92. Objectionable Features of Resolutions.—Among the weak points of the resolutions of 1895 and 1901 are the following. First: It implied a contradiction when the General Synod in her new resolutions, which give an unqualified assent to the Augsburg Confession, at the same time declared herself fully satisfied with, reaffirmed and set its seal of approval on, the qualified basis of 1864. From the very outset the leaders of the new confessional movement dodged the open acknowledgment that the doctrinal basis of the General Synod, also that of 1864, was misleading and un-Lutheran. In the resolution of 1895, Synod expressed her "entire satisfaction" with the doctrinal basis of 1864. In the resolution of 1901 she reaffirmed her "unreserved allegiance" to this basis. In 1909 Synod declared: "We reiterate our firm belief that our confessional basis [of 1864] is adequate and satisfactory." (58.) Again: "The confessional resolutions referred to [of 1895 and 1901] are not alterations of the constitution, and contemplate no alterations; they are simply explanations of the meaning of the General Synod's confessional basis. Therefore, it is not necessary to submit them to the District Synods of the General Synod" (for adoption). (58.) The Report of Dr. L.S. Keyser, delegate to the General Council in 1907, which was adopted by the Richmond convention, urged Synod to defend, vindicate, and maintain her doctrinal basis of 1864. Also the Lutheran World, the organ of the conservatives, maintained that the General Synod's resolutions of 1895 to 1909 were but "a restatement of its confessional basis in harmony with all its previous statements." (L. u. W. 1909, 370.) Secondly: When the resolution of 1901 declared it contrary to the basis of 1864 to make any distinction between fundamental and so-called non-fundamental doctrines in the Augsburg Confession, this, too, was an unwarranted assertion. The Richmond convention stated: "When the General Synod says, in her formula of confessional subscription, that she accepts 'the Augsburg Confession as a correct exhibition of the fundamental doctrines of the divine Word, and of the faith of our Church founded upon the Word,' she means precisely what she says, namely, that the fundamental doctrines of God's Word are correctly set forth in the Confession. She does not mean that some of the doctrines set forth in the Confession are non-fundamental, and, therefore, may be accepted or rejected; she means that they are all fundamental, and their exhibition in the Confession is to be accepted by those who subscribe to the Confession." This interpretation placed on the York Amendment by the resolution of 1901 was unknown to the General Synod and her theologians before as well as after its adoption in 1864. As shown above, the phrase "fundamental doctrines" of the York Amendment, historically interpreted, has but one meaning, viz., that some of the doctrines of the Augsburg Confession are fundamental, while others are not. Besides, while it is certainly correct to regard all doctrines of the Augustana as Scriptural and binding, it is theologically false to declare all of them, e.g., the doctrine of the Sunday, fundamental doctrines.—Thirdly: The convention at Richmond adopted the statement: "While the General Synod's formula of confessional subscription mentions only the Augsburg Confession, without specifying the terms 'altered' or 'unaltered,' yet it is a historical fact that the General Synod has never subscribed to any edition of the Confession save the 'unaltered' form, and does not now subscribe to any other edition." (56.) If this means that the General Synod ever subscribed, e.g., to the rejection in the Tenth Article, an essential feature in the unaltered edition, but omitted in the edition of 1540, the statement is not borne out by the facts. —Fourthly: The resolution of 1909, by stating that every member may accept the Secondary Symbols "in strict accordance with the Lutheran regulating principle of justifying faith" (60), insinuates that these symbols are in need of such an interpretation, thus placing them below par. The self-evident fact that the Secondary Symbols should be tried also according to the Augsburg Confession and the doctrine of justification did not justify a limitation, which could be interpreted as a justification, e.g., of the professors in Gettysburg Seminary, who, from Schmucker down to Richard, maintained that the Secondary Symbols were not in agreement with the Augsburg Confession.

RESTATEMENT OF BASIS.

93. Atchison Amendments.—The resolutions of 1891 to 1909 were not submitted to the District Synods for adoption, nor subsequently embodied in the constitution of the General Synod. Instead, the convention at Richmond, 1909, instructed the Common Service Committee "to codify the several resolutions and statements explanatory of the Doctrinal Basis of the General Synod, adopted at York, Pa., in 1864; at Hagerstown, Md., in 1895; at Des Moines, Iowa, in 1901; and at the present session of the General Synod, and incorporate the substance of the same into one clear and definite statement of our Doctrinal Basis, and to report the same at the next meeting of the General Synod with a view to placing it in the Constitution of the General Synod by amendment in the manner prescribed by the Constitution itself, there being no intention in this action in any way to change our present Doctrinal Basis" of 1864. (115.) Accordingly, two new articles were presented to the assembly in Washington, D.C., 1911, which were subsequently referred to the District Synods for action. The articles submitted for approval read as follows: "Article II. Doctrinal Basis. With the Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Fathers, the General Synod receives and holds the canonical Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as the Word of God and the only infallible rule of faith and practise; and it receives and holds the Unaltered Augsburg Confession as a correct exhibition of the faith and doctrine of our Church as founded upon the Word. Article III. The Secondary Symbols. While the General Synod regards the Augsburg Confession as a sufficient and altogether adequate doctrinal basis for the cooperation of Lutheran synods, it also recognizes the Apology of the Augsburg Confession, the Smalcald Articles, the Small Catechism of Luther, the Large Catechism of Luther, and the Formula of Concord as expositions of Lutheran doctrine of great historical and interpretative value, and especially commends the Small Catechism as a book of instruction." (Proceedings 1913, 126.) Two years later, all District Synods having approved the articles, the convention at Atchison declared "that the said amendments have been adopted, and are parts of the Constitution of this body." (L. u. W. 1916, 6.)

94. A Stride Forward Officially.—Considered by themselves, no criticism will be offered by any Lutheran on the new articles embodied in the General Synod's constitution. Even the blemishes still adhering to the resolutions of 1891 and 1909 have disappeared. Specific reference to the York basis of 1864 is omitted; likewise the limitation with reference to the adoption of the Secondary Symbols, etc. True, the new articles contain a confession of the Augustana only, while in our day, also in our country, it is certainly of special import for Lutherans to acknowledge all Lutheran symbols in order to show at the very outset that they occupy a correct position also with respect to the controversies after Luther's death, which, in part, have been revived in our own country. Indeed, the second of the new articles has been interpreted by some as involving a confession also of the Secondary Articles. But Dr. Singmaster is right in declaring with reference to the new formula: "The General Synod does not require subscription to the Secondary Symbols as a condition to membership in that body. Their formal acceptance is a matter of liberty with the individual synod." However, since the confessional formula of 1913 contains neither a limitation as to the adoption of the Augustana, nor any criticism of the other Lutheran symbols, the present doctrinal basis of the General Synod, as stated in the new articles, must be viewed as satisfactory— caeteris paribus. By adopting the Atchison Amendments, the General Synod in reality, at least formally and officially, did not merely reaffirm and reiterate, but corrected and changed its former qualified confessional basis. As it reads, the formula of 1913 is tantamount to a rejection of all former doctrinal deliverances of the General Synod, the resolutions of Synod and asseverations of her theologians to the contrary notwithstanding. Dr. Neve admits as much when he says: "Thus the General Synod took a great stride forward in the direction of confessional correctness. The express mention of the 'Unaltered' Augsburg Confession constitutes an outspoken confession against Melanchthonianism, that is, against the Definite Platform theology, or American Lutheranism. And the removal of the old formula concerning the fundamental doctrines means the removal of an expression which has done much harm in the General Synod." (158.) In part, this progress was a result of the testimony of Walther and the Missouri Synod, whose fidelity to the Lutheran Confessions had been stigmatized for decades by the theologians of the General Synod, even such men as Charles Porterfield Krauth (in 1857), as "rigid symbolism," "German Lutheranism," "deformities of a Pharisaic exclusiveness," etc. Dr. Neve remarks: "The close unity coupled with its size (for Missouri soon became by far the largest synod) exercised a powerful influence on those without, strengthening, especially in the Eastern synods, the already awakened confessional consciousness."

