was indignantly and universally rejected by the Eastern synods." (365.)
Dr. Jacobs, 1893: "It was endorsed by one of the smaller synods in Ohio,
but everywhere else it aroused intense indignation, as a
misrepresentation and detraction of the Lutheran Church." (426.) Dr.
Neve, 1915: "Only three smaller District Synods in Ohio adopted the
Platform temporarily, the East Ohio, the Olive Branch, and the
Wittenberg Synods. At all other places it was most decidedly rejected,
not only by men of the synods under whose leadership, soon after, the
General Council was organized, but just as decidedly by such as remained
in the General Synod."--Among the facts in the case are the following.
The Wittenberg Synod (organized 1847 in Ohio and led by Ezra Keller and
S. Sprecher, professors of Wittenberg College), claiming to be "wholly
loyal to the doctrines and interests of the General Synod," adopted the
Platform in September, 1855, stating that the General Synod in the past
had given the Augustana only a limited recognition without specifying
the doctrines which were to be omitted, and that now the Platform, in
the interest of truth, had pointed out the five errors of the Augustana
which the great majority of the General Synod had long ago viewed as
unscriptural and Roman. Synod resolved not to receive any pastor who
would not accept the Platform as his own confession. (_L. u. W._ 1855,
319. 336.) In September, 1855, the Olive Branch Synod of Indiana adopted
the Platform unanimously, and, in October of the same year, the East
Ohio Synod, with but one dissenting vote. (350. 381.) In June, 1856, the
Miami Synod declared its allegiance to the Augustana, with the
limitation that they reject as errors contained in this Confession the
approval of certain ceremonies of the mass, private confession and
absolution, the denial of the divine obligation of the Sabbath, the
doctrines of baptismal regeneration and of the real presence in the
Eucharist. (1856, 349.) In September, 1856, the Wittenberg Synod
recommended the Platform for adoption to its congregations, and at the
same time expressed satisfaction and joy that the Platform had been
adopted by the English Synod of Ohio, the Olive Branch Synod of Indiana,
the Northern Synod of the same State, and by the Kentucky Synod; that
the Miami Synod had accepted the Augsburg Confession in the sense of the
Platform; and that the Pittsburgh Synod, through influence of the
Platform, was now immune against "symbolism." (1856, 380.) The Synod of
Southern Illinois (organized 1856, and in 1897 united with the Synod of
Central Illinois under the name of Synod of Central and Southern
Illinois), in October, 1857, unanimously approved of the Platform as a
measure against the insidious tendencies of symbolism. (1857,352.) It
was a sore disappointment to the Platform men when the Synod of East
Pennsylvania, in 1855, at the motion of J. A. Brown (who was in
essential agreement with Schmucker, doctrinally), unanimously condemned,
and "most solemnly warned" against, the Platform as a "most dangerous
attempt to change the doctrinal basis and revolutionize the existing
character of the Lutheran churches now united in the General Synod."
(1855, 337.) The Synod of West Pennsylvania, urged by the Synod of East
Pennsylvania to endorse its resolutions, refused to enter the
controversy or pass on the Platform, declaring that they were satisfied
with their present constitution and unwilling to add new test-questions.
(1855, 320.) It came as a relief to Kurtz and the Platform men when the
Synod of Central Pennsylvania, in May, 1856, unanimously and solemnly,
by a rising vote, adopted the Platform. (1856, 223.) In October, 1856,
the Synod of Maryland declared that every member was at liberty to
accept or reject the alleged errors of the Augsburg Confession,
enumerated by the Platform, provided that thereby the divine institution
of the Sabbath was not rejected, nor the doctrinal basis of the General
Synod subverted. (1856, 382.) In October, 1856, the Allegheny Synod
declared its adherence to the doctrinal basis of the General Synod, but,
at the same time, rejected the doctrines enumerated by the Platform as
errors contained in the Augsburg Confession. (1856, 27; 1857, 156.) A
similar compromise was adopted by the Pittsburgh Synod. The knock-out
blow to the Platform came from the older, larger, and conservative
synods. In May, 1856, the Ministerium of Pennsylvania, then numbering
98 pastors, condemned the Platform and reaffirmed its own basis of
faith. (1856, 224; 1857, 252.) The New York Ministerium instructed its
delegates for the convention of the General Synod in 1857 to vote
against the Platform. Whence the wind was blowing was apparent also from
the fact that representative men of both the New York and Pennsylvania
synods participated in the Free Evangelical Lutheran Conferences
(1856-1859), advocated and led by Walther (1856, 348).
64. Pittsburgh and Hartwick Synods.--In the _Observer_, February 15,
1856, Kurtz suggested with respect to the Platform controversy that a
District Synod adopt a resolution to the effect that the Augustana did
not contain the errors charged with by the Platform, and that respecting
these doctrines every member of Synod was at liberty to follow his own
judgment. In accordance with this advice the Pittsburgh Synod, in the
same year, compromised the differences of the Old and New School men in
a number of resolutions framed by Charles Porterfield Krauth, who then
was still spending his efforts in trying to mediate between the
adherents and opponents of the Definite Platform. Among these
resolutions are the following: "II. Resolved, That while the basis of
our General Synod has allowed of diversity in regard to some parts of
the Augsburg Confession, that basis never was designed to imply the
right to alter, amend, or curtail the Confession itself." "III.
Resolved, That while this Synod, resting on the Word of God as the sole
authority in matters of faith, on its infallible warrant rejects the
Romish doctrine of the real presence of transubstantiation, and with it
the doctrine of consubstantiation; rejects the Mass, and all ceremonies
distinctive of the Mass; denies any power in the Sacraments as an _opus
operatum_, or that the blessings of Baptism and the Lord's Supper can
be received without faith; rejects auricular confession and priestly
absolution; holds that there is no priesthood on earth except that of
all believers, and that God only can forgive sins; and maintains the
sacred obligation of the Lord's Day; and while we would with our whole
heart reject any part of any confession which taught doctrines in
conflict with this our testimony, nevertheless, before God and His
Church, we declare that in our judgment the Augsburg Confession,
properly interpreted, is in perfect consistence with this our testimony
and with Holy Scripture as regards the errors specified." "IV. Resolved,
That while we do not wish to conceal the fact that some parts of the
doctrine of our Confession in regard to the Sacraments are received in
different degrees by different brethren, yet that even in these points,
wherein we as brethren in Christ agree to differ, till the Holy Ghost
shall make us see eye to eye, the differences are not such as to destroy
the foundation of faith, our unity in labor, our mutual confidence, and
our tender love." "VI. Resolved, That if we have indulged harsh thoughts
and groundless suspicions, if we have without reason criminated and
recriminated, we here humbly confess our fault before our adorable
Redeemer, beseeching pardon of Him and of each other," etc. "VII.
Resolved, That we will resist all efforts to sow dissensions among us on
the ground of minor differences, all efforts, on the one hand, to
restrict the liberty which Christ has given us, or, on the other, to
impair the purity of the 'faith once delivered to the saints,' and that
with new ardor we will devote ourselves to the work of the Gospel," etc.
(Spaeth, 1, 378.) A stand similar to the one of the Pittsburgh Synod was
taken in the same year, 1856, by the Hartwick Synod, in declaring, on
the one hand, that they adopt the fundamental doctrines of the Augsburg
Confession, other articles of this Confession, however, only when
rightly understood and interpreted, and in rejecting, on the other hand,
the doctrines enumerated in the third of the Pittsburgh resolutions.
(_L. u. W._ 1856, 349.) On the part of the Franckean Synod this caused a
declaration to the effect that they would not have withdrawn (1837) if
Hartwick had taken this stand earlier. Hartwick answered, 1857, that
they had not adopted a new platform, but merely the General Synod's
"interpretation of the Augustana." (_L. u. W._ 1857, 352; 1864, 314;
1866, 119.)
65. The Pittsburgh Compromise.--The Pittsburgh resolutions, notably the
third (adopted also in 1864 at York by the General Synod, and since
known as the York Resolution), breathe a unionistic and, in part, a
Reformed spirit. Conspicuous among their un-Lutheran features are the
following. With respect to the Lutheran doctrines rejected by Schmucker
and his compeers, the Pittsburgh compromise declares in general: "We as
brethren in Christ agree to differ." The theological attitude of the
notorious union letter of 1845 was thus practically reaffirmed and the
doctrines distinctive of Lutheranism declared irrelevant. Every Lutheran
synod, according to the Pittsburgh agreement, was, indeed, to recognize
the Augustana unmutilated, but, on the other hand, grant complete
liberty to deviate from its doctrines in the manner of the supporters of
the Platform. In addition to this unionistic feature the Pittsburgh
compromise, at least in three important points, makes concessions to the
Reformed tenets of the Platform theology. It does not only fail to
confess the Lutheran doctrines of the Lord's Supper, absolution, and the
Sunday, at a time when these doctrines were universally denied and
assailed also within the General Synod, and when, accordingly, a failure
to confess them was tantamount to an open denial, but itself rejects
them. Concerning the Sunday, Article 28 of the Augsburg Confession
declares: "For those who judge that by the authority of the Church the
observance of the Lord's Day instead of the Sabbath-day was ordained as
a thing necessary, do greatly err. Scripture has abrogated the
Sabbath-day." Over against this plain teaching the General Synod always
held that "the observance of the Sunday is binding on all by divine
requirement." (_Lutheran Observer_, Oct. 1, 1915.) Siding with this
un-Lutheran position, the third of the Pittsburgh resolutions declares:
"We adhere to the divine authority of the Sabbath as the Lord's Day."
Again, absolution by Christians, and especially the minister of a
Christian congregation, was one of the doctrines abhorred by the
Platform men. As late as 1864 even C.P. Krauth regarded the Eleventh
Article of the Augustana as excluded from the confessional subscription
of the General Synod. The Pittsburgh compromise rejects "priestly
absolution" and maintains "that God only can forgive sins" on earth,
thus openly disavowing a specific Lutheran doctrine and coinciding with
Schmucker and Kurtz, Zwingli, and Calvin. Furthermore, the Lutheran
Church most emphatically teaches "the real presence" of the body and
blood of Christ in the Lord's Supper. And in the days of Schmucker, and
later, this doctrine, openly assailed and denied by the leaders of the
General Synod, was generally, though erroneously, identified with, and
termed, "consubstantiation," without as well as within the General
Synod. The _Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge_, of 1854, edited by J.
Newton Brown, describes "consubstantiation" as "a tenet of the Lutheran
Church respecting the presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper. Luther
denied that the elements were changed after consecration, and therefore
taught that the bread and wine indeed remain, but that, together with
them, there is present the substance of the body and blood of Christ,
which is literally received by communicants." As late as 1899 Philip
Schaff wrote in his _Creeds of Christendom_: "The Lutheran Church, as
represented in Luther's writings and in the Form of Concord, rejects
transubstantiation, and also the doctrine of impanation, _i. e._, a
local inclusion of Christ's body and blood in the elements (_localis
inclusio in pane_), or a permanent and extrasacramental conjunction of
the two substances (_durabilis aliqua conjunctio extra usum sacramenti_);
_but it teaches consubstantiation_ in the sense of a sacramental
conjunction of the two substances effected by the consecration, or a
real presence of Christ's very body and blood in, with, and under (_in,
cum, et sub_) bread and wine. The word consubstantiation, however, is
not found in the Lutheran symbols, and is rejected by Lutheran
theologians if used in the sense of impanation." (1, 232.) Down to the
present day the Lutheran doctrine of the real presence has been
universally designated by its opponents as "consubstantiation." (_L. u.
