The man who disappointed Schmucker perhaps

more than any one else was his colleague Charles Philip Krauth, who made

no secret of his aversion to the Platform. In a letter to his son he

wrote: "The American Recension of the Augsburg Confession doesn't seem

to go down well. It has received many hard blows. ... A more stupid

thing could hardly have been originated. _Quem Deus vult perdere prius

dementat._ How will it end? I have thought, in smoke. But I have all

along had fears, and they are strengthened of late, that it will divide

the General Synod. It is said that my colleague is determined to press

the matter to the utmost. ... I regret exceedingly the injury which the

Church is sure to sustain. Mr. Passavant's idea of a paper in opposition

to the _Observer_ I approve. There ought to be an antidote to the

_Observer_ somewhere." In the _Observer_ of February 15, 1856, Krauth,

Sr., published nine reasons why he opposed the Platform; the chief

grievance, however, its Reformed theology, was hardly hinted at.

Krauth's plea was for peace and mutual toleration. "I feel deeply

solicitous that our prospering Church may not be divided," said he. "I

shall do all that I can to hold it together. I will pray for the peace

of our Zion," etc. His main argument against the Platform was that it

proscribed brethren who were received with the understanding that they

were to occupy a position coordinate with that of others, and asked

every symbolical Lutheran to withdraw or dishonor himself. (Spaeth, 1,

372f.) Pacification of the Church by mutual toleration--such was the

solution of the Platform controversy offered and advocated by his son,

Charles Porterfield. To this Krauth, Sr., agreed. April 2, 1857, he

wrote to his son: "I am decidedly of opinion that the General Synod

ought to do something effectual for the pacification of the Church. I

concur in the views you express, and believe, unless such views prevail,

the Church must ere long be rent into fragments. Whilst I am anxious for

such an agreement in regard to a doctrinal basis as will embrace all the

wings of Lutheranism in our country, I very much wish we could agree on

forms of worship in accordance with the liturgical character of our

Church, and erect a barrier against the fanaticism and Methodism which

so powerfully control some of our ministers and people." (380.) W. M.

Reynolds, in the _Evangelical Review_ which he had established 1849

(1870 succeeded by the _Lutheran Quarterly_), denounced the Platform as

a declaration of "separation from the whole Lutheran Church of the

past." "We trust," said he, "that no Lutheran synod will be beguiled

into the awful movement here so abruptly, yet so confidently proposed to

them--to revolutionize their whole previous history, and declare

separation from the whole Lutheran Church of the past, and all their

brethren in the present who hold to the faith of their fathers, 'the

faith once delivered to the saints.'" (360.) Reynolds, who publicly

renounced his former un-Lutheran views and withdrew his endorsement of

Kurtz, was hailed by many as the leader of the conservatives in the

General Synod. But, his confessional endeavors being vitiated and

neutralized by his fundamental unionistic attitude, he, too,

disappointed and failed the friends of true Lutheranism. He opened the

pages of the _Evangelical Review_ to both, liberals as well as

conservatives, to the advocates as well as the opponents of the Platform

and its theology. Reynolds stood for mutual toleration, and in

1864--turned Episcopalian. (_L. u. W._ 1857, 314; 1870, 156.) J. N.

Hoffmann entered the controversy with his "Broken Platform," and W. J.

Mann with his pamphlet "A Plea for the Augsburg Confession," according

to Spaeth "the strongest refutation of the Definite Platform." (_L. u.

W._ 1856, 75; 1857, 283.) Dr. Mann wrote, May 7, 1856: "If Schmucker had

not the _Observer_ as an ally, he would accomplish absolutely nothing.

As it is, however, the two gentlemen fabricate a public opinion,

supported by a multitude of uninformed members of the Lutheran Church.