95. Remaining Contradictions.—Even apart from the actual conditions prevailing in the General Synod as to Lutheran doctrine and practise, one cannot maintain successfully that the General Synod, in adopting the new articles, fully and satisfactorily cleared the situation as to its doctrinal attitude. For in more than one respect also the official confessional movement inaugurated in 1891 was contradictory of itself. First: In a previous paragraph we have already referred to the contradiction contained in the fact that the General Synod, while adopting the new resolutions, at the same time reaffirmed and endorsed the York Amendment of 1864. This endorsement, which practically invalidates the adoption of the new articles, was not withdrawn at the subsequent conventions in 1911 and 1913. The York Amendment still bears the official seal of the General Synod. Dr. Singmaster says in Distinctive Doctrines of 1914: "The doctrinal basis, as amended in 1866 [1864], remained unchanged for nearly fifty years. Various deliverances made at the convention of the General Synod during this period repudiate false charges, and affirm the Lutheran character and confessional fidelity of the body.... The doctrinal basis as it now exists, means to the members of the General Synod exactly what it meant before its verbal amendment. For a generation it has been interpreted to mean an unequivocal subscription to the Augsburg Confession." (57.) Secondly: The so-called York Resolution, which, as shown above (No. 71), rejects the Lutheran doctrines of the real presence, absolution, and the Sunday, thus openly conflicting with the Atchison Amendments of 1913, which give an unqualified assent to the Augsburg Confession, was not rescinded by the General Synod. The report of the delegate to the General Council, adopted by the General Synod in 1909, states: "In our address before the General Council [1907] as your representative, we defended, with all the courtesy, clearness, and positiveness we could command, the confessional position of the General Synod. This we did by referring to our official declarations, namely, the York Resolution of 1864, our revised formula of confessional subscription of 1869 [1864], in which this body planted itself unequivocally on the Augustana, and our confessional resolutions of 1895 and 1901." (54.) At the same convention the General Synod declared: "Those official resolutions [of 1895 and 1901], together with the well-known York Resolution, adopted in 1864, bind the General Synod to the Augsburg Confession in its entirety." (57.) In keeping herewith the General Synod provided that, in all future editions of the Augsburg Confession published by the General Synod, the confessional declarations of the General Synod (the York Amendment and the resolutions of 1895, 1901, and 1909) "be inserted immediately after the York Resolution." (59.) Nor was the York Resolution disavowed at the convention at Washington, 1911, as appears from the following recommendation of the Common Service Committee adopted by Synod: "With these amendments [finally adopted at Atchison] there remains only the York Resolution of 1864, concerning alleged errors, to be disposed of. As this is simply of an explanatory and apologetic character, it cannot well be incorporated in the constitution. It seems to your committee that this resolution has served its purpose, and needs no further repetition, especially as it remains on record for reference. We believe that both the constitution and the confession will appear more dignified, and will inspire greater confidence, unbuttressed by subsidiary statements." Accordingly, the York Resolution "remained on record for reference." (24.) Thirdly: The amendments of 1913 are in a hopeless conflict also with Art. IV, Sec. 8, of the General Synod's constitution, reading as follows: "They [Synod] shall, however, be extremely careful that the consciences of ministers of the Gospel be not burdened with human inventions, laws, or devices, and that no one be oppressed by reason of differences of opinion on non-fundamental doctrines." Accordingly, while the Atchison formula calls for an unqualified subscription to all doctrines of the Augustana, Art. IV, Sec. 8, of the same constitution grants liberty in "non-fundamental doctrines," i.e., interpreted historically, liberty in the articles which distinguish the Lutheran Church from the Reformed and other Evangelical Churches.—The convention at Richmond, 1909, maintained: "It is only by her [General Synod's] official declarations that her doctrinal position is to be tested and judged." (58.) If this contention, though facts frequently speak louder and much more convincingly than formulas, be granted—according to which set of contradictory "official declarations" was one to test and judge the true attitude of the General Synod?

ACTUAL CONDITIONS.

96. Long Stride from Formula to Fact.—Formal adoption of a correct Lutheran basis does not necessarily imply actual agreement with such basis. To pass a good resolution is easy. All Christian sects protest that they accept the Bible. But they say, and do not. "What you are," said Emerson, "speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say." In a measure this also applies when the actual conditions prevailing in the General Synod before and after 1913 are compared with the doctrinal basis adopted in that year. In 1866, in a letter to Pastor Brunn, Walther wrote with reference to the synods then uniting to form the General Council: "As far as the latter are concerned, it is true that our testimony extending over a period of twenty years has by the grace of God cooperated in causing some synods to speak again of the Confession, and to base and pledge themselves upon it, at least formally; but it is a long stride from the formal acknowledgment of the symbols to a true knowledge of them, and a truly Lutheran spirit, and the consequent discipline of doctrine and life." (Letters, 2, 36.) Now, the General Synod did not adopt its present basis as a result of any doctrinal discussions of, and subsequent agreements in, the Lutheran doctrines. The confessional movement was a formal affair, without any special effort to arrive at a thorough understanding of, and true unity in, the doctrinal content of the Augustana. But what value is there in adopting a confession without a correct knowledge of, and agreement in, its doctrines? Furthermore, the Atchison Amendments were submitted to the District Synods for approval by majority vote, not to the individual ministers and congregations. Adoption, accordingly, did not mean unanimous acknowledgment. Moreover, the liberal party of the General Synod, as represented by the Lutheran Observer, openly denounced the new confessional resolutions. (L. u. W. 1916, 58.) Others who submitted to the new formula, no doubt felt justified, in accordance with the repeated approvals on the part of the General Synod of the basis of 1864, to interpret the former according to the latter.

97. Doctrinal Confusion.—The General Synod has always been a babel of doctrinal confusion. In it unity did not even prevail as to the doctrines which distinguish the Lutheran Church from the Reformed. From 1820 down to 1918 the General Synod, in its periodicals and by its representative men, and in part also as such and officially, defended and supported indifferentism, unionism, synergism, chiliasm, abstinence, the divine obligation of the Sabbath, and other un-Lutheran and distinctively Reformed doctrines. (L. u. W. 1917, 471; 1918, 43.) Doctrinal discipline never has had as much as a shadow of an existence within the General Synod. Nor did the Atchison Amendments effect any apparent and marked change in the spirit and attitude of doctrinal indifferentism. Reformed errorists were tolerated after as well as before 1913. In its issue of September 12, 1918, the Lutheran Church Work and Observer declared: "Our body breathes the free atmosphere of America, and is not so legalistic and Puritanical as to think that every person who offends must be brought before the judgment-bar of the church for discipline." After as well as before 1913 some of the General Synodists continued to indulge in dreams of a millennium and union of all Evangelical denominations in America. (L. u. W. 1918, 87; Luth. Wit. 1918, 373.) The Sabbath-day was declared to be "of perpetual authority," and its observance as "binding on all by divine requirement." In 1918 the Lutheran Church Work asked for state legislation to enforce the Sabbath, because the "Almighty Jehovah is 'the Lord of the Sabbath,' and has given us an indication of the importance which He places on His holy day by having put it even before the commandment in the Decalog which says: 'Honor thy father and thy mother.'" (L. u. W. 1918, 336; cf. 1915, 397; 1911, 510.) The same old Puritanical attitude was maintained by the General Synod also with respect to the prohibition movement. (Proceedings 1917, 140 ff.)

98. Tolerating Modern Liberalism.—The General Synod never did, nor intended to, exercise church-discipline with respect to Reformed aberrations. Nor is there a single case of church-discipline against any form of liberalism recorded. Yet practically from its very beginning the General Synod declared herself against Socinianism. And in 1909 the Lutheran Quarterly stated that the General Synod, though not exercising church-discipline with respect to Reformed errors, does exclude Unitarians, Universalists, and Christian Scientists. (15.) In 1917 the Lutheran asserted: The Lutheran Church in America "stands as a unit in protest against the creed of Reason, known as the ever-variable 'New Theology,' and presents an unbroken front in loyalty to the Gospel." (L. u. W. 1917, 562.) But is this claim really borne out by the facts? The theory of evolution, which vitiates every Christian doctrine when applied to theology, has been defended again and again in the Lutheran Observer, the Lutheran Quarterly, the Lutheran Church Work, and other publications of the General Synod. Endorsing the evolution doctrine, the Observer wrote in 1909: "That a law of development runs through all nature, life, and history, is one of the ruling postulates in present-day investigations. That the continuity of nature, life, and history which this implies is not inconsistent with theistic and Christian belief is also clearly recognized, and consequently the impression of a panicky feeling which pervaded so much of the discussion of evolution which immediately followed the publication of the Origin of Species [of Darwin], is to-day conspicuous by its absence." (L. u. W. 1909, 279.) In 1901: "Originally, all was soft and plastic. The granite foundations were mortar and ashes or cinders and water. Cosmic forces have since been crystallizing rocks out of the same elements which exist in the soil, or float in the streams and exhale in the atmosphere." (L. u. W. 1901, 185.) In 1917 the Lutheran Quarterly declared that the doctrine of evolution can be accepted "in so far as it is descriptive of God's method with the world." (96.) Dr. L.S. Keyser, of Wittenberg Seminary, philosophizes: "God created the primordial material. Without losing His transcendence, He became immanent in His creation, developing it through secondary causes for, doubtless, long eras; at certain crucial steps, as was necessary, He added new creations and injected new forces; such epochs were the introduction of life, sentiency, and man. This world-view should be called 'creation and evolution,' with as marked an emphasis on the former as on the latter." (Syst. of Nat. Theol., 114.) Furthermore, in 1891 the Lutheran Observer editorially defended Dr. Briggs, whom the Presbyterians expelled because of his liberalism, as an innocently persecuted man. (L. u. W. 1901, 214.) In 1901 the Lutheran Quarterly said of Harnack that in his Essence of Christianity he assigns a position to Christ "which must have made a deep impression on his hearers." (L. u. W. 1901, 370.) In 1909: "Even if we should in the end have to acknowledge that Jesus had a human father as well as a human mother, that would simply teach us what we are confessing and believing even now: Jesus is not alone true God, but likewise true man. His divinity would not be affected thereby." (L. u. W. 1909, 228.) In 1918 the Lutheran Church Work and Observer recommended Dr. James Denney's book, The Atonement and the Modern Mind, in which Denney practically rejects the authority of the Scriptures and departs from the Christian doctrine of satisfaction made by Christ. (L. u. W. 1918, 482.) In the Lutheran Church Work and Observer, April 4, 1918, Rev. W.R. Goff maintained: "The writer cannot find one passage in Scripture that definitely and positively asserts a visible return of the Lord." (L. u. W. 1918, 423.)