W._ 1856, 33. 115. 255.) Respecting this use of the term outside of the
Lutheran Church, compare also Worcester's Dictionary; _Cyclopedia_,
Harper and Brothers, 1894; Century Dictionary, 1906; Heyse,
_Fremdwoerterbuch_; etc. And as to the use made of the term within the
General Synod, S. S. Schmucker, B. Kurtz, B. Sprecher, and the rest of
the Platform theologians always designated the Lutheran doctrine of the
real presence as consubstantiation. As late as 1880 Dr. Helwig wrote in
the _Lutheran Evangelist_: "The Missouri Lutherans adhere as closely as
possible to the doctrines of Martin Luther, even his consubstantiation
theory with respect to the Holy Eucharist according to the words: in,
with, and under the bread." (_L. u. W._ 1880, 246.) Viewed, then, in
its historical context, the third of the Pittsburgh resolutions,
instead of plainly stating and boldly confessing the Lutheran doctrine
of the real presence, disavows it, at least indirectly, declaring: This
Synod "rejects the Romish doctrine of the real presence or
transubstantiation, and with it the doctrine of consubstantiation." To
cap the climax, the compromise proceeds: "Before God and His Church we
declare that in our judgment the Augsburg Confession, properly
interpreted, is in perfect consistence with this our testimony and with
Holy Scripture as regards the errors specified." How Charles Porterfield
Krauth was able thinkingly to write as he did is a problem which still
awaits a satisfactory explanation. Thus, then, though formally
acknowledging the Augustana and denying the right "to alter, amend, or
curtail the Confession itself," the Pittsburgh compromise cannot but be
viewed as a distinctly unionistic and anti-Lutheran document. It was a
surrender, if not to the Platform as such, at least to its theology.
GENERAL SYNOD'S ATTITUDE.
66. Ignoring Platform, But Endorsing Its Theology.--No formal action was
taken by the conventions of the General Synod with respect either to the
Definite Platform itself or its authors, abettors, and endorsers. Apart
from the doctrinal indifference prevailing within the General Synod also
among the conservatives, this was chiefly due to the articles published
by Krauth, Jr., in defense of the General Synod in the _Missionary_.
"Silently," says Dr. Spaeth, "yet no less surely, the brethren gave the
most unmistakable evidence that the views therein expressed met their
concurrence." (1, 409.) However, Krauth himself, in advocating mutual
toleration, merely acted on the old principles of the General Synod. His
policy was in keeping with its unionistic traditions of "agreeing to
disagree and not to settle disputed points, but to omit them and declare
them free--_quieta non movere et mota quiescere!_" Well satisfied with
the course of the General Synod at its conventions in 1857 and 1859, the
_Observer_ wrote: "The convention at Pittsburgh has strengthened the
bond of our union and shown that no question of doctrine or discipline
can disrupt us. We are one and inseparable. Our union is based on
mutual concession. We have learned a lesson which our fathers could not
learn: to give and to take." (_L. u. W._ 1859, 285.) Officially and
directly, then, the General Synod neither approved nor condemned the
Platform. Nor could she consistently have taken a different course, as
Schmucker had but acted on previous suggestions of Synod herself. In
1844 the Maryland Synod had appointed a committee to prepare an
"Abstract," which, in a way, was to serve as a substitute for the
Augsburg Confession. This "Abstract," though not adopted by the Maryland
Synod, was a forerunner of the Definite Platform. Schmucker, says Dr.
Spaeth, "was so much pleased with the 'Abstract' that he referred to it
again and again in his lectures and articles, and even made his students
commit to memory its principal statements. In an article on the
'Vocation of the American Lutheran Church' (_Ev. Review_ II, 510)
Schmucker said: 'With the exception of several minor shades of doctrine,
in which we are more symbolic than Dr. Baugher, we could not ourselves,
in so few words, give a better description of the views taught in the
seminary [Gettysburg] than that contained in his 'Abstract of the
Doctrines and Practises.'" (1, 114.) Also the General Synod, in 1845, at
Philadelphia, following in the steps of the Maryland Synod, authorized a
committee to formulate the doctrines and usages of the American Lutheran
Church. Schmucker, then, in preparing and publishing the Definite
Platform, was certainly not so very much out of tune with the sentiments
then prevailing in, and encouraged by, the General and some of the
District Synods. Consistently they could not rebuke Schmucker without
condemning themselves. Accordingly, the convention of the General Synod
in 1857, at Reading, took formal action neither with respect to
Schmucker, nor the Platform, nor the synods which had endorsed the
Platform. And while the motion of Schmucker that the Board (which had
published Mann's "Plea") should not publish any writings on the existing
controversies was adopted, the motion of Kurtz for a "liberal platform"
found no support. (_L. u. W._ 1857, 218.) But, while painfully avoiding
any reference to the Platform as such, the General Synod more than
tolerated its theology. The convention of 1859 cordially admitted the
Melanchthon Synod, which charged the Augustana with teaching the alleged
errors of regeneration by Baptism, of the real presence, private
confession and absolution, and the denial of the divine institution of
the Sunday. At Lancaster, 1862, Synod evaded a deliverance on the
question whether the Augsburg Confession contains the errors with which
it was generally charged; indirectly, however, it affirmed the question
by electing B. Kurtz as President. (_L. u. W._ 1862, 217.) In 1864 the
Franckean Synod was admitted with a confession of her own making, from
which the distinctive Lutheran doctrines were eliminated. And in order
to conciliate the protesting conservatives, the General Synod in the
same year passed the resolution, adopted 1856 by the Pittsburgh Synod,
which served the contradictory purposes of condemning Lutheran doctrines
plainly taught in the Augustana, and, at the same time, acquitting the
Confession of harboring these doctrines. Thus the General Synod, though
unwilling to commit herself to the Platform as such, directly and
indirectly approved of its theology.
67. Admitting Melanchthon Synod.--In 1857, on the principle of
"elective affinity," and for the purpose of resisting the confessional
trend in the General Synod, and encouraging and strengthening the
Platform men, the Melanchthon Synod was organized in the territory of
the Maryland Synod, under the leadership of B. Kurtz. In its
"Declaration of Faith" this Synod stated: "II. We believe that the
fundamental doctrines of the Word of God are taught in a manner
substantially correct in the doctrinal articles of the Augsburg
Confession: 1. The divine inspiration, authority, and sufficiency of the
Holy Scriptures. 2. The unity of the Godhead and the trinity of Persons
therein. 3. The deity of our Lord Jesus Christ. 4. The utter depravity
of human nature in consequence of the Fall. 5. The incarnation of the
Son of God and His work of atonement for sinners of mankind. 6. The
necessity of repentance and faith. 7. The justification of a sinner by
faith alone. 8. The work of the Holy Spirit in the conversion and
sanctification of the sinner. 9. The right and duty of private judgment
in the interpretation of the Holy Scriptures. 10. The immortality of the
soul, the resurrection of the body, the judgment of the world by Jesus
Christ, with the eternal blessedness of the righteous and the eternal
punishment of the wicked. 11. The divine institution and perpetuity of
the Christian ministry, and the ordinances of Baptism and the Lord's
Supper. But while we thus publicly avow and declare our convictions in
the substantial correctness of the fundamental doctrines of the Augsburg
Confession, we owe it to ourselves and to the cause of evangelical truth
to disavow and repudiate certain errors which are said by some to be
contained in said Confession: 1. The approval of the ceremonies of the
mass; 2. private confession and absolution; 3. denial of the divine
obligation of the Christian Sabbath; 4. baptismal regeneration; and 5.
the real presence of the body and blood of the Savior in the Eucharist.
With these exceptions, whether found in the Confession or not, we
believe and retain the entire Augsburg Confession, with all the great
doctrines of the Reformation." (_L. u. W._ 1858, 28.) In spite of this
attitude toward the Augustana the General Synod, in 1859, on motion of
Krauth, Jr., passed the resolution: "Resolved, That we cordially admit
the Melanchthon Synod, and ... we would fraternally solicit them to
consider whether a change, in their doctrinal basis, of the paragraph in
regard to certain alleged errors would not tend to the promotion of
mutual love, and the furtherance of the great objects for which we are
laboring together." (_Proceedings_ 1859, 11.) The vote for the admission
of the un-Lutheran Synod, registering the victory of the liberals and
the defeat of the conservatives, stood 98 to 26, the entire delegation
of the Pennsylvania Ministerium and the three Scandinavian delegates
being recorded in the negative. Without further protest on the part of
the conservatives "the credentials of the [Melanchthon Synod] delegates
were then presented and their names entered upon the roll of Synod."
(12.) Confirming their doctrinal position, the Melanchthon Synod, in
1860, by formal resolution, approved of a sermon delivered by B. Kurtz
in which he denounced baptismal regeneration as "a part of papistical
superstition" and the real presence of the body and blood of Christ in,
with, and under the bread and wine as "consubstantiation," and "just as
untenable and absurd as transubstantiation." (_L. u. W._ 1860, 384.)
Considering the Constitution of the General Synod together with the fact
that the Platform synods had not been molested, the admission of the
Melanchthon Synod, advocated by Krauth, cannot be construed as
inconsistent. It must, however, be regarded as an indirect approval, on
the part of the General Synod, of the Platform theology. Dr. Mann
remarked, "he doubted not that there was much good in the constitution
of the Melanchthon Synod; but he would not eat poisoned bread, though
there was much good flour in it." (_L. u. W._ 1859, 196.)
68. Synod's Position Explained.--In 1859 the General Synod resolved that
S. W. Harkey publish, in German as well as in English, the sermon
delivered by him as President of Synod at the opening of the convention.
(_Proceedings_, 48.) Harkey was an opponent of the Platform on the order
of Brown and Conrad. In 1852, in his inaugural address as professor of
theology at the Illinois State University in Springfield, he had
declared that we must take a firm foothold in the Augsburg Confession as
a whole without binding the consciences of men to its unessential
individual determinations; and that the doctrine of the symbols on the
Sacraments belongs to the points concerning which they had agreed to
differ. (_Lutheraner_ 9, 99.) Reaffirming this position in the sermon,
endorsed by the General Synod in 1859, Harkey said: "We want love as
much as orthodoxy, yes, a thousand times more than what some men call
orthodoxy." (6.) "The General Synod cannot and does not require perfect
unity or uniformity in all points of doctrine." (10.) "The General Synod
adopted it [Augustana] as to fundamentals, and to these she requires
unqualified subscription." (12.) "Objections have been urged against the
expression 'fundamental doctrines,' as meaning one thing in the mouth of
one man and a different thing in that of another--that to some
everything is fundamental and to others only a few points. Now I cannot
reply to this at length, at present, but have only to say in few words
that there are fundamental doctrines in Christianity, and everybody not
spoiled by his theory or philosophy knows what they are [the doctrines
held in common by all evangelical denominations]. Indeed, I feel like
sternly rebuking the infidelity which lies concealed beneath this
objection, as if Christians had not been able to determine, in eighteen
hundred years, what are the fundamental, chief, or great doctrines of
their holy religion. Down on all such quibbling! Others have objected to
the words 'substantially correct,' as meaning anything or nothing, at
pleasure. This, like the other objection, is a quibble. None can err
here, unless it be wilfully.... The amount of the whole is, '_In
necessariis unitas, in dubiis libertas, in omnibus caritas_.' This is as
far as the General Synod has gone or could go; but it does not interfere
with the liberty of the District Synods. Any District Synod may go
beyond this, and adopt the Augsburg Confession in an unqualified manner;
or it may state the points in which it dissents from it, and if not
'fundamental,' no objection can be made to its admission into the
General Synod; but no body adopting a different Confession, or the
Augsburg Confession less fully than as containing 'the fundamental
doctrines of the Word of God in a manner substantially correct,' could
be admitted into the union of the General Synod." (13.) "Does any one
say doctrinal 'tares' are found in it, growing among the pure wheat of
God's truth, and that he is anxious only 'to pluck up the tares'? I
answer, 'Nay; lest while you gather up the tares, you root up also the
wheat with them.' Let the venerable Confession stand just as it is,
especially since you are bound only to receive it as containing the
fundamental truths of God's Word." (14.) "Cease, O! cease from your
controversies and disputes about non-essential points of doctrine and
practise, and labor with all your might for the conversion and
salvation of immortal souls!" (27.) In agreement with Harkey, Dr.