The mass of all influential, well-meaning members, preachers as well as

laymen, whatever their views may otherwise be, are indignant at

Schmucker, Kurtz, _Observer_, and the whole Platform affair. I would not

be astonished if the matter should lead to a breach between us and the

General Synod. The consequence will be that involuntarily we shall be

brought closer to the strict Lutheranism, all the more so as the

Missourians of late seem to become milder." But Dr. Mann was rudely

awakened from his optimism when, in the following year, his "Lutheranism

in America: an essay on the present condition of the Lutheran Church in

the United States," was severely criticized even by Charles Philip

Krauth, in the _Evangelical Review_. And the result? "I have no desire

at all to make any further concessions to Old Lutheranism," Mann meekly

declared in a letter of April 15, 1857, in which he referred to the cold

reception and stern rebuke which his book had received by the press

within the General Synod. (Spaeth, 179 f.) Thus even the most

conservative men within the General Synod rendered the cause of true

Lutheranism but little service in the Platform emergency. Being in the

minority and without a clear insight into the nature of Lutheranism,

also without an organ, except, in part, the _Evangelical Review_, they

lacked the courage and seriousness to take a determined and open stand

against the corrupters and assailants of Lutheranism. They favored a

policy of silent, watchful waiting. H. I. Schmidt, who, in the

_Evangelical Review_, had defended the Lutheran doctrine of the Lord's

Supper, wrote in a letter dated February 4, 1853: "We Lutherans had

better keep perfectly quiet at the next General Synod, and say nothing

at all about 'Doctrinal Basis.' ... If all open conflict is avoided, our

cause will continue silently and surely to gain ground, and thus the

character of the General Synod will gradually be changed and righted."

(Spaeth, 1, 349.)

61. "Pacific Overture."--The storm caused by the Platform was hardly

brewing, when Old and New School men united in pouring oil on the

troubled waters. Instead of holding Schmucker to strict accountability,

41 prominent ministers and laymen published in the _Observer_ of

February 15, 1856, a "Pacific Overture," in which they "deprecate the

further prosecution of this controversy, and hereby agree to unite and

abide on the doctrinal basis of the General Synod, of absolute assent to

the "Word of God, as the only infallible rule of faith and practise, and

fundamental agreement with the Augsburg Confession." This document was

signed by such men as H.L. Baugher, M. Jacobs, M.L. Stoever, S.S.

Schmucker, Krauth, Sr., E.W. Hutter, T. Stork, C.A. Hay, W.H. Lochman,

M. Valentine, B. Sadtler, and J.A. Brown. The pledge of the "Overture"

involved the obligation of abstinence from newspaper controversy. Kurtz

did not sign the document, and Schmucker reserved for himself the right

of replying to Mann's "Plea," which he did in _American Lutheranism

Vindicated_. This book, according to the _Observer_, proves that the

Augustana does teach baptismal regeneration, the bodily presence of

Christ in the Eucharist, private confession and absolution, and denial

of the divine institution of the Lord's Day, and that all of these

doctrines are errors conflicting with the Scriptures. (_L. u. W._ 1856,

320.) Thus Kurtz and Schmucker, who had kindled the conflagration,

persisted in pouring oil into the flames, while the rest were shouting,

"Extinguish the fire!" H.I. Schmidt wrote from New York: "I can see no

use in signing that 'Overture'; the compromise which it proposes cannot

preserve the peace of the Church or prevent a disruption. Schmucker has

got up that 'Overture' simply because he was utterly disappointed in the

effect produced by his proposed Platform; because he saw that he had

raised a conflagration that was very likely to burn him up. And now,

after doing all he could to disrupt the Church, after getting up a

platform, the adoption of which would have expelled all of us

confessional Lutherans from the Lutheran Church; after laboring with all

his might to fasten the charge of serious errors upon our venerable

Confession, he very coolly comes forward and asks us to sign a

compromise, in which, forsooth, we are to declare the points of

difference between us to be non-essential.... No, indeed. Those points

are not non-essential: the Lutheran doctrine of the Sacraments is so

completely interwoven with our whole view of the scheme of redemption

and salvation, that concerning the Eucharist grows so directly and

necessarily out of the great doctrine of Christ's Person, that for me to

give up those doctrinal points alleged to be non-essential is to give up

all, to give up the whole Gospel. And what good would come of patching

up such a hollow peace? At the first favorable opportunity Schmucker

would break it, and even if he seemed to keep quiet, he would be

secretly and incessantly working and machinating against our side of the

house. And, what is more, the editor of the _Observer_ refuses to sign

the 'Overture'; he will keep his hands unfettered, to knock us on the

head right and left, as soon and as often as he pleases." Schmidt added:

"Not a soul here in New York is willing to touch the 'Overture.'"

(Spaeth, 1, 363.) But no determined action followed on the part of

Schmidt and the conservatives in New York who agreed with him.

62. Krauth, Jr., and Schmucker.--The fact that the conservatives failed

to take a decided stand against Schmucker and his Platform theology was

due, apart from their general policy of silent waiting, chiefly to

Charles Porterfield Krauth, who was in complete agreement with the

unionistic "Overture," and whose influence soon became paramount in the

General Synod. Krauth counseled mutual toleration. On January 1, 1856,

he had written to his father: "I have written down a few thoughts on the

'Platform,' but I do not know that I will ever prepare anything for the

press on that subject. My thoughts all have an irenical direction."

(376.) In the following year Krauth prepared a series of articles for

the _Missionary_ (published by W. A. Passavant in Pittsburgh), in which

he pleaded the cause of the General Synod, and defended and justified

its doctrinal basis, requiring subscription only to the "fundamentals"

of the Augustana as "substantially correct." Krauth insisted that, while

the Augustana must remain unmutilated and unchanged, liberty should be

granted to such as, _e. g._, deny the real presence in the Lord's

Supper. The Lutheran and the other churches of the Reformation, he

argued, agree as to the divine institution and perpetual obligation of

the Eucharist, the administration in both kinds, the necessity of a

living faith for enjoying its blessings, and the rejection of

transubstantiation and the mass. And securing these points of the Tenth

Article of the Augsburg Confession, Krauth continued: "Let the General

Synod allow perfect freedom, as she has hitherto done, to reject or

receive the rest of the article." (Jacobs, 431.) Spaeth remarks with

respect to the articles published by Krauth in defense of the General

Synod: "In looking over the articles, we do not wonder that the leader

in the Platform movement was willing to have, and actually proposed and

drew up, a compromise on the basis laid down there. For while the

articles kept the Confession intact in form, they abandoned it in fact.

They absolutely coordinated truth and error on the disputed points and

said: 'Tolerate us in holding the truth[?], and we will tolerate you in

holding the error.'" "There was evidently," Dr. Spaeth continues, "in

those days a singular approach between the leader of American

Lutheranism and Charles Porterfield Krauth, which even inspired the New

School men with a hope of ultimately 'seeing Charles right,' for whom

they personally had nothing but the kindest feelings. 'I think,' wrote

his father after the Reading Convention of the General Synod, 'you have

become pretty much of a favorite with Dr. S. S. Schmucker. He does not

think you so hard a Lutheran, and your zeal for the General Synod was

quite to his taste. I hope you will continue, as you have heretofore

done, to treat him with respect.'" (1, 409.) What Dr. Krauth objected to

was not so much the theology of the Platform as, on the one hand, the

intolerance which it demanded, and, on the other hand, the mutilation of

the venerable Augustana, the Magna Charta of Lutheranism. Also in the

controversy between J. A. Brown and Schmucker, in which the latter's

teaching on natural depravity, regeneration, and justification was

declared unsound, Krauth, Jr., defended his former teacher with the

result that the impeachment proceedings, contemplated at Gettysburg

against Schmucker, were arrested. (411.) Thus, as far as the leading

theologians were concerned, the commotion caused by the Platform ended

in an agreement to disagree.

POSITION OF DISTRICT SYNODS.