99. A Second Edition of Quitman.—For quite a number of years Dr. E.H. Delk, a prominent member of the General Synod, has been an ardent advocate of modern rationalism and evolutionism. He denies the verbal inspiration and inerrancy of the Bible, rejects the Lutheran doctrine of the union of the divine and human natures in Christ, attacks the dogma that the death of Christ was a ransom and a substitutional sacrifice for the sins of the world, corrupts every Christian doctrine, and demands that all of them be restated in order to bring them into harmony with modern evolutionistic science and philosophy. "The Bible and our Confession do not ask man to throw away his reason in the reception of truth and in the judgment of the theological problems," Delk declared in 1903. (L. u. W. 1903, 185.) A number of years ago, Dr. Delk was permitted to present his radical views to the students of Gettysburg Seminary; and the Lutheran Quarterly published the lecture without a word of criticism. At Atchison, 1913, when resolutions were offered rejecting the doctrines of Delk, the General Synod refused to take definite action. The Lutheran Observer boasted that Synod was not ready to sacrifice liberty of thought and speech. (L. u. W. 1901, 370; 1902, 136; 1903, 185; 1913, 145; 1916, 67.) In 1916 the Lutheran Church Work and Observer, the official organ of the General Synod, opened its columns to Delk and his theology. In 1917 Delk continued his propaganda by publishing his views in a booklet, The Need of a Restatement of Theology. In 1918 the Lutheran Church Work and Observer endorsed and advertised the book. Identifying himself with some of the views of modern German liberalism on Luther and his theology, Delk wrote in the Lutheran Church Work and Observer of November 1, 1917: "We see now in the light of a fuller history of the man [Luther] that he was a child of his age and carried over into his Protestant thinking traits of medieval thinking.... Luther was not the end, but the beginning of new advances in the political and religious ideals of the world.... We are separated by a millennium of thought from the critical thought-standpoint of Luther." (L. u. W. 1918, 43.) Also by Drs. Keyser and Voigt, Delk has been charged with substituting the teachings of philosophy and science for Christianity, and with propagating heretical doctrine concerning the inspiration of the Bible and the deity and atonement of Christ. The advocacy of evolutionistic theology, as tolerated by the General Synod, however, cannot but be regarded as a return to the rationalism of Quitman and Velthusen.

UNLUTHERAN PRACTISE.

100. Unionism Unabated.—In 1917 Dr. Neve wrote in the Lutheran Church Review: "The different Protestant Churches, that is, the leading ones, are not arbitrary developments with no right to exist, but they represent the historical endeavors to bring to an expression within the Church of Christ the truth of Scripture." (167.) This view was at the bottom of the pulpit, altar, and church-work fellowship indulged in by the General Synod throughout the course of its history from 1820 down to its exit in 1918. This attitude of indifferentism naturally led to the exchange of fraternal delegates with the Reformed and other Churches. It resulted in a cooperation of the General Synod with the Federal Council, the Home Missions Council, the Foreign Mission Conference, the International Sunday-school Association, the Sunday-school Council of Evangelical Denominations, the Inter-Church Federation, the Y.M.C.A., the Y.W.C.A., the W.C.T.U., The Anti-Saloon League, etc. And the new confessional resolutions brought no change in this practise. With respect to the action of the Wartburg Synod, excluding other than Lutheran ministers from its pulpits and other than Lutherans from its altars, Dr. J.A. Singmaster, at the convention in Richmond, 1909, offered the resolution "that the General Synod, while allowing all congregations and individuals connected with it the fullest Christian liberty, does not approve of synodical enactments which in any way narrow its confessional basis or abridge intersynodical fellowship and transfers." (Proceedings 1909, 128; Neve, Gesch., 73.) The Lutheran Observer remained the same enthusiast for "interdenominational fraternal cooperation and work in the Federation of Churches," etc. (L. u. W. 1916, 63.) The ministers of the General Synod continued to exchange pulpits and to arrange for joint celebrations with sectarian preachers. (Witness 1918, 404; 1919, 14.) Despite the new basis of 1913, the General Synod remained a member of the Federal Council, which Dr. Delk in 1912 extolled as the "Twentieth Century Ecumenical Council." In 1909 the report of the delegates to the Federal Council was adopted, stating: "We heartily endorse the work of the Council, and we welcome the opportunity of cooperating with all who love our Lord Jesus Christ in promoting the work of His kingdom.... We recommend that nine delegates be sent, and that an annual contribution of $450 be paid out of the treasury of the General Synod for the support of the Federal Council." (115.) Again, in 1917, a report of the delegates to the Third Quadrennial Meeting of the Federal Council was adopted, which said, in part: "The Federal Council is mobilizing the forces of Protestantism against any and every foe of evangelical principles and practises. A committee has been appointed to arrange a Pan-Protestant Reformation celebration for 1917.... It was a great privilege to have participated in this historic council. As the federation idea originated in the United States in the mind and heart of a learned and devout Lutheran, Dr. Samuel S. Schmucker, it was a great joy and satisfaction to see and participate in this consummation of Dr. Schmucker's hope of all Protestant bodies in council and cooperation in the one common task of propagating the kingdom of God in society and throughout the world." (27.) Dr. MacFarland, the General Secretary of the Federal Council, was introduced, and addressed the General Synod. (131.) In the same year the General Synod appointed Dr. Delk, Dr. Wolford, Rev. Russell, and three laymen as "delegates to the Federal Council," and Dr. Bell as "representative to General Assembly of Presbyterian Church." (372.)

101. Fellowshiping [tr. note: sic] Jews and Unitarians.—Universally General Synodists, down to the Merger in 1918, have defended and practised church-fellowship with the Evangelical denominations. Regarding religious communion with Jews and Unitarians, however, Dr. Neve wrote in 1909: "Such is a rare occurrence and always would meet with the disapproval of nearly all members of the General Synod." (Lutheran Quarterly 1909, 12. 19.) According to Neve, then, there are members of the General Synod who do approve of church-fellowship even with Jews and Unitarians. Commenting in the Lutheran Church Work and Observer, of October 31, 1918, on a Communion service in which Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Reformed, Unitarians, etc., united, Dr. L.E. Keyser declared: "Such a conglomeration of beliefs and creeds would be impossible in the Lutheran Church. To stand or kneel at the altar with people who even deny the deity of Christ, the doctrine of the Trinity, and the need of atonement for sin, is impossible with Lutherans who are serious in their convictions." But what of the facts? In 1903 the Lutheran Observer declared: "When, at the great Parliament of Religions in Chicago, men of all beliefs united in the Lord's Prayer, who shall say that they had no right to do it, even though it was not with full understanding of its meaning? God is the All-Father. All men are His children." (L. u. W. 1903, 184.) At the World's Fair in St. Louis, 1904, Dr. Rhodes of the General Synod celebrated a union Thanksgiving Service in Festival Hall with Archbishop Glennon, Rabbi Harrison, etc. (L. u. W. 1904, 565.) In 1909 Dr. Delk indulged in religious fellowship with the Reformed Jews in a Jewish temple. (L. u. W. 1909, 558 f.) On November 28, 1918, Rev. A. Homrighaus united in a Thanksgiving service, in which a Jewish rabbi and a Unitarian participated, etc. (Luth. Witness 1919, 14.)

102. Encouraging Lodgery.—The General Synod has never taken a stand against Freemasonry or any other secret society. To join a lodge was always viewed as a purely private affair and of no concern to the Church. Neither laymen nor ministers were forbidden to unite with lodges. Indeed, for a minister to attain a higher degree in a lodge was occasionally referred to as a special honor and regarded as a recommendation. In 1902 the Pennsylvania Freemason said of Dr. Stock, a pastor of the General Synod: "The Doctor is in possession of the highest honors of Freemasonry, and enjoys the love and respect of all his brothers. As indicating his good influence for Freemasonry we mention of his writings: What Freemasonry Owes to Luther, The Knight Templar and the Holy Week." Copying this, the Lutheran Evangelist commented that everybody has a right to join a lodge as long as he gives the first place in his heart to the Church. (L. u. W. 1902, 115.) The Observer, March 14, 1902, reported with satisfaction that the prominent Lutheran Mr. Dewey had become Grand Master of the Freemasons in Kansas, and appointed his pastor, the Rev. Fuller Bergstresser, Grand Chaplain of the lodge. (L. u. W. 1902, 115.) Lodge-membership, said the Observer of January 17, 1913, is a non-essential, permitted by the Augsburg Confession. Reviewing a sermon of Rev. Bowers in which he defended and recommended the lodges, the Lutheran Observer, in 1909, remarked: "It is a fair and unprejudiced presentation." (L. u. W. 1909, 227.) In the same year a committee of the General Synod declared with respect to a resolution of the Wartburg and Nebraska synods, forbidding their ministers to hold membership in lodges: "The General Synod as a body has never taken any action, so far as we know, upon the so-called lodge-question. We deem its position sound and wise, and especially in view of the fact that the Lutheran bodies in this country which have indulged in such legislation have by no means escaped trouble.... We deem it their [Wartburg and Nebraska synods'] synodical right so to judge and affirm so long as they do not ask other synods of this body to accept their judgment and affirm their action.... A synod has a right to voluntarily restrict itself if it so chooses, and impose upon itself such limitations as it may elect." (Proceedings 1909, 126 f.) Also with respect to this attitude of the General Synod toward the lodges the Atchison Amendments brought about no marked change whatever. After as well as before 1913 prominent lodge-men, without protest, were elected to, or continued to hold, some of the most important offices of Synod. In 1917 Dr. George Tressler, a 32d degree Scotch Rite Mason and a Knight Templar, was chosen president of the General Synod. Prof. C.G. Heckert, president of the Theological Seminary at Springfield, 0., is a Freemason. Mr. J.L. Zimmerman, president of the Lutheran Brotherhood of the General Synod, who took a leading part in the Lutheran Merger movement, also is, and was publicly declared to be, a Mason. Nor did the practise cease of arranging for special lodge-services and entertainments of lodges. September 17, 1918, the Masonic Lodge of Camp Hill, N.J., held its anniversary dinner at the General Synod church, the women of the church serving the dinner, etc. (Luth. Witness 1918, 386.)