Reynolds had declared in the _Evangelical Review_, July, 1858, that
within the General Synod every one was privileged either to reject or to
accept the doctrines enumerated as errors by the Platform. (_L. u. W._
1858, 274.) And prior to, and in agreement with, both, Krauth, Jr., had
maintained in the _Missionary_, April 30, 1857, that such men as
Schmucker and Kurtz formed a legitimate variety in the General Synod.
(Spaeth, 1, 397.) "The Church in the United States," said Krauth, "wants
neither Symbololatry nor Schism, neither a German Lutheranism, in an
exclusive sense, nor an American Lutheranism, in a separatistic one, but
an Evangelical Lutheranism broad enough to embrace both, and to make
each vitalize and bless the other, and supply the mutual defects of
each. She will abide by the essentials of her Scripture-doctrine and of
her Christian life, but she will use her liberty to adapt herself to her
new position on this continent. She will neither be juggled out of her
faith by one set of operators, nor out of her freedom by another. She
will hold fast that which she has, and those who strive to take her
crown from her will be remembered only by their utter and ignominious
failure. The General Synod cannot take a higher position as to doctrine
than her present one; she cannot take a lower one; therefore she must
remain where she is." (401.) "That Church, then, is not Evangelical
Lutheran which officially rejects the Augsburg Confession, or officially
rejects, or requires, directly or indirectly, on the part of its members,
a rejection of the Augsburg Confession, or a connivance at such official
rejection." (407.) Doctrinally, then, the General Synod, as such, had
not advanced beyond the union letter of November, 1845. The scheme and
dream of the New School men, however, of officially substituting a new
confession for the Augustana was doomed to oblivion.
YORK CONVENTION.
69. Radical Franckean Synod Admitted.--The Franckean Synod was organized
1837 by four members who had withdrawn from the Hartwick Synod for these
reasons: "1. To license pious, intelligent men, sound in faith, although
they may not be classically educated, or have pursued a regular
theological course; 2. to license or admit none to the ministry who are
unacquainted with experimental religion." The synod pressed "new
measures" and advocated abstinence. In a civil suit, in 1844,
Vice-Chancellor Sandford decided that the Franckean Synod was not
Lutheran, and awarded the property involved in the suit to the two
congregations in Schoharie County, which had refused to follow their
pastor in joining the new synod. ( _L. u. W._ 1864, 187. 283.) The
Franckeans had abandoned the Augsburg Confession and adopted a
"Declaration of Faith," of which Sandford says: "1. It does not maintain
and declare the doctrine of the Trinity, or that the three Persons
constituting the Godhead are equal in power and glory; or even that
there are three Persons constituting the Deity. 2. It does not declare
or admit the divinity of Jesus Christ, or His equality with God the
Father. 3. It does not teach or declare that man will be condemned to
punishment in a future state because of original or inherited sin,
unless it be repented of; or that it condemneth all who are not born
again of water and the Holy Ghost." (Jacobs, 385.) The paragraph of the
"Declaration" on Baptism and the Lord's Supper reads: "9. That Christ
has instituted the ordinances of Baptism and the Lord's Supper for the
perpetual observance and edification of the Church. Baptism is the
initiatory ordinance, and signifies the necessity of holiness of heart;
and the Lord's Supper is frequently to be celebrated as a token of faith
in the atonement of Christ and of brotherly love." In 1839, at
Chambersburg, the General Synod had censured both the Franckean and
Tennessee Synods as the two extremes "causing disturbances and divisions
in our churches," and standing in the way of the union advocated by the
General Synod. (_Proceedings_, 17.) In 1857, however, in order to pave
the way for a union with the Franckean Synod, Synod rescinded its action
of 1839 as "not in accordance with the spirit of our constitution, and
not the sentiment of this convention," thus indirectly declaring its
willingness to receive both, the most radical and the most orthodox of
Lutheran synods. (25.) And in 1864, at York, after protracted debates
and subsequent to the declaration on the part of the Franckean delegates
that they fully understood that in adopting the constitution of the
General Synod they were adopting its doctrinal position, _viz._, "that
the fundamental truths of the Word of God are taught in a manner
substantially correct in the Augsburg Confession," the following
resolution was carried, with 97 against 40 votes: "Resolved, That the
Franckean Synod is hereby received into connection with the General
Synod, with the understanding that said Synod, at its next meeting,
declare, in an official manner, its adoption of the doctrinal articles
of the Augsburg Confession as a substantially correct exhibition of the
fundamental doctrines of the Word of God." The credentials of the
delegates were then presented and their names entered upon the roll of
Synod. (12. 17. 18. 19. 23. 41.) Abolition of the "Declaration" was not
demanded. (_L. u. W._ 1864, 283.) Majority men argued: Recognition of
the Augsburg Confession was not required in order to unite with the
General Synod; the principle excluding the Franckean Synod necessitated
the expulsion also of the Platform synods; it was destructive of the
General Synod itself, because its original constitution did not refer to
the Augsburg Confession. (_L. u. W._ 1864, 187.) The minority, among
whom the delegates of the Pennsylvania Synod were prominent, protested
against the admission of the Franckean Synod, declaring "that by this
action of the General Synod its constitution has been sadly, lamentably
violated." And when Synod refused to reconsider her action, the
Pennsylvania delegates, appealing to the conditions upon which they had
reentered the General Synod in 1853, publicly declared their withdrawal.
At Fort Wayne, 1866, the General Synod "resolved, That, inasmuch as the
Franckean Synod has complied with the condition of admission laid down
by the last General Synod, its delegation be received." (17.) In the
same year, however, the Western Conference of the Franckean Synod had
organized as "Mission Synod of the West" in order to "Americanize"
Lutherans in Iowa, Minnesota, etc. Rev. Fair, a member of this synod,
wrote: For what is it (the Augsburg Confession) but a bit of paper and
ink, containing, indeed, some good truths, but likewise also virulent
errors; therefore let it go where finally all error must go--to hell.
(_L. u. W._ 1866, 380f.) The fifth article of the Incorporation Charter
of the "Mission Synod of the West" provided that, since the Augsburg
Confession taught regeneration by Baptism, the bodily presence of Christ
in the Lord's Supper, private confession and absolution, and rejected
the divine institution and obligation of the Christian Sabbath,
ministers who were in favor of subscribing to the Augustana as a test of
membership, etc., should not be received into Synod, nor employed as
teachers in its colleges or as ministers in its congregations. As its
doctrinal basis the Mission Synod adopted the "Declaration of Faith" of
the Franckean Synod as containing all fundamental doctrines of the Word
of God, all that is truly evangelical in the Augsburg Confession. This
radical attitude was criticized by the _Observer_, not, however, as
false, but as too open, unguarded, and unwise. (_L. u. W._ 1866, 199f.)
At Fort Wayne, 1866, the General Synod advised the Franckean Synod "to
dissolve the distant Mission Synod of the West, and direct the ministers
now composing it to apply for admission to those synods within whose
bounds they may reside"; its radical confessional attitude, however, was
not criticized. (35.) As late as 1899 A.S. Hardy wrote concerning the
Franckean Synod: "Both her 'Declaration of Faith' and practise
[revivalism] discloses naught but a firm Lutheran position, though of
Pietistic type." (_Luth. Cycl._, 480.) Self-evidently, the admission of
the Franckean Synod was generally regarded as a further victory of the
liberal element of the General Synod over the conservatives.
70. York Amendment.--After the General Synod, at York, had passed the
resolution to receive the Franckean Synod, 28 delegates entered a
protest against this action as being in violation of the constitution,
and the delegates of the Pennsylvania Synod declared their withdrawal.
Yet the admission of the Franckean Synod was not reconsidered. But in
order to satisfy the conservatives, and to obviate further
disintegration, the victorious liberals, realizing the seriousness of
the crisis, consented to amend the constitution and to adopt the
Pittsburgh resolution of 1856 on the alleged errors in the Augustana.
Accordingly, Art. III, Sec. 3, adopted 1835, was amended as follows:
"All regularly constituted Lutheran synods not now in connection with
the General Synod, receiving and holding, with the Evangelical Lutheran
Church of our fathers, the Word of God, as contained in the canonical
Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, as the only infallible rule
of faith and practise, and the Augsburg Confession as a correct
exhibition of the fundamental doctrines of the Divine Word and of the
faith of our Church, founded upon that Word, may at any time become
associated with the General Synod by complying with the requisitions of
this constitution and sending delegates to its convention according to
the ratio specified in Article II." (_Proceedings_ 1864, 39.) This
amendment, constitutionally adopted 1869 in Washington, D. C., remained
the confessional formula till 1913, when, at Atchison, Kans., it was
supplanted by the present doctrinal basis. Inasmuch as it canceled both
the former limitation to the twenty-one doctrinal articles and the
phrase "in a manner substantially correct," the York Amendment was an
improvement on the General Synod's basis. Yet the formula was left
ambiguous, because the question was not decided whether all of the
articles of the Augsburg Confession were to be regarded as fundamental
doctrines of the Bible. The facts are: 1. While, indeed, all doctrines
of the Augsburg Confession are Scriptural, not all of them, _e.g._, the
doctrine of the Sunday, are fundamental doctrines of the Bible. 2. The
leading men of the General Synod, after as well as before 1864, declined
to accept even all of the twenty-one doctrinal articles as Scriptural
and fundamental. 3. After as well as before 1864 they justified their
deviations by referring to, and interpreting, the phrase "fundamental
doctrines" as a limitation of their subscription to the Augsburg
Confession. Dr. Spaeth: "Again and again it was openly declared that a
strict and faithful adherence to the Confession, as fundamental in all
its doctrinal statements, was 'irrational, unscriptural, and
un-Lutheran.' (_Luth. Observer_, Nov. 17, 1865.) The demand was made
that Lutherans should no longer insist upon such points as fundamental
'about which the ablest theologians and most devout Christians have not
been entirely agreed.... Sooner than yield on this point we would see
the Church perish.' (_Lutheran Observer_, Dec. 1, 1865.)" (2, 113.)