103. New Formula Dead Letter.—Though one will readily admit that the Atchison Amendments signified a stride forward officially and formally, the actual conditions prevailing within the General Synod till the Merger in 1918 (the official indifferentistic and unionistic attitude of the General Synod as such, as well as the teaching and practise of District Synods, ministers, and congregations) were not in agreement, but in open conflict with the formula of 1913. In its issue of June 18, 1915, the Observer stated: "The acceptance of this basis, they [the opponents of the new basis] further maintain, involves certain corollaries, such as the rule of 'Lutheran pulpits for Lutheran ministers only, and Lutheran altars for Lutheran communicants only'; the withdrawal of fellowship with other Christian bodies in general religious and moral movements, such as the Federation of the Churches, the International Sunday-school Lesson Series, and evangelistic campaigns, in which the congregations of a community unite their efforts to reach the multitudes of the unchurched and the unsaved. It includes also condemnation of secret orders, such as Masonry and Odd-Fellowship." (L. u. W. 1916, 58.) Such, indeed, was the price of the new doctrinal basis. The General Synod as a whole, however, was evidently neither possessed of the power nor even of the earnest will to draw the consequences of her new articles practically. The fact certainly is, as shown in the preceding paragraphs, that neither the General Synod as such nor its constituency did make any serious effort at paying the price required by an unqualified subscription to the Augustana as professed at Atchison. However, as long as a religious body contents itself with having a correct Lutheran basis merely incorporated in the constitution; as long as it shows no determination in reducing the principles of such basis to actual practise; as long as it objects to the discipline which this basis calls for; as long as it declines responsibility for contrary teaching and practise on the part of its ministers and congregations; as long as it adheres to the principle of agreeing to disagree on doctrines plainly taught in the Lutheran Confessions, and never to settle disputed points, but to omit them and declare them free,—just so long even the very best Lutheran basis embodied in a constitution will remain, in more than one respect, a scrap of paper and its formal recognition "a solemn farce and empty show."

The General Council

SYNODS COMPOSING THE COUNCIL.

104. Organization of New General Body.—After severing its connection with the General Synod at its convention at Lancaster in 1866, the Ministerium of Pennsylvania appointed a committee (Drs. Krotel, Krauth, Mann, C.W. Schaeffer, Seiss, B.M. Schmucker, Welden, Brobst, Laird, etc.) to issue a fraternal address to all Lutheran synods, ministers, and congregations in the United States and Canada which confess the Unaltered Augsburg Confession, inviting them to a conference for the purpose of forming a general body of Lutheran synods, in the interest, especially, of maintaining "the unity in the true faith of the Gospel and in the uncorrupted Sacraments." Accordingly, in December of the same year, representatives from thirteen synods met in Reading, Pa. The synods represented were the Pennsylvania Synod, the New York Ministerium, the Pittsburgh Synod, the Minnesota Synod, the English Synod of Ohio, the Joint Synod of Ohio, the English District Synod of Ohio, the Wisconsin Synod, the Michigan Synod, the Iowa Synod, the Canada Synod, the Norwegian Synod, and the Missouri Synod. After the Fundamental Principles of Faith and Church Polity and Articles on Ecclesiastical Power and Church Government, prepared and submitted by Dr. C.P. Krauth, and discussed from the 12th to the 14th of December, had been approved, the resolution was passed that the first regular session of the new body, "The General Council of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of North America," should be held, if the Fundamental Principles had been adopted by ten synods. At the first regular meeting in Fort Wayne, November 20, 1867, again representatives of thirteen synods were present, the Augustana and Illinois synods taking the place of the Missourians and Norwegians, who had withdrawn from the movement.

105. Synods Remaining with the Council.—Of the synods represented at Fort Wayne the following retained their connection with the General Council throughout its history: 1. The Ministerium of Pennsylvania, the so-called "Mother Synod" of the Lutheran Church in America. It was organized 1748 by Muhlenberg. In 1778, numbering 18 ministers, it adopted a constitution which formally acknowledged all of the Lutheran symbols. The new constitution of 1792 admitted lay delegates, but eliminated the confessional basis. In 1820 it was represented at the organization of the General Synod at Hagerstown. At the same time it planned a union seminary and organic union with the German Reformed Church. In 1823 it severed its connection with the General Synod, which was followed by a long period of indifferentism. In 1850 the Ministerium established official relations with the Gettysburg Seminary. In 1853 it returned officially to a confessional position, adopting "the fundamental doctrines of the Gospel as these are expressed in the confessional writings of our Evangelical Lutheran Church and especially in the Unaltered Augsburg Confession." In the same year, urging all other Lutheran bodies to follow the example, the Ministerium, by a vote of 52 against 28, resolved to reunite with the General Synod. In 1864 its delegates withdrew from the sessions of the General Synod at York because of the admission of the un-Lutheran Franckean Synod. In the same year the Seminary at Philadelphia was founded. In the organization of the General Council the Ministerium of Pennsylvania was the prime mover. At present it numbers about 400 pastors and 580 congregations with a communicant membership of 160,000, more than one-fifth of them being German. 2. The New York Ministerium. This body, when organized in 1786, confessed the Lutheran symbols. In 1794 it adopted the new constitution of the Pennsylvania Synod, containing no reference to the symbols. Under Quitman a period of rationalism and Socinianism followed, and under Hazelius (since 1815 professor in Hartwick Seminary) a period of Methodistic revivalism. In 1859 the Ministerium acknowledged the Augsburg Confession "as a correct exhibition of the fundamental doctrines of the divine Word," and in 1867, having severed its connection with the General Synod, extended its confession to embrace all the Lutheran symbols. The New York Ministerium has repeatedly passed through a change of language. It numbers about 57,000 communicants, 160 congregations, and as many pastors. 3. The Pittsburgh Synod. It was organized in 1845 and admitted by the General Synod in 1853. Under W.A. Passavant it became the "Missionary Synod," to which the Canada, Texas, Minnesota, and Nova Scotia synods owe their origin. It reports 155 pastors and 190 congregations with a communicant membership of 24,000. 4. The English District Synod of Ohio, organized in 1857 and, in 1869, because of its connection with the Council, stricken from the roster of the Joint Synod of Ohio, embraces 55 pastors, 86 congregations, and 14,000 communicants. 5. The Canada Synod, founded in 1861, went on record as opposed to exceptions in the rule regarding pulpit- and altar-fellowship. Most of its present pastors come from Kropp, Germany. It reports 42 ministers, 74 congregations, and 14,000 communicants. 6. The Augustana Synod, which maintained its connections with the Council till 1918, when it refused to enter the Lutheran Merger. It numbers about 700 pastors and 1,200 congregations with a confirmed membership of 190,000.