71. York Resolution.--Granting that the York Amendment, in a measure,
marked a step forward, the so-called York Resolution, quoted above, was
more than a step backward. It neutralized the Amendment, and practically
identified Synod with the theology of the Platform. Indirectly it
rejected the Lutheran doctrines of the real presence, absolution, and
the Sabbath. In brief, the York convention had betrayed the cause of
Lutheran confessionalism--a fact which only very gradually dawned on the
conservatives. Dr. Spaeth, quoting Krauth of September 10, 1868, who in
the _Lutheran and Missionary_, April 14, 1864, a month prior to the
convention of the General Synod in York, had declared that the Eleventh
Article of the Augsburg Confession "is not fundamental, and never has
been so regarded by the Lutheran Church, in any part of the world,"
says: "The Pennsylvania Synod, with that charity [blindness] which
believeth all things, regarded the subsequent resolutions of the General
Synod [at York] professedly in vindication of the Augsburg Confession as
earnest and the token of a better mind. Taken in the meaning of those
who offered them, they would have been[?] such a token. The after-events
showed that they were designed by the majority as an adroit piece of
thimble-rig. Passed in their earliest form in the Pittsburgh Synod to
counteract the Definite Platform [but not its theology], these
resolutions were so modified [the changes are of no theological import]
by the General Synod as to be, in the sense it put into them
[historically no other sense was possible], the Definite Platform itself
in a new form. Their representative men had made a 'Recension' of the
Augsburg Confession, which made it mean everything it did not mean; and
now the General Synod, moved largely by the lobby influence which was
the power behind the throne, mightier than the throne itself, made a
recension of the Pittsburgh resolutions, which commuted [?] them into
the poison to which they had originally been [?] the antidote." (2,138.)
While the Amendment apparently gratified and conciliated the
conservatives, also those of the Pennsylvania Synod, the York Resolution
more than satisfied the liberals. Dr. Spaeth: "The _Lutheran Observer_
greeted the action of the General Synod on the last day of its
convention in an enthusiastic editorial: 'Now we know where we stand,
and there is no longer room for controversy and the personal abuse of
intolerant exclusionists. We all stand on the Augsburg Confession, with
the qualifications and moral restrictions defined in the accompanying
resolutions, so that we are true Lutherans ... without hyperorthodoxy
and exclusivism on the one hand or radicalism on the other.' And even
the Pennsylvania Synod looked upon the action of the General Synod as
the indication 'of an earnest desire to stand firmly and faithfully upon
the true basis of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, and to prevent
forever the reception of any synod which could not and would not stand
upon this basis.'" (134.) Even such out-and-out Reformed theologians as
Schmucker, Kurtz, Brown, Butler, etc., did not find the York Amendment
and Resolution too narrow. (_L. u. W._ 1909, 91.) The General Synod,
they maintained, adopted the Augsburg Confession "as to fundamentals,"
the doctrines held in common by all Evangelical denominations. "We
repeat, this received the unanimous sanction of the General Synod," Dr.
Brown declared in his pamphlet "The General Synod and Her Assailants."
(13.) Rejecting the position adopted 1865 by the Pennsylvania Synod that
"all the doctrinal articles of the Augsburg Confession do set forth
fundamental doctrines of Holy Scripture," J.A. Brown continues: "The
General Synod does not now seek, nor has she ever sought, to magnify
non-essential doctrines, or to make of chief importance those matters in
which she differs from other orthodox" (non-Unitarian) "denominations;
but has aimed at a catholic Lutheranism that might embrace the various
portions of the Lutheran Church in the land, willing to unite on such a
basis, and also bring her into cordial and active cooperation with other
evangelical churches in the great work of extending the Redeemer's
kingdom. To this her constitution binds her, and she can only become
narrow and exclusive by disregarding the very law of her own existence."
(21.) In order to prepare the General Synod for its indifferentistic
attitude, the _Lutheran Observer_ had suggested, prior to the convention
at York, that an unconditional armistice be declared for fifteen years,
or that the questions be discussed on the basis of Scripture only, to
the exclusion of the symbols. "We are all sufficiently Lutheran,"
declared the _Observer_. Not a word, said he, should be spoken,
calculated to offend any brother. In lecture-rooms and periodicals
doctrinal questions might be ventilated. "But," the _Observer_
continued, "keep controversies out of the General Synod! Let this synod
in truth be a bond of unity on its old liberal basis, which is broad
enough, Scriptural enough, and Lutheran enough for the whole Church of
this country to rest upon. We need no better one than the good old
basis. We need brotherly love and harmony, and brotherly comity, and the
Spirit of the Lord in our approaching convention at York. The
sacramental questions are sufficiently discussed in printed books."
(_L. u. W._ 1864, 124.) Thus the General Synod, at the conventions
subsequent to the publication of the Definite Platform, notably the
convention at York, 1864, had once again, by applying its old principle
of agreeing to disagree and unionistically reconciling contradictories,
apparently succeeded in keeping them all in the fold, conservatives as
well as liberals.
SECESSIONS AND SEPARATIONS.
72. Southern Synods Withdrawing.--One of the arguments advanced against
confessionalism was that synods subscribing to all of the Lutheran
symbols neither agreed in doctrine, nor succeeded in effecting a union.
But did her unionistic principle enable the General Synod to steer clear
of dissensions? In 1860 the General Synod embraced two-thirds of the
Lutheran Church in America: 864 out of 1,313 pastors, and 164,000 out of
235,000 communicants. But the following decade completely shattered her
dream of a Pan-Lutheran union. In 1868 the General Synod reported 590
ministers and 86,198 communicants--hardly one-fourth of the Lutherans
then in America. At a convention in Chicago, May 7, 1860, the Swedes and
Norwegians severed their connections with the District Synod of Northern
Illinois. The rupture was the direct result of the admittance of the
Melanchthon Synod in 1859, which the Scandinavians regarded as a fateful
victory of the Platform men. In the preambles of their resolution of
withdrawal the seceders state: "Whereas we are fully convinced that
there is a decided doctrinal difference in our synod; and whereas there
in reality already exists a disunion, instead of union, in the synod;
and whereas strife and contention tend to destroy confidence, and to
weaken our hands and retard our progress; and whereas we are liable at
any time, by an accidental majority of votes against our doctrinal
position, to have a change forced upon us; and whereas it is our highest
duty to maintain and preserve unmutilated our confession of faith, both
in our congregations and in the theological instruction imparted to, and
the influence brought to bear upon, our students, who are to be the
future ministers and pastors of our congregations; and whereas our
experience clearly demonstrates to us that we cannot be sure of this, in
the relations we have heretofore sustained." (Jacobs, 449.) The
Scandinavians were followed by the Synods of the South. At Lancaster,
May, 1862, the General Synod passed and, by a committee, presented to
President Lincoln resolutions respecting the Rebellion. Among them were
the following: "Resolved, That it is the deliberate judgment of this
Synod that the rebellion against the constitutional Government of this
land is most wicked in its inception, unjustifiable in its cause,
unnatural in its character, inhuman in its prosecution, oppressive in
its aims, and destructive in its results to the highest interests of
morality and religion." "Resolved, That we deeply sympathize with all
loyal citizens and Christian patriots in the rebellious portions of our
country, and we cordially invite their cooperation, in offering united
supplications at a Throne of Grace, that God would restore peace to our
distracted country, reestablish fraternal relations between all the
States, and make our land, in all time to come, the asylum of the
oppressed and the permanent abode of liberty and religion." (30.) Two
further resolutions were added with special reference to the Southern
Lutherans: "Resolved, That this Synod cannot but express its most
decided disapprobation of the course of these synods and ministers,
heretofore connected with this body, in the open sympathy and active
cooperation which they have given to the cause of treason and
insurrection." "Resolved, That we deeply sympathize with our people in
the Southern States, who, maintaining their proper Christian loyalty,
have in consequence been compelled to suffer persecution and wrong,
and we hail with pleasure the near approach of their deliverance and
restoration to our Christian and ecclesiastical fellowship." (31.) As
these resolutions practically amounted to an expulsion, the five
Southern synods felt justified in withdrawing and organizing, at
Concord, N.C., May 20, 1863, "The General Synod of the Evangelical
Lutheran Church in the Confederate States of America." In 1869 the
General Synod appointed a committee to correspond with the Southern
synods on the propriety of returning to their former connection. (64.)
And in 1877 Synod declared: "The action of former General Synods was not
intended to compromise the Christian character of the ministers and
churches of the General Synod South, and is not so interpreted by us;
and if there be anything found therein that can rightfully be so
construed (_i.e._, as compromising the Christian character of said
ministers and churches), we hereby place upon record our belief that
such is not the sentiment of this body." (27.) The result was mutual
acknowledgment and an exchange of fraternal delegates.
73. The Fort Wayne Rupture.--The last and, by far, severest blow, the
separation of the synods which afterwards organized as the General
Council, came as an aftermath of the admission of the Franckean Synod
and the consequent withdrawal of the Pennsylvania delegation, in 1864,
which the General Synod construed as the act of the Ministerium of
Pennsylvania. However, since the Ministerium, reassured by the adoption
of the York Amendment and Resolution, had already resolved to maintain
its connection and to send a delegation to the next convention of the
General Synod, the Fort Wayne schism could have been averted. And
probably the break would have been avoided if the hasty establishment of
the Philadelphia Seminary (as such, an act altogether justified,
especially in the interest of the growing German element) had not caused
suspicion and chagrin within the General Synod. As it was, the
resolution of the Pennsylvania Synod, May 25, 1864, at Pottstown, to
establish a new seminary at Philadelphia, and the subsequent election,
on July 27, of Drs. C.F. Schaeffer of Gettysburg, W.J. Mann, and C.P.
Krauth as the first faculty, was generally viewed as the first actual
step toward a breach. According to Dr. Jacobs both the establishment of
the Philadelphia Seminary and the subsequent disruption of the General
Synod would probably have been avoided, "if the chair at Gettysburg,
vacated by the resignation of Dr. S.S. Schmucker, had been filled by his
[Charles Porterfield Krauth's instead of J.A. Brown's] election." (462.)
Howbeit, at its convention in Fort Wayne, May, 1866, President S.
Sprecher ruled that Synod could recognize the Pennsylvania delegation
only after receiving the report of an act on the part of the
Pennsylvania Synod reestablishing its relation to the General Synod. In
spite of vigorous protests on the part of the Pennsylvania and other
delegates, the chair in its ruling was supported by the majority of the
convention. After a good deal of parliamentary fencing and quibbling,
Synod adopted, with a vote of 77 to 32, as the "ultimate resolution":
"Resolved, That after hearing the response of the delegates of the
Pennsylvania Synod, we cannot conscientiously recede from the action
adopted by this body, believing, after full and careful deliberation,
said action to have been regular and constitutional; but that we
reaffirm our readiness to receive the delegates of said Synod as soon as
they present their credentials in due form." (_Proceedings_ 1866, 3. 5.
9. 12. 25 ff.) Of the alternatives, either practically applying for
readmission or withdrawing from the convention, the Pennsylvania
delegation chose the latter course. At the same time they stated "that
in retiring, as they now do, they distinctly declare that this their act
in no sense or degree affects the relations of the Pennsylvania Synod to
the General Synod." (28.) President A.J. Brown replied in behalf of the
General Synod: "This body has not decided at any time that the
Pennsylvania Synod was out of the General Synod. But having by its
delegation openly withdrawn from the sessions of the General Synod, at
York, Pa., the former President [Sprecher] ruled that the practical
relation of the Synod of Pennsylvania to the General Synod was such that
no report could be heard from that Synod until the General Synod was
organized.... The General Synod hereby extend to the delegation from the
Synod of Pennsylvania the assurance of its kindest regard." (28.) "The
die was cast," says E.J. Wolf. "The prospect of a general Evangelical
Lutheran organization in this country was dispelled." (369.) A few weeks
afterward the Ministerium of Pennsylvania declared its connection with
the General Synod dissolved. The New York Ministerium, the Pittsburgh
Synod, the English Synod of Ohio, and the synods of Illinois, Minnesota,
and Texas followed suit. In 1873 the General Synod, on motion of Dr.
Morris, proposed an interchange of delegates to the General Council. The
Council proposed, instead, a colloquium--a proposition which was
accepted by the General Synod South, but declined by the General Synod
in 1875. The Lutheran Diets held in 1877 and 1878 at Philadelphia,
though temporarily barren of results, helped to pave the way for the
General Synod's revision of its doctrinal basis and the subsequent
establishment of fraternal relations and interchange of delegates
between the two general bodies.
74. Subsequent Separations.--Within the seceding synods the Fort Wayne
rupture also led to various internal separations. A number of English
pastors and congregations, in 1867, severed their connection with the
New York Ministerium (leaving it an almost exclusively German body) and
formed the New York Synod which, in turn, joined the General Synod. In
the same year ten ministers and seven laymen withdrew from the
Pittsburgh Synod, on the ground that, in adopting the Principles of the
General Council, Synod had violated its constitution. The receding party
claimed the name of the Synod, and as such was recognized by the General
Synod. A minority of the Illinois Synod organized the Central Illinois
Synod, which also united with the General Synod. The Pennsylvania
Ministerium, too, lost some of its pastors and congregations, which
united with the East Pennsylvania Synod, a member of the General Synod.
The Central Pennsylvania Synod received a few Pennsylvania Ministerium
congregations. On the other hand, pastors and congregations in
Philadelphia and the neighborhood, hitherto belonging to the East
Pennsylvania Synod, united with the Ministerium of Pennsylvania. The
English Church at Fort Wayne, in which the battle of 1866 had been
fought, entered the Pittsburgh Synod of the General Council. Other
congregations in various parts of the country united with other synods
of the Council. Some congregations were divided, one portion remaining
with the Council, the other entering the General Synod and _vice versa_,
while law suits were carried on by rival claimants for the property.
(Ochsenford, _Doc. History_, 166.)
75. Causes of Disruption.--Though not publicly advanced and pressed at
Fort Wayne, the ultimate reason of the separation was the growing
confessional trend within the Pennsylvania and New York Ministeriums
and other synods over against the confessional and doctrinal laxism of
the leaders and the majority of the General Synod. In 1853, when the
Pennsylvania Synod reunited with the General Synod, the former body
resolved that, "should the General Synod violate its constitution and
require of our synod assent to anything conflicting with the old and
long-established faith of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, then our
delegates are hereby required to protest against such action, to
withdraw from its sessions, and to report to this body." (_Minutes of
Penn. Synod_ 1853, 18.) For confessional reasons the entire Pennsylvania
delegation in 1859 voted against the admission of the liberal
Melanchthon Synod which succored the Platform men. After the admission,
at York, 1864, of the un-Lutheran Franckean Synod in spite of the
protest of 28 representatives of various synods, the Pennsylvania
delegation, referring to the resolution of 1853, submitted a paper in
which they declared that, since the terms upon which the Franckean
Synod was admitted were in direct violation of the constitution of the
General Synod, they would withdraw in order to report to their synod.
(_Proceedings_ 1864, 25.) In the same year the Pennsylvania Synod
approved of the action of their delegates. In 1865 she resolved, "That,
in our judgment, all the doctrinal articles of the Augsburg Confession
do set forth fundamental doctrines of Holy Scripture." At the same time
she reaffirmed her resolution of 1853, but, being reassured by the
adoption of the York Amendment and Resolution, decided to maintain her
connection and wend a delegation to the convention of the General Synod
at Fort Wayne. Accordingly, at Fort Wayne, the Pennsylvania delegates
advanced no further scruples respecting the admittance of the Franckean
Synod, and declared themselves satisfied with the doctrinal basis of the
General Synod. In his pamphlet "The General Synod and Her Assailants,"
J.A. Brown says: "At Fort Wayne and on the floor of the General Synod it
was repeated, again and again, that there were no doctrinal difficulties
between the Synod of Pennsylvania and the General Synod, that all were
now satisfied with the doctrinal position of the General Synod. It was
declared to be entirely a question of order." (11.) Yet back of the
diplomatic technicalities and parliamentary fencing were the conflicting
principles of governmental centralization _versus_ independence of the
District Synods, and especially of liberalism _versus_ confessionalism.
And although the subsequent separation did not proceed on purely
confessional and doctrinal lines, the bulk of the conservatives,
including practically all truly Lutheran conservatives, went with the
seceders, while the great majority of the liberals remained in the
General Synod. (_L. u. W._ 1868, 95.) In its issue of January 30, 1868,
the _American Lutheran_ commented: "Now that the symbolistic element has
been eliminated from the General Synod, for which we may thank God, we
are enabled to speak and write our peculiarly American Lutheran thoughts
without having to fear that we offend those who never were in agreement
with us. Our unfortunate York Compromise with our symbolistic brethren
failed, like all compromises." (_L. U. W._ 1868, 95.)
INFLUENTIAL THEOLOGIANS.
76. Dr. Samuel Simon Schmucker.--That the actual doctrinal position of
the General Synod, especially during the first half of its history, was
much lower than its official confessional formulas would lead one to
believe, appears from a glance at some of the most prominent men of this
period. S.S. Schmucker (1799-1873), the author of 44 books and
pamphlets, and perhaps the most influential man of the General Synod,
was not merely a unionistic, but a pronounced Reformed theologian,
rejecting and denouncing all doctrines distinctive of Lutheranism, as
shown in the preceding pages of this history. He was a scholar of
Helmuth, and finished his theological studies at Princeton, 1818-1820.
From 1820 to 1826 he was active in pastoral work at New Market, Va.; and
from 1826 to 1864 he filled the chair of Didactic Theology at
Gettysburg, training about 400 men. After his resignation in 1864 till
the end of his life, in 1873, he devoted himself to authorship. His
first larger publication was a translation of Storr and Flatt's
_Biblical Theology_. His _Popular Theology_ appeared 1834 and passed
through eight editions. Schmucker also was the author of most of the
General Synod's organic documents, as the constitution and the formula
of government and discipline for its synods and churches, the
constitution of the theological seminary, etc. In London, 1846, at the
organization of the Evangelical Alliance by Dr. Chalmers, Schmucker,
because of his "Appeal" written in 1831, was lauded by Dr. King of
Ireland as the "Father" of the Evangelical Alliance. The nine articles
adopted by the Alliance were regarded by Schmucker as a sufficient basis
for a union of Evangelical Christendom. They formed the standard
according to which he revised the Augsburg Confession in the Definite
Platform of 1855, which "alienated from him many former friends and
clouded the evening of his days." (_Luth. Cycl._, 433.) According to the
Memorial of the convention of the General Synod in 1875, Schmucker is to
be remembered as "the first professor of theology in the Theological
Seminary of the General Synod, a chair filled by him with distinguished
ability for nearly forty years; a man most successful in the work of
organization, whose wisdom, energy, and devotion to the Church
contributed most largely to the development of the General Synod, to the
founding of her literary and theological institutions, and the
organization of her benevolent societies." (41.)
77. Dr. Benjamin Kurtz.--Shoulder to shoulder with Schmucker stood B.
Kurtz (1795-1865). He studied theology under G. Lochman; was assistant
pastor to his uncle, J. Daniel Kurtz, at Baltimore in 1815; pastor at
Hagerstown, Md., from 1815 to 1831; at Chambersburg, Pa., from 1831 to
1833; editor of the _Lutheran Observer_ from 1833 to 1861. His book _Why
You Are a Lutheran_ had a wide circulation. In 1841, at Baltimore, Kurtz
was appointed by the General Synod to write a "judiciously written life
of Luther," which, however, though later committed to Reynolds, never
appeared. In most enthusiastic manner Kurtz pleaded the cause of the
General Synod, not only in America, but also in Europe, where he
succeeded in collecting $12,000 for the Gettysburg Seminary.
(_Proceedings_ 1827, 29.) In the _Observer_ of July 3, 1857, Kurtz made
the following confession: Originally he, too, had endeavored to teach
"on the benefit of the Sacrament" in complete accordance with the
symbolical books; later, when such was no longer possible to him, he had
explained his own faith into the Catechism; this becoming a burden to
his conscience, he had been on the point of joining the Presbyterians or
Methodists; his older colleagues, however, had held him back from taking
this step; they had advised him not to be troubled about such matters,
as the Lutheran Church was far too liberal mid generous to insist on
agreement with the symbols on minor matters, and that without
compunction they themselves deviated in various points from the
Confessions farther than he did, it being sufficient to adhere to the
great fundamental doctrines; this advice had suddenly given comfort to
his heart and made the Lutheran Church dearer to him than before; and
ever since he had boldly told his catechumens that he did not believe
what the Catechism teaches of Baptism and the Lord's Supper, etc. Thus
Kurtz's Lutheranism, like that of Schmucker's, deteriorated as the years
rolled on. Kurtz was a fiery advocate of "new measures," revivals,
protracted meetings, Sabbath- and temperance-reform, etc., and an ardent
champion of "American Lutheranism" and the Definite Platform. He
violently opposed every effort at Lutheranizing and confessionalizing
the General Synod. Through the _Lutheran Observer_ he wielded a
tremendous influence, weekly filling it with ferocious attacks on the
Lutheran symbols and the "symbolists" who opposed the Reformed theology
of Schmucker and his compeers, and ridiculing in the coarsest fashion
everything distinctive of true and historic Lutheranism. In its issue of
November 23, 1849, Kurtz wrote, revealing the spirit that moved him:
"The Fathers--who are the 'Fathers'? They are the children; they lived
in the infancy of the Church, in the early dawn of the Gospel-day. John
was the greatest among the prophets, and yet he that was the least in
the kingdom of God, in the Christian Church, was greater than he. He
probably knew less, and that little less distinctly, than a
Sunday-school child, ten years of age, in the present day. Even the
Apostle Peter, after all the personal instruction of Christ, could not
expand his views sufficiently to learn that the Gospel was to be
preached to the Gentiles, and that the Church of Christ was to compass
the whole world. A special miracle was wrought to remove his prejudice
and convince him of his folly. Every well-instructed Sunday-school child
understands this thing, without a miracle, better than Peter did. Who,
then, are the 'Fathers'? They have become the Children; they were the
Fathers compared with those who lived in the infancy of the Jewish
dispensation; but, compared with the present and advanced age, they are
the Children, and the learned and pious of the nineteenth century are
the Fathers. We are three hundred years older than Luther and his noble
coadjutors, and eighteen hundred years older than the primitives; theirs
was the age of infancy and adolescence, and ours that of full-grown,
adult manhood. They were the Children; we are the Fathers; the tables
are turned." Down to its merger in 1915 with the _Lutheran Church Work_,
the _Observer_ has always borne the stamp of Kurtz's Reformed and
Methodistic theology, as well as of his fanatical and Puritanic spirit.
In 1858 Kurtz founded _The Mission Institute_, which was declared to be
non-sectarian. (_L. u. W._ 1858, 351.) In 1862 he wrote: "With the
editor of the _Lutheran_ I am an admirer of the Augsburg Confession, but
he must allow me to interpret it for myself, as I allow him." (_L. u.
W._ 1862, 152.) Kurtz and the _Observer_ were never censured by the
General Synod. Moreover, in 1866, at Fort Wayne, Synod resolved, in
memory of B. Kurtz, "that by this afflicting dispensation the Lutheran
Church has lost one of her oldest, most faithful, and successful
ministers; the General Synod, one of her earliest, ablest, and most
constant defenders; and the cause of Protestantism and Evangelical piety
in our country, one of its most enlightened and fearless advocates."