106. Defections and Accessions.—The following seven synods partly declined to consummate the union, partly were temporarily only connected with the General Council: 1. The Iowa Synod, whose representatives declared before the close of the session at Fort Wayne, 1867, that they, though their Synod had adopted the constitution, could not unite with the Council on account of its equivocal attitude toward pulpit-, altar-, and lodge-fellowship. The privilege of the floor granted by the General Council to the delegates of the Iowa Synod was accepted and freely exercised till the Lutheran Merger in 1918. The Iowa Synod thus remained in church fellowship with the General Council and took part also in its missionary and other works. In 1875, the so-called Galesburg Rule having been adopted by the Council, the Iowa Synod declared that confessional scruples no longer prevented her from an organic union with the Council. The union was not consummated because the anti-unionistic construction which Iowa put on the Galesburg Rule was disavowed within the General Council and never acknowledged and approved of by this body as such. In 1904, Prof. Proehl, delegate of the Iowa Synod, gloried in the Council as optima repraesentatio nominis Lutherani, the best representation of the Lutheran name, a tribute, however, which President Deindoerfer of the Iowa Synod refused to endorse. (L. u. W. 1904, 38. 516.) 2. The Joint Synod of Ohio had not adopted the constitution of the General Council; and at Fort Wayne, 1867, her delegates finally declined to enter the union because of the non-committal attitude of the Council with respect to chiliasm, pulpit- and altar-fellowship and the lodges— the so-called Four Points. 3. The Wisconsin Synod separated in 1868 because of the "Four Points." 4. The Michigan Synod, organized in 1860, united with the Council in 1867, withdrew in 1887, and joined the Synodical Conference in 1892. 5. The Minnesota Synod, founded in 1860, united with the General Synod; in 1867 it joined the Council; in 1871 it severed this connection and became a member of the Synodical Conference. 6. The Texas Synod joined the Council in 1868, and left it in 1895, entering the Iowa Synod as Texas District.—The following synods, most of them founded by the General Council, affiliated with this body after its organization in 1867: 1. The Chicago Synod, a name adopted later, organized and joined the Council in 1871 as Indiana Synod. It numbers about 40 pastors and 70 congregations with a communicant membership of 8,300. Its center is the Theological Seminary located near Chicago (Maywood). 2. The English Synod of the Northwest was founded by the Council in 1891 which led to various frictions with the Swedish Augustana Synod. Pastors, 37; congregations, 40; communicants, 11,000. 3. The Synod of Manitoba, founded 1897, numbers 35 pastors, 62 congregations, and 5,000 communicants. 4. The Pacific Synod, organized by the Council in 1901, numbers 21 pastors, 18 congregations, and 1,906 communicants. 5. The Synod of New York and New England, organized in 1902, embraces 65 pastors, 67 congregations, and 19,000 communicants. 6. The Nova Scotia Synod, organized in 1903, reports 6 pastors, 27 congregations, and 2,900 communicants. 7. The Synod of Central Canada, organized 1909, numbers 12 pastors, 16 congregations, and 1,800 communicants.

107. Statistical and Other Data.—In 1917, a year before the Merger, the General Council reported 13 district synods with about 1,700 pastors, 2,600 congregations, and a confirmed membership of 530,000. Among the higher institutions then within the Council were the following: 1. The Philadelphia Seminary, now located in Mount Airy, Pa., and belonging to the Pennsylvania Synod. Since its founding in 1864 this seminary has educated almost 875 pastors under the Professors Drs. C.F. and L.W. Schaeffer, Mann, Krauth, Krotel, Spaeth, H.E. and C.M. Jacobs, Hilprecht, Spieker, Frey, Offermann (appointed by the New York Ministerium), Schmauk, Reed, Benze. 2. The Chicago Seminary, located in Maywood, Ill., was founded by Passavant and opened 1891. Here about 260 pastors were trained by the Drs. Weidner, Krauss, Gerberding, Ramsey, and Stump. 3. The Swedish Seminary in Rock Island, Ill. (founded in Chicago in 1860 and removed to Rock Island in 1875), has graduated more than 700 pastors. 4. The Seminary at Kropp, Schleswig, Germany, founded 1882 by Paulsen, for years received support from the General Council. 5. Muhlenberg College, at Allentown, Pa., founded 1867 by the Pennsylvania Synod, now directed by Dr. Haas. 6. Wagner College, at Rochester, N.Y., founded 1883 by the New York Ministerium, Dr. Nicum being one of its professors and benefactors. 7. Thiel College, at Greenville, Pa., founded 1870 by the Pittsburgh Synod. 8. The Swedish Bethany College, founded in 1881 at Lindsborg, Kans. 9. The Swedish Gustavus Adolphus College, at St. Peter, Minn. 10. The Swedish Luther Academy, at Wahoo, Nebr.—Apart from the Augustana Synod, about 160 parochial schools, mostly Saturday and vacation schools, have been conducted within the General Council. Judging from Dr. Gerberding's Problems and Possibilities (115) and similar utterances, the English element in the General Council, like that of the General Synod, was opposed to parish schools. Foremost among the numerous benevolent institutions are the Wartburg Orphan Asylum and the Drexel Deaconess Home. In 1869 the General Council assumed the support of that part of the India mission which the General Synod, after the breach in 1866, was about to surrender to the Episcopalians. In 1841 "Father Heyer had been sent as the first American Lutheran missionary to India. He returned in 1857 and began home missionary work in Minnesota. In 1869, seventy-six years old, he offered his services to the Pennsylvania Synod for the Lutheran Mission in India, where he labored till 1871."

CHARLES PORTERFIELD KRAUTH.

108. A Star of the First Magnitude.—Charles Porterfield Krauth (1823—1883), son of Charles Philip Krauth, was educated at Pennsylvania College and the Seminary in Gettysburg. He was licensed in 1841 and ordained 1842. He served as pastor in Baltimore from 1842; in Shepherdstown and Martinsburg 1847; in Winchester 1848; in St. Thomas, West Indies, 1852 (a Dutch Reformed congregation during the absence of its pastor); in Pittsburgh, Pa., from 1855; in Philadelphia from 1859. In 1861 he resigned his pastorate in order to devote his whole strength to the editorship of the Lutheran and Missionary, which in his hands became a weapon against the excrescences of the American Lutheranism then ruling the English Lutheran Church of our country. In 1864, when the Theological Seminary at Philadelphia was founded, Krauth was appointed professor of Dogmatic Theology. He was the prime mover in the establishment of the General Council; wrote the Fraternal Address of 1866, inviting the Lutheran synods to unite in the organization of a new general truly Lutheran body; and was the author of the Fundamental Articles of Faith and Church Polity adopted at the convention at Reading, 1866. Krauth presented the theses on pulpit- and altar-fellowship in 1877, framed the constitution for congregations of 1880, and assisted in the liturgical work which resulted in the publication of the Church Book, completed in 1891. From 1870 to 1880 Krauth was president of the General Council. In 1868 he was appointed professor of Mental and Moral Philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1880 he made a journey to Europe for his own recuperation and in the interest of a Luther biography, which, however, did not make its appearance. In 1882, a year before his death, he became editor-in-chief of the Lutheran Church Review. He died January 2, 1883. Besides contributing many articles to the Lutheran and to various reviews and encyclopedias, Krauth translated Tholuck's Commentary on the Gospel of John, 1859; edited Fleming's Vocabulary of Philosophy, 1860; wrote the Conservative Reformation and Its Theology, 1872; and published a number of other books of a philosophical and theological character. The most important of Krauth's numerous publications is The Conservative Reformation and Its Theology. The Lutheran Church Review, 1917: "It is doubtful whether any other single book ever published in America by any theologian more profoundly impressed a large [English] church constituency, or did more to mold its character. As theologian and confessor Dr. Krauth stands preeminent in the [English] Lutheran Church." (144.) For twenty years Charles Porterfield Krauth was one of the prominent theologians of the General Synod, and since 1866 the leader and most conservative, competent, and influential theologian of the General Council. Krauth was a star of the first magnitude in the Lutheran Church of America, or as Walther put it, "the most eminent man in the English Lutheran Church of this country, a man of rare learning, at home no less in the old than in modern theology, and, what is of greatest import, whole-heartedly devoted to the pure doctrine of our Church, as he had learned to understand it, a noble man and without guile." (L. u. W. 1883, 32.)

109. Krauth's Manly Recantation.—During the first half of his ecclesiastical activity C.P. Krauth was a pronounced unionistic theologian. He fully endorsed the indifferentistic principles of the General Synod, whose champion he was till 1864. During the Platform controversy Krauth was zealous to settle the difficulties on the accustomed unionistic lines of the General Synod. He framed the compromise resolutions of the Pittsburgh Synod in 1856 on the Definite Platform. In the following year he wrote a series of articles for the Missionary in defense of the General Synod and its doctrinal basis. In 1858 he defended S.S. Schmucker against the charges of unsound doctrine, preferred by J.A. Brown. In 1859 he offered the motion for the admission of the liberal Melanchthon Synod. As late as 1864 he continued to defend the distinction between fundamental and non-fundamental articles in the Augsburg Confession, and declared that the pledge referred to the fundamental articles only, specifically excluding Article XI of the Augsburg Confession from this pledge. In the Lutheran and Missionary, April 7, 1864, Krauth declared: "Let the old formula stand, and let it be defined." As late as 1868, three years after his public retraction of former errors, and later, Krauth held that, exceptionally, non-Lutherans might be admitted to Lutheran pulpits and altars. Dr. Singmaster writes: "That the Definite Platform caused the secession of the Ministerium [of Pennsylvania] some years later seems quite improbable, for the chief promoter of the General Council, the Rev. C.P. Krauth, Jr., was at this time an ardent defender of the General Synod. He made apologies for his old teacher [S.S. Schmucker], and probably prevented his impeachment by the Seminary Board when it was urged by the Rev. J.A. Brown." (Dist. Doctr., 1914, 53.) In the Lutheran and Missionary, July 13, 1865, Krauth published that remarkable declaration in which he, defining his position as to fundamentals, retracted, as he put it, his former "crudities and inconsistencies" on this point. Among his statements are the following: "We do not feel ashamed to confess that time and experience have modified our earlier views, or led us to abandon them, if we have so modified or so forsaken them." "In Church and State the last years have wrought changes, deep and thorough, in every thinking man, and on no point more than this, that compromise of principle, however specious, is immoral, and that, however guarded it may be, it is perilous; and that there is no guarantee of peace in words where men do not agree in things." "To true unity of the Church is necessary an agreement in fundamentals, and a vital part of the necessity is an agreement as to what are fundamentals. The doctrinal articles of the Augsburg Confession are all articles of faith, and all articles of faith are fundamental. Our Church can never have a genuine internal harmony, except in the confession, without reservation or ambiguity of these articles, one and all. This is our deep conviction, and we hereby retract, before God and His Church, formally, as we have already earnestly and repeatedly done indirectly, everything we have written or said in conflict with this our present conviction. This we are not ashamed to do. We thank God, who has led us to see the truth, and we thank Him for freeing us from the temptation of embarrassing ourselves with the pretense of a present absolute consistency with our earlier, very sincere, yet relatively very immature views." (Spaeth, 2, 114 f.) Walther, who had rounded out almost a quarter century of faithful Lutheran work when Krauth was still a champion of the original basis of the General Synod, gloried in this frank and manly retraction of Krauth as "an imperishable monument of the sincerity of his convictions."