(37.)
78. Dr. Samuel Sprecher (1810-1905) was the brother-in-law and most
devoted and enthusiastic supporter of Schmucker. From 1849 to 1884 he
was president of Wittenberg College in Springfield, O., which was most
advanced in the advocacy and development of Schmucker's brand of
American Lutheranism. Again and again Sprecher urged the necessity of
making a bold and honest statement setting forth the exact tenets of
American Lutheranism. "I do not see," he said, "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 un-scriptural, and supplying what is defective." (Spaeth, 1, 347.)
Determined in his blind opposition to "symbolism," Sprecher insisted
that the General Synod refuse admission to such as adhered to the
Lutheran symbols and their doctrines, and declined to subscribe to the
Platform. In 1858 the _Religious Telescope_ said in praise of Sprecher:
"He is a Bible-Lutheran and does not cram the heads of his students with
baptismal regeneration nonsense and similar semipapal imbecilities."
(_Observer_, Feb. 25, 1858; _L. u. W._ 1858, 126.) Toward the end of his
life Sprecher receded from his former position. In the _Lutheran
Evangelist_, January 15, 1892, he wrote: "I can now say, as I could not
formerly, that, like Spener, I can for myself accept the symbols of the
Church without reserve.... It is true that I did once think 'The
Definite Synodical Platform' (that modification of Lutheranism which
perhaps has been properly called 'the culmination of Melanchthonianism')
desirable and practicable, and that I now regard all such modifications
of our creed as hopeless. In the mean time an increased knowledge of the
spirit, methods, and literature of the Missouri Synod has convinced me
that such alterations are undesirable, that the elements of true
Pietism, that a sense of the necessity of personal religion, and the
importance of personal assurance of salvation, can be maintained in
connection with a Lutheranism modified 'by the Puritan element.'"
(Jacobs, 369; Neve, 113.) In 1906 the _Observer_ remarked: "It was
Sprecher's fear that true evangelical piety and the certainty of faith
could not be maintained so well under a strict orthodoxy that made him
hesitate to embrace all of the symbolical books of the Lutheran Church
in his system of faith.... This was one of the effects upon him of the
New England theology with which he came in contact largely in his early
life." (_L. u. W._ 1906, 277.) But even after his manly retraction
Sprecher was not completely cured of the virus of Reformed subjectivism.
Sprecher was among the first who, within the General Synod, declared
that "inspiration does not make a book free of ... grammatical errors,
rhetorical faults, and historical inaccuracies in minor and secondary
matters." (_L. u. W._ 1871, 126.)
79. Dr. James Allen Brown.--Brown, born 1821, was licensed in 1845 by the
Maryland Synod; served as pastor in various congregations; as professor
of theology in Newberry College, S.C., from 1859 to 1860; as chaplain in
the U.S. Army; as professor of Systematic Theology at Gettysburg from
1864 to 1879; as editor of the _Lutheran Quarterly_ from 1871; insane
since 1880, he died June 19, 1882. During the Platform controversy Brown
was a zealous opponent of Schmucker and regarded as a conservative. In
the _Evangelical Review_ he charged Schmucker with teaching false
doctrines concerning regeneration, justification, and inherited sin.
Articles against Brown appeared in the _Observer_ and in the _Evangelical
Review_. (_L. u. W._ 1858, 65.) Though an opponent of Schmucker, Brown
shared practically all of his peculiarly Reformed and unionistic views.
"To separate her from the great multitude of God's sacramental host,
degrades the Lutheran Church, the Mother Church of the Reformation,"
Brown declared in his pamphlet against the assailants of the General
Synod. (22.) And when asked, in 1868, in the lawsuit of Hebron
Evangelical Lutheran Church in Leechburg: "Do you believe as Professor
of Didactic Theology at the Seminary of the General Synod that the
doctrines of the Augsburg Confession agree with Holy Scripture?" Brown
answered under oath, "I hold the Augsburg Confession to be a correct
exhibition of the fundamental doctrines of the divine Word." Asked
again, "Do you believe as such Professor that the Augsburg Confession
teaches some things which are not in harmony with the Bible?" he
answered, "In certain points there are, according to what appears to be
its true and original sense, some things taught in the Augsburg
Confession which I do not consider as taught in the Bible or in
agreement therewith." Requested to enumerate fundamental doctrines of
the Word of God found in the Augsburg Confession to which the
constitution of the General Synod referred, he mentioned seven of the
twenty-one articles as fundamental, one as not fundamental, and all the
others as containing doctrines of fundamental character, but not
fundamental in their exact expression. In his pamphlet, "The General
Synod and Her Assailants," Brown wrote: The Lutheran Church has its
confessions, liturgies, etc., "but she enforces none of them upon her
members in the form of rigorous and compulsatory law; ... it does not
lie in the genius of our Church to enforce her utterances, in all their
details, as if they were indispensable, either to Christianity or
herself." (12.)
80. Dr. J.G. Butler and the "Lutheran Evangelist."--Dr. Butler, pastor
of the Lutheran Memorial Church in Washington, D.C., and editor of the
_Lutheran Evangelist_, was among the most liberal of the General Synod
pastors and in every respect a unionistic-Reformed-Methodistic
theologian, who rejected every doctrine distinctive of Lutheranism. (_L.
u. W._ 1908, 321.) In 1895 he wrote: "I have become almost entirely
indifferent to theological and even to denominational differences of
practise and belief." (1895, 251.) In 1899: "The things which separate
us [evangelical denominations] are of a speculative nature and have
nothing to do with the substance of that faith which saves souls and is
the only hope of a lost world." (1899, 124.) At his fiftieth jubilee, in
1899, addresses were delivered by four pastors of the General Synod and
seven representatives of other denominations; 250 men "of every creed,
denomination, shade of religious faith, and political opinion" were
invited to the banquet. (1900, 26.) In 1909 Butler gave the following
advice to the Lutheran Church: "Adopt the name American Lutheran, and we
may make it one of the stepping-stones toward the union of the entire
Church.... The ideal is not uniformity in doctrine and life, but
uniformity in love for Christ and the Kingdom." (1909, 228.) In 1909,
after the death of Dr. Butler, the _Lutheran Evangelist_ was merged with
the _Lutheran Observer_. The last number of the _Evangelist_ spoke of
Butler as "that true prophet of God." And the _Lutheran Observer_ said
in praise of the _Evangelist_: "It has been a power for good in their
[its readers'] lives. Of its records they may well be proud. Founded in
1876, its career of thirty-three years has been one of achievement and
honor. It has made a solid and enduring contribution to the developing
history of the Lutheran Church in this country." (1909, 562.) Dr. Butler
served twice as chaplain in the United States Congress.
81. Dr. J.D. Severinghaus (1834-1905) graduated 1861 in the Seminary at
Springfield, O.; from 1873 to 1905 he was active in Chicago; in 1869 he
founded _Lutherischer Kirchenfreund_ (temporarily called _Lutherischer
Hausfreund_); in 1875 he published _Denkschrift der Generalsynode_; he
established connections with Chrischona, and in 1878 with Pastor C.
Jensen in Breklum, to prepare candidates for the Wartburg Synod; in 1883
he founded the Chicago Seminary. Severinghaus was one of the most
fanatical opponents of Lutheran confessionalism. "The _Kirchenfreund_,"
he declared, "intends to be genuinely Lutheran, hence not in the sense
in which the name after the Reformation was so frequently abused in the
interest of a quarrelsome exclusive faction (_Rotte_). In the Lutheran
Church there have not only been, and have been tolerated, different
opinions on non-essential articles, but it is of the very essence of the
true liberty of the Lutheran Church that such differences must be
tolerated." (_L. u. W._ 1869, 58.) Severinghaus was an implacable enemy
and unscrupulous detractor of Walther and the Missouri Synod. Of his
numerous aspersions in the _Kirchenfreund_ the following has attracted
special attention: "Well, the Missourians are not Quakerish. They
believe in fighting, even against their own Government. For during the
time of war they had raised a rebel flag on their Preachers' College in
St. Louis, a proof that they intended to tread the Constitution of our
country under their feet, in order to enforce their own despotism the
more easily." In Dr. Neve's _Kurzgefasste Geschichte_ of 1915 Geo.
Fritschel writes: "Walther sympathized with the South, and even had the
Rebellion flag hoisted over the Seminary." (247.) However, the
_Lutheraner_ of February 1, 1870, brands "the scribble" of the
_Kirchenfreund_ as an "infamous slander" and Severinghaus as "a
mendacious slanderer." "The truth is"--the _Lutheraner_ continues--"that
during the time of war never a Rebellion Flag, but repeatedly a Union
flag was hoisted over our College in St. Louis." (26, 84. 150. 159; 25,
114. 190.) The General Synod approved of, and repeatedly endorsed, the
_Kirchenfreund_. In 1871, at Dayton, 0.: "The _Kirchenfreund_ has also
proved that our principles are favorably received by a large portion of
our brethren. Outside of our Church the paper is doing a good work in
removing prejudices against the General Synod and in defending our
principles." (21.) In 1873, at Canton, 0., the Committee on German
Church paper reported: "The influence of the paper is seen in many
things, but especially in the growing interest in the German work. There
no longer can be any doubt that our type of Lutheranism commends itself
to the Germans, and that it need but be understood to gain their favor.
It is so clear that it needs no proof that the German and English work
must go hand in hand in the General Synod. The _Kirchenfreund_ is doing
this twofold work of bringing us into closer sympathy with the Germans,
and bringing them into closer union with ourselves." (40 f.; cf. 1875,
50.) In 1879, at Wooster, 0.: "The _Kirchenfreund_ has been published
regularly in 24 numbers per year, since the last convention, and our
report covers volumes IX and X. This has not been the most prosperous
period of its history; on the contrary, we are obliged to report a very
material loss of subscribers and proportionate diminution of receipts.
We believe, however, that this loss is not attributable to any defects
of the paper itself, nor to any circumstance whatsoever under our
control, but rather to general causes, such as the continued and
exhausting depression of the business interests of the country, change
in the habits of our people, increase of good secular papers, and Sunday
editions of local papers, westward removal of our people, etc." (37.) In
the same year, 1879, Severinghaus declared that Missouri showed "all
marks of the antichrist described in the Word of God." (_L. u. W._ 1879,
55.)
82. Dr. Milton Valentine (1825-1906), for nineteen years professor of
Dogmatic Theology in Gettysburg, opposed the confessional trend within
the General Synod, and, in important distinctive doctrines, occupied a
Reformed position. In his _Christian Theology_ of 1906, Dr. Valentine
sacrifices the inerrancy of the Scriptures in making concessions to
modern geology, astronomy, and Evolution. He denies the total depravity
of man; charges the Formula of Concord with Flacianism; teaches the
humiliation of Christ's divine nature; denies that the divine majesty
was communicated to His human nature; and questions the penal suffering
of Christ. He teaches that Christ did not pay the full penalty for all
sins, for then forgiveness of sin could not be spoken of; Christ's
atonement merely made forgiveness possible for God, which followed under
the condition that man consents thereto; faith precedes regeneration and
conversion; God does not produce the act of faith, but only the ability
to believe; the Holy Ghost merely enables man to fulfil the conditions
of justification and to convert himself; God restores free choice, but
man himself must make the choice and decide in favor of grace; the will
of man is the third cause of conversion; children cannot believe, and are
saved without faith of their own; Baptism does not work regeneration;
heathen are saved if they follow their natural light; in the Eucharist
Christ's body and blood are not received orally nor by unbelievers; close
communion militates against the unity of the Church; a Church is orthodox
so long as it adheres to the fundamental doctrines held in common by all
Evangelical communions; deviation in other doctrines is no hindrance to
church-fellowship; the government and officers of the State must
acknowledge Jesus as Lord and His will as the highest law; legislation
must be guided by the Bible; divorces not sanctioned in Scripture may not
be granted by the State; the State must enforce the "divine Sabbath"; the
Bible teaches a millennium in which the Gospel shall rule supreme, etc.
(_L. u. W._ 1908, 128.)
83. Dr. J.W. Richard (1843-1909), professor at Gettysburg since 1889, and
editor of the _Lutheran Quarterly_ since 1808, occupied practically the
same position as Valentine, whose _Christian Theology_ he endorsed. In the
_Lutheran Quarterly_ and the _Lutheran Observer_, as well as in his
_Confessional History_, Dr. Richard, following Heppe and similar German
theologians, defended Melanchthonianism, and criticized the Form of
Concord, the Second Article of which he branded as Calvinistic. He
resisted the efforts on the part of the conservatives and the _Lutheran
World_ at revising the doctrinal basis of the General Synod, and ignored
the confessional resolutions of 1901 and 1905. (_L. u. W._ 1908, 84 ff.;
1909, 179.) Following such German theologians as Dr. Hauck and others,
Richard distinguished between "form and substance" of the Confessions, in
a manner invalidating the subscription to the Augustana, and practically
amounting to the old formula: "fundamentals substantially correct." As
to the Lord's Supper Richard regarded the declaration, "that Christ is
present in the Eucharist," as sufficient. (_Confessional History_,
610-618.) In 1909 Richard identified himself with Schleiermacher's
definition of religion, and pronounced this father of modern
subjectivism and rationalism "the renewer of theology and the greatest
theologian since the Reformation." (_L. u. W._ 1909, 421.)
CONSERVATIVES.
84. Confessional Tendencies.--Apart from a number of minor causes the
conservative movement within the General Synod is chiefly due to the
awakening of confessional Lutheranism in Germany, the increase of
Lutheran immigrants, and the powerful influence of the Lutherans in the
West, especially the Missouri Synod. The rapidly multiplying German
elements which entered the Pennsylvania and New York Ministeriums and
other Lutheran synods during the second half of the nineteenth century
were always farthest advanced in taking a confessional stand with
respect to Lutheran doctrine and practise. Down to the present day the
attitude of the German Districts of the now defunct General Synod toward
lodges, altar- and pulpit-fellowship, and the Lutheran symbols has been
much more conservative than that of the English District Synods.
However, the early conservatives of the General Synod, besides being in
the minority and having no organ in the English language to cope with
the _Lutheran Observer_, lacked the clearness, consistency, boldness,
initiative, determination, and aggressiveness of their liberal
opponents. And even later, when both their number and courage had
increased materially, it was not in every respect the old genuine, but a
modified Lutheranism which also their most pronounced representatives
advocated--not whole-hearted, undivided loyalty to Lutheran doctrines
and practises, but a Lutheranism tainted, more or less, with
indifferentism and unionism, nor absolutely free even from elements of
Pietism and Reformedism. For the cry of the conservative leaders who
later organized the General Council was not, "Back to Luther!" but,
"Back to Muhlenberg!" And the prominent conservatives that remained in
the General Synod after the Fort Wayne rupture, they all, without
exception, were outspoken unionists, ready to tolerate un-Lutheran
doctrines in their own midst and pulpit-fellowship with the sects, some
of them being disloyal even to doctrines distinctive of Lutheranism.
During the Platform controversy some of the most influential
conservatives differed from Schmucker not so much in theology as in
their policy of mutual toleration and the refusal to mutilate and
abandon the venerable Augsburg Confession. The lack of bold
aggressiveness on the part of the most Lutheran of these conservatives
is illustrated by the letter of H.J. Schmidt, already referred to: "If
all open conflict is avoided, our cause, I mean the cause of truth and
of the Church, will continue silently and surely to gain ground."
(Spaeth, 1, 349; _Lutheraner_, April 12, 1852.) Their lack of Lutheran
seriousness is exemplified by the cordial relation existing at
Gettysburg between C.F. Schaeffer, who in his lectures in Catechetics
endeavored to create an interest in, and respect for, the Lutheran
symbols, and his brother-in-law S.S. Schmucker, who did everything in
his power to discredit and misrepresent them. (_L. u. W._ 1884, 357.)
85. Conservatives Unionistic.--In their reports in the _Lutheraner_ and
in _Kirchliche Mitteilungen_ on the confessional awakening within the
General Synod, Walther and Sihler joyfully mention Drs. Morris and
Reynolds as the promising leaders of the movement. (_Lutheraner_ 6, 37.)
"An opposition has arisen against Kurtz and Schmucker such as no one
would have dared to hope for ten years ago," Loehe wrote in 1850.
"Reynolds," he continued, "placed the Confession into the light again.
Ministers ask for the wisdom of old. Students at Gettysburg purchase the
Book of Concord." The _Evangelical Review_ would contribute "to deliver
the children of the Church and her teachers out of the
Kurtz-Schmuckerian captivity." Similar progress was made in other
synods. (_Kirchl. Mitt_. 1850, 57.) In a letter of October, 1847, Philip
Schaff refers to Drs. Morris, Reynolds, Demme, and the two Krauths as
prominent among the conservatives of the General Synod. (Spaeth, _W. J.
Mann_, 38.) But what these men who at the middle of the nineteenth
century thrilled many a Lutheran heart with joy and hope abandoned, was,
at best, not unionism, but Reformedism. The most that can he said of Dr.
C.R. Demme (1795-1863; studied in Halle and Goettingen; came to America
in 1818), who was pastor in Philadelphia and prominent in the
Pennsylvania Synod, is that he was a theologian of a mild confessional
tendency. As late as 1852 he stood for the union distribution formula in
the Lord's Supper. Dr. J.G. Morris (1803-1895; received his theological
training at Nazareth, Princeton, and Gettysburg; founded the _Lutheran
Observer_; wrote _Life Reminiscences of an Old Lutheran Minister_, etc.)
signed the notorious letter of 1845, which later he declared to be the
greatest blunder of the General Synod. Morris approved of the unionistic
practises of the General Synod. As late as 1885 he declared his position
as follows: "I preach the Lutheran doctrine of the real presence of our
glorified Lord in the blessed elements; but when a poor, penitent,
praying, confessing, believing sinner comes and asks for permission to
commune with us, I dare not ask him whether his views agree with mine,"
etc. (_L. u. W._ 1885, 252.) Dr. Charles Philip Krauth (1797-1867;
professor in Gettysburg and editor of the _Evangelical Review_ from 1850
to 1860), though having a strong aversion to the Platform and being more
in favor of a revision of the doctrinal basis of the General Synod than
his son, signed the Pacific Overture and, in the Platform controversy,
was an ardent advocate of mutual toleration. Dr. Charles Porterfield
Krauth (1823-1883), prior to his manly retraction in 1864, was an
out-and-out unionist, and, in more than one respect, infected also with
Reformed views. As late as 1866, at Fort Wayne, he was apparently
satisfied with the confessional basis of the General Synod as declared
in the York Amendment and Resolution. Dr. L.A. Gotwald (1833-1900;
professor in Wittenberg Seminary from 1888 to 1895) was, in 1893,
charged with, and tried upon, charges, among others, of holding "to the
type of Lutheranism characteristic of the General Council," _viz_.,
"that all the doctrines of the Augsburg Confession are fundamental," and
"that the doctrinal position of the General Synod, when rightly
interpreted, is identical with that of the General Council." His
acquittal strengthened the conservative, but unionistic, tendency of
Wittenberg Seminary. (Jacobs, 510.) Dr. E.J. Wolf (1840-1905; since 1873
professor in Gettysburg Seminary) was perhaps the most Lutheran of the
influential English members of the General Synod since the Fort Wayne
disruption of 1866. In the Preface to his _Lutherans in America_ of 1889
he expresses the conviction with respect to our "glorious Church," "that
to know her is to love her, and that those knowing and loving her true
character will consecrate themselves to the maintenance of her purity in
faith and life, and the enlargement of her efficiency in extending the
Word and kingdom of Christ." Dr. D.H. Bauslin, who served the cause of
conservatism within the General Synod both as professor in Wittenberg
College and as editor of the _Lutheran World_ (from 1901 to 1912, when
it merged into the _Lutheran Church Work_), was a champion of the
unionistic practises of the General Synod. The same is true of other
conservatives who contributed to the revision and restatement of the
doctrinal basis of the General Synod as finally adopted in 1913--they
all must be classified as unionists, tolerating, on principle,
deviations from the doctrines and practises distinctive of Lutheranism.
Thus, in the course of years, the unionistic Lutherans multiplied,
while the Reformed radicals decreased within the General Synod. In 1896
the _Herald_ of the General Council, itself a mildly unionistic paper,
wrote: "It is gradually getting better in the General Synod. True, with
respect to some old gentlemen the word of 1815 is applicable: 'The old
guard dies, but does not surrender.' And the younger lordings, who swear
by the Methodistic _Lutheran Evangelist_, exercise themselves in crying
against the dead orthodoxists. But these as well as the former are no
longer strong enough to stop the movement toward the right. 'Toward the
right'--that means the General Council, which, strange to say, is more
obnoxious to the radicals than Missouri." (_L. u. W._ 1896, 154.)
86. Dr. William Morton Reynolds.--Reynolds (1812 to 1875) graduated at
Gettysburg Seminary; served as professor in Pennsylvania College from
1833 to 1850; with an interruption of the year 1835 to 1836, when he was
pastor at Deerfield, N.J.; was president of Capital University,
Columbus, 0., from 1850 to 1853, and of Illinois State University at
Springfield from 1857 to 1860; joined the Episcopalians in 1863;
translated and published Acrelius's _History of New Sweden_ in 1874. In
1842 Reynolds left the Ministerium of Pennsylvania and organized the
East Pennsylvania Synod. In the interest of conservative Lutheranism,
Reynolds, in 1849, founded the _Evangelical Review_, which B. Kurtz
promptly condemned as "the most sectarian periodical he ever read." In
1850, when asked whether he intended to adhere to the doctrinal basis
of the General Synod, Reynolds stated in the _Lutheran Observer_: "Well,
I frankly confess and rejoice in being able to say that within the last
two years I have changed my views with respect to several very important
points. But this change has not cast me out of the Lutheran Church, but,
moreover, led me into it," etc. Reynolds declared that he joyously
adopted "old Lutheranism," "as plainly taught in the Augsburg Confession
and Luther's Small Catechism." (_Lutheraner_, April 30, 1850.) In the
_Lutheran Observer_ of January 25, 1856, Reynolds retracted his former
endorsement of Kurtz's _Why You Are a Lutheran_, a booklet in which
Kurtz affirmed that the present Lutheran Church, with a few exceptions,
believed concerning the Lord's Supper what had been held by those whom
Luther termed "Sacramentarians." (_L. u. W._ 1870, 156.) Walther, in
1850, praised Reynolds as a man of substantial learning and a teacher
true to the Lutheran Church and her confessions. (_Lutheraner_ 6, 139.)