110. Endorsing Walther's Views on Christian Union.—In opposition to the unionistic tendencies of the Lutheran synods in the United States, especially those affiliated with the General Synod, Walther had maintained that church union dare not be advocated and effected at the expense of any doctrine clearly revealed in the Scripture. It was in complete agreement with this view that Krauth, in his address before the Pittsburgh Synod, October 1866, declared: "With her eternal principles, what shall be the future of our beloved Zion in this land? Shall it be conflict, division, weakness, or shall it be peace, unity, zeal, unfolding all her energies? It is unity. Every difficulty in her way, every barrier to her progress, proceeds from the lack of unity. But what is the unity of the Church? That question was answered three centuries ago by the Reformers, and fifteen centuries before that in the New Testament. True unity is oneness in faith, as taught in the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. We are one with the Church of the apostles because we hold its faith; one with the Church of the Reformers, alone because we hold its faith. Outward human forms are nothing; ecclesiastical government, so far as it is of man, is nothing; all things are nothing, if there be not this oneness of faith. With it begins, in its life continues, in its death ends, all true unity. There can be, there is, no true unity but in the faith.... The one token of this unity, that by which this internal thing is made visible, is one expression of faith, one 'form of sound words,' used in simple earnestness, and meaning the same to all who employ it.... You may agree to differ; but when men become earnest, difference in faith will lead first to fervent pleadings for the truth, and, if these be hopelessly unheeded, will lead to separation. All kinds of beliefs and unbeliefs may exist under the plea of toleration; but when the greatest love is thus professed, there is the least. Love resulting from faith is God's best gift. Love that grows out of opposition or indifference to faith, God abhors. There can be no true love where there is not also true hatred,—no love to truth without abhorrence of error.... In Christ we can alone find unity. Only when we meet in this center of all true unity will we have peace. And we can be in Christ only in a faith which accepts His every word in His own divine meaning, and shrinks with honor from the thought that, in the prostituted name of peace and love, we shall put upon one level the pure and heavenly sense of His Word and the artful corruption of that sense by the tradition of Rome or the vanity of carnal reason." (Spaeth, 2, 162 f.) With respect to the Missouri Synod Krauth wrote, April 7, 1876: "I have been saddened beyond expression by the bitterness displayed towards the Missourians. So far as they have helped us to see the great principles involved in this disputation [concerning the Four Points], they have been our benefactors, and although I know they have misunderstood some of us, that was perhaps inevitable. They are men of God, and their work has been of inestimable value." (2, 236.)

111. Krauth on Predestination.—In a letter dated February 13, 1880, Dr. Krauth said: "I have not read Dr. Walther's exposition of the doctrine of election, but I purpose, as soon as I can command leisure, to write something whose object shall be to show that the New Testament doctrine, confessed by our Church, in regard to election, as fully as the most extreme Calvinism, gives all the glory to God and ascribes to Him the total merit of our salvation, both as secured and applied, and yet clearly and properly makes man responsible for his own destruction.... Luther is constantly claimed by the Calvinists, and I have known intelligent Calvinists who are entirely satisfied with the Formula of Concord on the 'Five Points.' Yet, the claim and the satisfaction are both groundless. The truth in the Formula so strictly follows the line of Scripture thinking that it is hard to get a spear's point under the scales of its armor. My own conviction about Luther is, that he was never a Calvinist on the 'Five Points,' but Augustinian, with some aspects of coincidence and many of divergence, even where he was nearest Calvinism." In an article found among his papers after his death, Krauth says: "Why do men in completely parallel relations to this election move in opposite directions? The one believes, the other disbelieves. Is the election of God in any sense the cause of the difference? The answer of the Calvinist is: Yes. The answer of the Lutheran is: No. The election of God is indeed the cause of the faith of the one, but it is neither positively nor negatively, neither by act nor by failure to act, the cause of the unbelief of the other. Hence it is not the cause of the difference. I choose (or elect) to offer bread to two beggars. The election of bread for his food and the election to offer it to him are the proper cause of the reception of the bread on the part of the one, but they are not the cause of the rejection on the part of the other. The first concurs in my election, but his concurrence is the effect, not the cause, of my election. The second refuses, but his refusal is not the effect of my election, but an effect in spite of it. As between me and the men the decision must be, that the acceptance of one is no more than the refusal of the other, the cause of my election. But between the one and the other the difference is made by the willingness to receive, wrought by me through the offer, and the unwillingness to receive, wrought by the man himself in spite of the offer. Faith is not the cause of our general election. That must be admitted by all. But neither can it be the cause of our particular election, for the particular is only possible, and indeed only thinkable, as the result of the general. But it is the cause of the difference between the man who receives the benefits of this election, and the man who refuses them. This faith is foreseen indeed, but it does not become by that the cause of the election—it is foreseen as an effect of the election and therefore cannot be considered as the cause; it is a finality in the work of God in the restoration of fellowship. It is, as a condition, part of the election, and cannot therefore be the cause of the whole." (2, 327 ff.) Evidently, then, Krauth was not ready to solve the mystery of election by assuming that, in the last analysis, a difference in their respective guilt is the final cause why some are saved while others are lost.

OTHER REPRESENTATIVE THEOLOGIANS.

112. Dr. Wm. Julius Mann (1819—1892) was born at Stuttgart, Wuerttemberg; graduated at Tuebingen, 1841; active as teacher till 1844; came to America in 1845, influenced by his intimate friend Ph. Schaff at Mercersburg, who had left Germany in 1844; 1846 assistant pastor of a German Reformed congregation in Philadelphia; 1850 assistant to Dr. Demme, pastor of Zion Ev. Luth. Congregation, Philadelphia, to which H.M. Muhlenberg had been called in 1742; in 1851 he was received into the Ministerium of Pennsylvania; served as president of this body from 1860 to 1862 and 1880; from 1864 to 1892 he was professor in Philadelphia Seminary. From 1848 to 1859 Dr. Mann cooperated in editing the Deutsche Kirchenzeitung, established by Schaff as "an organ for the common interests of the American German [Reformed and Lutheran] churches." The Kirchenzeitung, of which Mann in 1854 became editor-in-chief, was a paper for theologians, not for laymen. It bore the motto: "In necessariis unitas, in dubiis libertas, in omnibus caritas." Its object was "to prepare the way for the Lord, and add a few stones to the dome of the Church of the future." It served the Lutheran and Reformed churches by antagonizing revivalism. From 1863 to 1866 Dr. Mann was editorially responsible for Evangelische Zeugnisse, a German homiletic monthly, also established by his friend Ph. Schaff. In 1856 Mann opposed the Definite Platform in his Plea for the Augsburg Confession, and 1857 in his Lutheranism in America. In 1864 he translated the New Testament Commentary of the American Tract Society into German for this society. In 1886 he edited Hallesche Nachrichten (Vol. I); 1887 he published the Life and Times of H.M. Muhlenberg; 1891 the same in German. Apart from quite a number of other books, Dr. Mann wrote articles for various German and English periodicals. "I always prepare myself closely," said Mann in a letter of February 14, 1866, "for the recitations in the seminary, write every week for the Lutheran, more for the Lutherische Zeitschrift of Brobst, continue the translation of the Tract Society's Commentary on the New Testament, keep up some correspondence, and at the same time perform my various and burdensome duties as a pastor and, find yet a little, a very little, time for light reading." Mann, for many years a bosom friend of the arch-unionist Ph. Schaff, whom he admired as "the presiding genius of international theology," gradually became a conservative confessional Lutheran theologian, opposed also to the unionism as practised by the General Synod. On April 7, 1892, Schaff wrote to his friend: "What right had the sixteenth and seventeenth century to prescribe to future generations all theological thinking? We are as near to Christ and to the Bible as the framers of the confessions of faith." Dr. Mann answered: "In the air in which this letter breathes I cannot live.... What right had the framers of the American Constitution to lay down a basis for the administrative side of the life of this nation?" As to the General Synod, Dr. Mann's love for it gradually turned into aversion, because of its utterly un-Lutheran features. He charged the General Synod with living "in a concubinage with the Presbyterians and Methodists." In 1853 he wrote: "I have rejoiced over the union of our Pennsylvania Synod with the General Synod, and now I rejoice still more." (173.) Mann still failed to see that no one can truly love the Lutheran Church who despises, ignores, and denies her doctrines and usages. In 1855 he said of Missouri: "They have no patience with their weaker sister," meaning the General Synod. (176.) But in the immediately following years Mann himself began to attack the Definite Platform and its American Lutheranism. With respect to the doctrines controverted within the Lutheran Church of America, however, Dr. Mann never occupied a clear, firm, and determined Lutheran position. He revealed no interest in the discussions on the Four Points. Of the Missouri Synod Dr. Mann wrote in 1866: "These theological scratchbrushes (Kratzbuersten) of the West do an important work. They discipline thousands of Germans ecclesiastically, as otherwise only Catholic priests are able to do. Most of them lead a rough, self-denying life. They defy effeminate, sentimental, hazy ecclesiastical Americanism. There is a firm character here. They will not always remain as rugged as they are now. The coming generation will be English and milder in many respects. The Missourians are a power in the West, where the Germans generally are becoming a power, the longer the more. They will obtain an ever stronger elementary influence. The German [?] blood will make its influence felt for a long time." (Spaeth, W.J. Mann.)

113. Passavant, Schmucker, Seiss, etc.—Other names well known beyond the General Council are Drs. Passavant, B.M. Schmucker, Krotel, Seiss, Spaeth, Weidner, etc. Dr. W.A. Passavant (1821—1894) was born of Huguenot ancestry at Zelienople, Pa.; graduated in Gettysburg Seminary; was pastor in Baltimore till 1844 and in Pittsburgh till 1855; published the Missionary in 1845, which in 1861 was merged with The Lutheran, Passavant remaining coeditor. He established The Workman in 1880, which he edited in a conservative, confessional spirit, while in the Missionary he had been a fiery advocate of New-measurism. Cooperating with Pastor Fliedner of Kaiserswerth, Passavant introduced the first deaconesses in America; founded hospitals, orphanages, and academies; presented, in 1868, the ground for the Theological Seminary at Chicago; organized the home missionary work of the Pittsburgh Synod (whose founder he was) and of the General Council. Passavant was preeminently a missionary and philanthropist—the "American Fliedner." Dr. G.W. Sandt, in Lutheran Church Review 1918: "Passavant was educated in a Presbyterian college, where revivals were a fixed part of the curriculum. He prepared for the ministry in a Lutheran seminary at a time when Lutherans were more 'anxious' about the 'bench' than they were about the faith. It is not to be wondered at that his early ministry reflected the fitful and unstable emotionalism of the 'Anxious Bench' religionism, which he later outgrew and disowned." (442.)—Dr. Beale Melanchthon Schmucker (1827—1888), though a son of S.S. Schmucker, did not agree with the Definite Platform. He was secretary of the English Church Book Committee, a member of the German Kirchenbuch and Sonntagsschulbuch Committee, and of the Joint Committee on Common Service. He was regarded as the greatest liturgical scholar of the Lutheran Church in America and admired as a parliamentarian. He was a passionate lover of the Reformation and its literature. The Church Book of the General Council has been said to be "his lasting monument." Through it he laid the foundation also for the Common Service. "Next to Dr. C.P. Krauth," said the Kirchenblatt of the Iowa Synod (1918), "there is no man to whom the General Council owes so much as to Dr. B.M. Schmucker." B.M. Schmucker published articles on liturgical, hymnological, biographical, and other themes, and wrote the preface to the Common Service, first published by the United Synod of the South, 1888.—Dr. G.F. Krotel (1826—1907) studied theology under Dr. Demme; was renowned as pulpit orator; succeeded Krauth in the editorship of the Lutheran; repeatedly served the Pennsylvania Synod and the General Council as president.—Dr. J.A. Seiss was pastor in Philadelphia from 1858 till his death in 1904; he also served as president of the Pennsylvania Synod and the General Council. Seiss was one of the most prolific Lutheran authors in America. "There was a strength, a stateliness, a dignity, and an artistic finish to all his greatest pulpit efforts that compelled a hearing." (Luth. Church Review 1918, 90.) His style is oratorical rather than churchly. His Lectures on the Gospels and Epistles are the fruit of many years of careful sermonizing and study. In his lectures on the Last Times, 1856, and on the The Apocalypse, 1866, Seiss championed the cause of a chiliasm which the General Council refused to reject.—Dr. Adolph Spaeth (1839—1910) graduated at Tuebingen; active in Wuerttemberg, Italy, France, and Scotland till he accepted a call as Dr. Mann's assistant in Philadelphia in 1864; served as professor at the Seminary from 1867 till his death; was president of the General Council from 1880 to 1888, and of the Pennsylvania Synod from 1892 to 1895. He wrote the biographies of W.J. Mann, 1895, and of C.P. Krauth, Vol. I, 1898; Vol. II, 1909.—Dr. R.F. Weidner (1851—1915), president of the Seminary of the General Council at Chicago since its opening in 1891, reproduced in the English language a number of modern German theological works.

CONSTITUTION.

114. Fundamental Articles of Faith.—At the preliminary meeting at Reading, 1866, "Fundamental Principles," embracing nine Articles of Faith and Church Polity and eleven Articles of Ecclesiastical Power and Church Government, were adopted as a necessary condition of the contemplated union. The first Article of Faith states that, "to the true unity of the Church, it is sufficient that there be agreement touching the doctrine of the Gospel," etc. The second declares: "The true unity of a particular church, in virtue of which men are truly members of one and the same church, and by which any church abides in real identity, and is entitled to a continuation of her name, is unity in doctrine and faith and in the Sacraments, to wit, that she continues to teach and to set forth, and that her true members embrace from the heart, and use, the articles of faith and the Sacraments as they were held and administered when the Church came into distinctive being and received a distinctive name." The third article distinguishes general and particular symbols. The fourth emphasizes that these confessions are a testimony of unity and a bond of union only when "accepted in their own true, native, original, and only sense." Those who "subscribe them must not only agree to use the same words, but must use and understand those words in one and the same sense." According to the fifth article the unity of the Lutheran Church "depends upon her abiding in one and the same faith." Article six reads: "The Unaltered Augsburg Confession is by preeminence the Confession of that faith. The acceptance of its doctrines and the avowal of them without equivocation or mental reservation make, mark, and identify that Church, which alone, in the true, original, historical, and honest sense of the term, is the Evangelical Lutheran Church." According to the seventh article the only churches "entitled to the name Evangelical Lutheran are those which sincerely hold and truthfully confess the doctrines of the Unaltered Augsburg Confession." The next article reads: "We accept and acknowledge the doctrines of the Unaltered Augsburg Confession in its original sense as throughout in conformity with the pure truth of which God's Word is the only rule. We accept its statements of truth as in perfect accordance with the canonical Scriptures: We reject the errors it condemns, and believe that all which it commits to the liberty of the Church of right belongs to that liberty." The ninth article declares "that the other Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, inasmuch as they set forth none other than its system of doctrine and articles of faith, are of necessity pure and Scriptural," and that all of them "are, with the Unaltered Augsburg Confession, in the perfect harmony of one and the same Scriptural faith." (Ochsenford, Documentary History, 178 f.) According to the By-laws of the Constitution "the first two morning sessions after the opening of the convention shall be devoted to the discussion of doctrinal points and important practical questions."

115. Articles on Church Polity.—According to the second of the eleven articles of Ecclesiastical Power and Church Government, the church "has no power to bind the conscience, except as she truly teaches what her Lord teaches, and faithfully commands what He has charged her to command." The third reads: "The absolute directory of the will of Christ is the Word of God, the canonical Scriptures, interpreted in accordance with the 'mind of the Spirit,' by which Scriptures the Church is to be guided in every decision. She may set forth no article of faith which is not taught by the very letter of God's Word, or derived by just and necessary inference from it, and her liberty concerns those things only which are left free by the letter and spirit of God's Word." The fourth continues: "The primary bodies through which the power is normally exercised, which Christ commits derivatively and ministerially to His Church on earth, are the congregations. The congregation, in the normal state, is neither the pastor without the people, nor the people without the pastor." This paragraph permits of an interpretation that opens a loophole for Romanism. According to the sixth article "a free, Scriptural General Council, or Synod, chosen by the Church, is, within the metes and bounds fixed by the Church which chooses it, representatively that Church itself; and in this case is applicable the language of the Appendix to the Smalcald Articles: 'The judgments of synods are the judgments of the Church.'" This seems to imply that the judgments of synods are as such correct and binding. The tenth article reads: "In the formation of a General Body the synods may know, and deal with, each other only as synods. In such case the official record is to be accepted as evidence of the doctrinal position of each synod, and of the principles for which alone the other synods become responsible by connection with it." This paragraph, which was embodied also in the constitution of the United Lutheran Church, opened the door to indifferentism inasmuch as it made the General Council responsible, not for the actual conditions within, but only for the official attitude and deliverances of its district synods.