But Walther and other friends of true Lutheranism who staked great hopes
on Reynolds, were sorely disappointed in their expectations. In spite of
his retractions, Reynolds always was and remained a unionist. In 1857
Harkey gave the assurance that Reynolds was not a symbolist, but stood
on the doctrinal basis of the General Synod. When Dr. G. Diehl, in the
_Observer_, designated Reynolds as a strict confessionalist, Reynolds,
in the _Observer_ of October 2, 1857, protested that he was a General
Synod man, whose primary object was not to divide, but to unite. (_L. u.
W._ 1857, 314.) In his Springfield inaugural address, 1858, Reynolds
coordinated the evangelical denominations, and advocated extensive
unionism, maintaining that they all base their doctrines on Holy
Scripture. In order to justify his apostasy, Reynolds, in 1863,
published the statement that, in part, he had been moved to unite with
the Episcopalians on account of the bitter "sectarianism" of the
Lutheran Church and the denunciations of the men of the _Observer_ party
by the _Lutheran and Missionary_. (_L. u. W._ 1864, 25.) Later Reynolds
was reported to have said that he left the Lutheran Church because he
was without employment, and believed every door in the General Synod
closed against himself. The _Observer_ of October 9, 1863, justified the
propriety of Reynold's action by referring to the constitution which
provides for the honorable dismissal from District Synods and the
admittance of ministers from other denominations. (_L. u. W._ 1863,
379.) In 1877 the _Observer_ published an article in which the writer
states: "When a pastor who depends for his support on his office does
not succeed in obtaining a position in our Church and must suffer on
account of this, he may accept a call from another denomination....
Several of such cases have happened, and no liberal-minded man will
censure persons who have left us for such reasons." (_L. u. W._ 1877,
186.)
87. Conservative Periodicals.--In 1849 the English Lutherans in New York
declared that the _Lutheran Observer_ was opposed to the spirit and
character of the Lutheran Church, and appointed a committee to bring
about a radical change in the editorship, or, in case this should fail,
to advocate the establishment of a new church-paper at the next General
Synod. "Thus one funeral song after the other is chanted to our friend
at Baltimore, and partly by his own former adherents," remarked the
_Lutheraner_. (6, 47.) It was but another of the numerous symptoms of
awakening confessionalism in the East, when, at New York, June 8, 1853,
a conference of the New York Ministerium, in a resolution, declared that
they were utterly dissatisfied with the unevangelical and unsymbolical
position of the _Lutheran Observer_ as a church-paper, dissatisfied also
with the miserable stuff which it contained, and that, in place of it,
they recommend the _Lutheran Standard_. (_Lutheraner_ 9, 175.)--The
first German paper within the General Synod which occasionally raised
its voice against the apostasy of the _Observer_ was the _Lutherische
Kirchenzeitung_ of Pittsburgh, published from 1838 to 1846 by Prof.
Schmidt of Lafayette College, Easton, Pa., at a great personal
sacrifice. (_Kirchl. Mitt._ 1843, No. 10.) At Chambersburg, 1839, the
General Synod resolved "that we continue to view the _Lutheran Observer_
published by Dr. Kurtz, at Baltimore, Md., and the _Lutherische
Kirchenzeitung_, published by Prof. Schmidt, at Easton, Pa., as able
advocates of the cause of evangelical religion in our Church, and that
we recommend them to the cordial support of our people." (16.) But the
German paper soon proved a thorn in the flesh of the liberals. In 1841
"a Lutheran of Ohio" wrote in the _Kirchenzeitung:_ "It is astounding
that the Lutheran Church should support a paper like the _Observer_ and
nurse an enemy in its midst; the editor [Kurtz] himself ought to be
honest enough to leave the Church whose doctrines and customs he does
not love, but regards as false." Because of this critical attitude the
Synod of the West, in the same year, declared that it was unable to
recommend the _Kirchenzeitung_ to its members. The charges were that the
_Kirchenzeitung_ was directly opposed to the _Lutheran Observer_; that
it revealed an improper spirit with respect to revivals and charitable
institutions; that it had declared the _Lutheran Observer_ to be
anti-Lutheran, and directed its influence against this excellent paper.
The Pennsylvania Synod, however, to which Pastor Schmidt submitted the
resolution of the Synod of the West, decided in favor of the
_Kirchenzeitung_. In 1849, the same year in which the _Mercersburg
Review_ appeared, the _Evangelical Review_ was published at Gettysburg
by W. M. Reynolds, whom Charles Philip Krauth succeeded as editor. Both
Reynolds and Krauth were prominent among the leaders of the
conservatives. What the _Evangelical Review_, however, really stood for
was not unqualified Lutheranism, but unionism. (_L. u. W._ 1858, 272 f.)
On principle the _Review_ opened its pages to both the advocates and the
opponents of the Lutheran symbols and its doctrines. (_Lutheraner_ 1852,
136.) Walther's report in the _Lutheraner_ on his trip to Germany in the
interest of an agreement with Loehe appeared English in the _Evangelical
Review_ of 1853. (_L._ 9, 134.) The career of the _Evangelical Review_
was closed in 1870. It was succeeded by the _Lutheran Quarterly_, first
edited by Drs. Brown and Valentine, both of whom were not essentially
Lutheran, but unionistic and Reformed theologians.--In 1845, Dr. W. A.
Passavant began a small missionary periodical which grew into a large
family weekly, the _Missionary_. Though one of its objects was to oppose
the un-Lutheran tendency of the _Observer_, the _Missionary_ itself was
free neither of unionism nor even of Reformedism. According to its issue
of February 28, 1861, for instance, communicants at the Lord's Supper
partake of Christ's body and blood by faith. The _Missionary_ was a
champion also of the Reformed doctrine of the Sunday. (_L. u. W._ 1861,
123. 350.) In 1861 the _Missionary_ merged into the _Lutheran and
Missionary_, with Drs. Krauth and Passavant as editors--a paper which
took a decided stand in favor of a modified confessional Lutheranism. In
1861 the editors declared with respect to pulpit- and altar-fellowship:
"We do not want to refuse the sweet bond of Christian fellowship to
those who sincerely love our Lord Jesus Christ." (_L. u. W._ 1861, 379;
1862, 19 ff.) The _Lutheran World_, serving the cause of the
conservatives till 1912, when it was merged into the _Lutheran Church
Work_ (established 1911 as the official organ of the General Synod),
always defended the unionistic practises of the General Synod, and
violently attacked Missouri for disapproving of her fellowship with the
sects. (_L. u. W._ 1901, 54; 1904, 564.) In 1901 the _Lutheran World_
wrote: "Perhaps we shall always have three great church bodies, lest
any truth concerning the Trinity be lost. Perhaps there will always be
Calvinists to emphasize the sovereignty of God, Arminians to emphasize
the freedom of man and the work of the Holy Spirit, and Lutherans who
place the emphasis on God in Christ and justification by faith in Him."
(_L. u. W._ 1901, 154.) In 1905 the _World_ defended the affiliation of
the General Synod with the Federal Council, and attacked the _Lutheran_
for criticizing the Federal Council as unionistic. (_L. u. W._ 1906,
32.) Without a word of criticism the _World_, in 1903, published the
news: "Rev. Eli Miller, of St. Mark's church, Allegheny, Pa., recently
addressed the I. O. O. F. in his church on 'We be brethren'." (_L. u.
W._ 1903, 184.) In the same year the _World_ designated the doctrine
that every word of the Bible was inspired as an orthodox exaggeration
and an astonishing assertion, at the same time declaring that it was
time to formulate a theory of inspiration, and that, in this matter, all
eyes in America were directed on the Lutheran church. (_L. u. W._ 1904,
39; 1903, 307.) In 1901 the _Lutheran World_ wrote that one must not
imagine that man cannot do anything toward his own salvation; that grace
must not be viewed as such a supernatural operation which effects a
change in the moral nature of man while his own exertions contribute
nothing; that man must cooperate with God when the machinery is set into
motion. (_L. u. W._ 1901, 234.) The _Lutherische Zionsbote_, the organ
of the German Nebraska and the Wartburg Synods, as well as of the German
congregations in other District Synods, was much more moderate and
conservative than its predecessor, the _Lutherische Kirchenfreund_.
MISSOURI'S INFLUENCE.
88. Light Coming from the West.--In 1845, at the convention of the
General Synod in Philadelphia, Wyneken, a delegate of the Synod of the
West, made a bold, determined, and consistent stand for genuine
Lutheranism against the prevailing unionistic and Reformed tendencies of
the leaders of the General Synod. Wyneken, who, in his pamphlet _The
Distress of the German Lutherans in North America_, had characterized
the General Synod as Reformed in doctrine, Methodistic in practise, and
Lutheran in name only, demanded at Philadelphia that Synod either
renounce the name Lutheran, or reject as utterly un-Lutheran Schmucker's
_Popular Theology, Appeal, Portraiture of Lutheranism_, etc., Kurtz's
_On Infant Baptism, Why You Are a Lutheran_, and the _Lutheran
Observer_, as well as the _Hirtenstimme_ of Weyl. But on floor of Synod
not a single voice was heard that understood him, and was in sympathy
with him. On the contrary, in _Lutherische Hirtenstimme_, July 1, 1845,
Rev. Weyl began to decry Wyneken as a masked Romanist, an enemy of
Lutheran doctrines, usages, books, and periodicals, and to ridicule his
zeal for true Lutheranism at Philadelphia as a "ludicrous motion
(_spasshafte Motion_)" which the General Synod had tabled
"good-naturedly." (_L._ 1845, 96; 3, 32; 7, 133. 153.) Wyneken was a
strange figure on the floor of the General Synod--without predecessors,
without successors. Down to the Merger in 1918 there was not found a
single prominent General Synodist walking in his steps. In an address
delivered March 10, 1846, Dr. Philip Schaff (Schaaf was his original
name) declared that it was impossible to build a confessional Lutheran
Church (not to speak of the exclusive Lutheranism of the Form of
Concord) on the Reformed English soil of America. It would be easier to
direct the course of the Mississippi to Bavaria and to convert the
Chinese through German sermons. The emissaries from Germany would soon
be convinced of the folly of their undertaking, etc.--This was the view
also of the leaders of the General Synod. But, though fully aware of the
difficulties ahead, nothing was able to daunt the courage of the men of
the West, or shake their faith in the truth and final success of their
cause. And their faith did not fail them. Throughout the United States
and far beyond its bounds the fact of Missouri's powerful rise was felt
as an encouragement and incentive to true Lutheranism everywhere.
Indeed, the confessional influence of the West on the East was much
greater than is usually acknowledged. As early as 1846 Dr. Walther felt
justified in stating in the _Lutheraner_ (Sept. 5): "No doubt but God
has arisen in order to remove the rubbish under which our precious
Evangelical Lutheran Church was buried for a long time, also here in
America." (3, 1.) The _Observer_, reporting on the organization of the
Missouri Synod in 1847, ridiculed: "This new Synod is composed of
genuine Old Lutherans, the true, spotless orthodox ones, whose theology
is as strong and straight as the symbolical books can make it, and whose
religious usages are as stiff as such thoroughbred old-school men can
wish them." (_L._ 4, 30.) But while B. Kurtz and his compeers indulged
in mockery and ridicule, the men of Missouri were clear-sighted,
serious, and determined. The consequence was that a decade later the
hearts of the General Synod's anti-confessionalists were filled with
fear and consternation. Schmucker's chief object in writing the Definite
Platform, as appears from this document itself, was to stem the tide of
the confessional wave coming from the West, and to make the General
Synod immune against Misouri. [tr. note: sic!]