116. A Legislative Body.—The seventh article of "Ecclesiastical Power and Church Government" reads: "The congregations representatively constituting the various district synods may elect delegates through these synods to represent themselves in a more general body, all decisions of which, when made in conformity with the solemn compact of the constitution, bind so far as the terms of mutual agreement make them binding on those congregations which consent, and continue to consent, to be represented in that General Body." According to the ninth article, "the obligation under which congregations consent to place themselves, to conform to the decisions of synods, does not rest on any assumption that synods are infallible, but on the supposition that the decisions have been so guarded by wise constitutional provisions as to create a higher moral probability of their being true and rightful than the decisions in conflict with them, which may be made by single congregations or individuals." In keeping herewith Article I, Section 4 of the General Council's constitution provides: "No liturgy or hymn-book should be used in public worship except by its [the General Council's] advice or consent, which consent shall be presumed in regard to all such books now used, until the General Council shall have formally acted upon them." That the General Council was not a mere advisory, but a legislative body, was brought out in the Lima Church Case in which the judge decided that, according to the constitution and the expert testimony of members of the General Council, Synod had jurisdiction over its pastors and congregations, and that hence he could not adjudge the property to that part of the congregation which had refused to submit to Synod. Dr. Seiss testified (April 6, 1876) that, according to the constitution of the General Council, congregations are obliged and bound to respect and obey all constitutional resolutions of Synod. In its issue of September 26, 1901, the Lutheran maintained that Christian liberty did not prohibit the Church from making prescriptions to individual congregations in the adiaphora; that pastors and congregations, by joining the Pennsylvania Ministerium, yielded the right to decide and act for themselves, and agreed to submit to the regulations of Synod in the points enumerated; that it was not an infringement of the rights of a congregation to make this a condition of synodical membership. (L. u. W. 1901, 305.) In 1915 the Augustana Synod adopted a resolution recommending a change in the constitution of the General Council in order to make the body "both in principle and practise a deliberative and advisory body only."

117. Conforming to Decisions a Moral Obligation.—In 1866 Dr. Krauth, defending the polity of the General Council, wrote in the Lutheran and Missionary: "We entirely agree with our friend in the Lutheraner that the strength of the Church does not depend upon a 'strong government,' but on the unity of faith, doctrine, and confession. But 'strong' and 'weak' are relative terms. We want a real government; something which shall hold in a genuine outward bond, however mild, the true confessors of our Church's faith, and enable them to work in harmony, and if we understand the principles which control the government of the Synod of Missouri, we are sure that we desire nothing stronger nor better in the government of our whole Church in this country than these principles would give us. We only ask a church government which shall bind us by the gentle laws of love and peace, which shall take offenses out of the way, which shall be an aid in causing all things to be done decently and in order in the Church—which shall be a safeguard to conscience, and shall not lay, nor attempt to lay, burdens on it. The decisions of a synod which shall be such a government representatively will indeed be merely human, as the decisions of all earthly governments are merely human—nay, often manifestly wrong; nevertheless, we hold that the generic governmental principles and the right of representation are as really of God in the Church as in the State. The obligation to conform to the decisions of such a [representative] synod is the obligation of peace, love, and order; and where violation of them (except on the ground of conscience) creates scandal and offense, there is a moral obligation to conform to them." (Spaeth, 2, 172 f.) However, the constitution of the General Council does not contain the limitation: "where violation creates scandal and offense"; and Missouri holds that a congregation may ignore a resolution of synod, not only on the ground of conscience, but also whenever it finds a resolution unsuitable for her conditions.

SUBTILE UNIONISM.

118. Missouri's Attitude toward the General Council.—Originally Dr. Walther and Dr. Sihler were optimistic with respect to the movements which resulted in the organization of the new general body. Walther wrote: "Scarcely any event within the bounds of the Lutheran Church of North America has ever afforded us greater joy than the withdrawal of the Synod of Pennsylvania from the unionistic so-called General Synod. This is a step which will undoubtedly lead to consequences of the utmost importance and of the most salutary character. The plan to give prominence and supremacy in this land, by means of the 'General Synod,' to a so-called American Lutheranism which ignores the distinctive doctrines of the Lutheran Church, and to compel the truly Lutheran synods to occupy a separatistic, isolated, and powerless position, is completely frustrated by this step." (Spaeth, 2, 162.) But the hopes of Walther and his friends were doomed to disappointment, at least in part. In spite of its irreproachable confessional basis the General Council was imbued with a spirit of indifferentism and unionism, though of a finer grade and quality than that prevailing in the General Synod. In accordance with its principle that fraternal cooperation and union of necessity presupposes unity in doctrine and practise, Missouri, instead of participating in the hasty organization of the General Council, insisted on Free Conferences in order first to bring about real doctrinal agreement, the prerequisite of every God-pleasing external union. In Reading, 1866, however, this request was disregarded, union being the paramount, true and real unity a secondary consideration. Nor was there a change effected in this attitude by the subsequent correspondence between the General Council and the Missouri Synod. At Reading the delegates passed the resolution: "That the synods represented in this convention which prefer a Free Conference to an immediate organization be and hereby are invited to send representatives to the next meeting, with the understanding that they have in it all the privileges of debate and a fraternal comparison of views." To this Missouri responded at its convention in Chicago, in May, 1867: "In view of the relations we sustain toward different members of the Church Council, in reference to doctrine and churchly practise, we must be apprehensive that the consideration and discussion of differences still existing in the convention of the Church Council might give rise to the reflection that we intended to interrupt the bringing about of a unity, and are therefore fearful lest our participation, instead of leading to an agreement, might be productive of greater alienation. Even at the risk of appearing capricious in the eyes of the Reverend Body, and less diligent in our efforts for churchly unity, we beg leave to declare it again as our conviction that Free Conferences, such as are separated from officially organized conventions of ecclesiastical bodies, on the basis of the symbols of our Church, as contained in the Book of Concord of 1580, are the only proper means for an exchange of such convictions as are still divergent, and which, by the grace of God, may lead to a unity on the basis of our beloved Confession." At Fort Wayne, in November, 1867, the General Council renewed the resolution "that we sincerely respect the honest preferences of our brethren [Missouri] in regard to the best means of uniting our Church, and that we are willing to set apart a time, during the future sessions of this body, when it will meet them simply as a Free Conference." And, no answer having been received, the Council, at Pittsburgh, 1868, instructed its secretaries to bring the Fort Wayne action again to the attention of the Missouri Synod. In the following year Missouri answered that it was not its desire to deal with the General Council as such and during the sessions of the same; that by such a side-dealing justice could not be done the matter; that they desired and regarded Free Conferences as the proper means to reach the end contemplated. (Ochsenford, Doc. History, 152 ff.) Thus, from the very beginning, Missouri, in the interest of real unity as a prerequisite of union, urged free conferences and doctrinal discussions, while the General Council offered discussions "in regard to the best means of uniting our Church," at the same time insisting on a mode which involved a recognition of the unionistic procedure adopted in organizing the General Council. Considering the facts that some of the synods, uniting in 1866 and 1867 with the General Council, had several months before belonged to the General Synod; that ostensibly they had severed their connection on technical grounds; that all along they had been committed, more or less, not only to a false confessional basis, but also to Reformed doctrines and un-Lutheran practise, etc., the Missouri Synod, without sacrificing its anti-unionistic principles, could hardly have taken a different course of action than it did. Moreover, the subsequent history of the General Council, down to the Merger in 1918, has proved conclusively that Missouri's original evaluation of the General Council's confessionalism was certainly not very far from the mark. It was, then, the persistent refusal, on the part of the General Council, of free conferences, such as Missouri could have attended without an a priori violation of her convictions, that brought about and prolonged the deadlock obtaining between the two bodies. As late as 1904, at the time of the Inter-synodical Conferences, Dr. Jacobs declared that he would not meet Missouri in a free conference without a preceding joint service of prayer; and to this the Lutheran assented. (L. u. W. 1904, 224. 370.)

119. The Primary Difference.—In 1885 Dr. Spaeth wrote: "In no other Lutheran body of the Old or New World has the question on the great principles of true church unity received such attention and been treated in such a thorough and comprehensive manner as within the General Council." There is certainly a good deal of truth in this assertion. For the General Council did make repeated efforts at grasping and applying the principles of true church unity. But it lacked consistency, and in formulating the rules and theories, their theologians were influenced by conditions inherited from the General Synod. They lacked the courage or ability of completely breaking with their unionistic past. This was essentially the charge of Missouri against the General Council—the correctness of which was vindicated also by the action taken by the representatives of the synods of Ohio and Iowa at the first convention of the General Council, 1867, at Fort Wayne. While Walther and the Missouri Synod demanded a real, material unity, unity as to the actual content, that is to say, the individual doctrines of the Lutheran symbols, the General Council was satisfied with a mere correct formal acknowledgment of the Confessions. It was the difference between the form and substance of unity. In the Lutheran of August 22, 1907, Dr. Krotel declared with respect to the doctrinal attitude of the Council: It "firmly refuses to occupy the unionistic position of doctrinal vacillation and tolerance. Contrary to the theological temper of the age, it maintains that there are articles of faith so definite and fixed and clear as to demand unqualified endorsement and defense." (Doc. Hist., 138.) But Dr. Krotel's assertions are not supported by the facts. Judged by the real conditions, the General Council has always been a unionistic body.