Front matter (continued 5)

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.

THE FOUR POINTS.

120. Altar- and Pulpit-Fellowship, Lodges and Chiliasm.—Immediately at its first convention at Fort Wayne, 1867, it became apparent that the General Council was unwilling to take an unequivocal and decided stand with respect to Lutheran doctrine and practise. At Fort Wayne the Joint Synod of Ohio, through its delegates (G. Cronenwett, F.A. Herzberger, G. Baughman), after stating that, despite the reception of the Doctrinal Basis, "un-Lutheran doctrine and practise" were still found in some of the synods connected with the Council, requested an answer to the following questions: "1. What relation will this venerable body in future sustain to Chiliasm? 2. Mixed communions? 3. The exchanging of pulpits with sectarians? 4. Secret or unchurchly societies?" "Especially," they declared, "would we earnestly desire a decided answer with regard to the last item, inasmuch as the Joint Synod, for years already, in view of certain relations in one of its district synods, has had difficulties in consequence of four pastors belonging to secret societies, and would not, therefore, again burden its conscience." The answer was: "That this Council is aware of nothing in its 'Fundamental Principles of Faith and Church Polity' and Constitution, nor in the relation it sustains in the four questions raised, which justifies a doubt whether its decision on them all, when they are brought up in the manner prescribed in the Constitution, will be in harmony with Holy Scripture and the Confession of the Church. That so soon as official evidence shall be presented to this body, in the manner prescribed by the constitution, that un-Lutheran doctrines or practises are authorized by the action of any of its synods, or by their refusal to act, it will weigh that evidence, and, if it finds they exist, use all its constitutional power to convince the minds of men in regard to them, and as speedily as possible to remove them." (Doc. Hist., 156.) In other words: Unite with us, and then we shall see what can be done, according to the "educational methods," with reference to the Four Points. A similar evasive answer was given to the following petition of the Iowa Synod: "In order to effect a union of the Church, and that we may all truly agree in the principles of practise as well as of faith, without conditions, the delegates [G. Grossman, S. and G. Fritschel] of the Synod of Iowa propose, in accordance with the instructions of their Synod, that the General Council shall expressly acknowledge what, according to the understanding of the delegates of said Synod, is virtually acknowledged in the 'Fundamental Principles of Faith and Church Polity' adopted by this body, viz.: 1. that according to the Confession of the Evangelical Lutheran Church there must be, and is, condemned all church-fellowship with such as are not Lutherans; for example, ministers serving congregations such as are mixed and not purely Lutheran, receiving such congregations and their pastors into synodical connection, the admittance of those of a different faith to the privilege of Communion, the permission of those not Lutheran to occupy our pulpits, etc.; 2. according to the Word of God, church-discipline be exercised, especially at the celebration of the Holy Communion, and be likewise exercised towards those who are members of secret societies." The answer was: "That the General Council is not prepared to endorse the declaration of the Synod of Iowa as a correct logical deduction and application of the negative part of our Confessional Books, and that we refer the matter to the District Synods, until such time as, by the blessings of God's Holy Spirit and the leadings of His Providence, we shall be enabled throughout the whole General Council and all its churches to see eye to eye in all the details of practise and usage, towards the consummation of which we will direct our unceasing prayers." (161.) In other words: Unite with us, and we shall see what can be done in the future, and whether your position really is in harmony with the Lutheran Confessions. Hereupon the Iowa men declared that their Synod could not unite with the Council, because "in accordance with our deep and sincere conviction, which is at the same time that of the Synod we represent, we must declare it to be a necessary precedent condition of an official ecclesiastical connection between synodical bodies that there should be a complete and hearty agreement not only in the principles of faith and confession, but also in an ecclesiastical practise accordant with such faith and confession, as set forth especially in the first of the propositions presented by us." (162.) Among the pastors who, at Fort Wayne, also declared their dissent with respect to the dubious attitude of the Council regarding the Four Points were the Revs. J. Bading, A. Hoenecke, A. Martin, C.F. Welden, and C. F. Heyer. (155 ff.)

121. Side-lights on "Four Points" Difficulties.—Dr. S.E. Ochsenford explains in Documentary History of the General Council: "The difficulty lay in the fact that some synods demanded that that should be done at once[?], regardless of consequences, which others felt could be done with much better results by following an educational method, leading in the process of time all the synods and congregations, among many of which in certain portions of the Church there existed peculiar difficulties, to the same lofty eminence of purity in doctrine and in practise, and so true unity in both. The older synods had difficulties in this respect, of which the more recently formed synods had no true conception. These difficulties could not be eradicated at once and by the fiat of any organization; but as they had grown up gradually, so they must be removed by a process of education." (164.) Dr. Spaeth gives the following explanation of the situation, and apology for the attitude of the General Council at Fort Wayne: "There appeared at this point a wide difference, especially between the Eastern and Western synods, which was in the first place the natural result of the historical development, through which those various sections of the Church had passed which now endeavored to form an organic union. The Lutheran Church in the Eastern part of our country, having been founded about one hundred and fifty years ago, had passed through all the different stages of church-life, suffering, and death, by which the history of the Church and theology of the German Fatherland was characterized in that period. We need not be surprised to find that during this time many things crept in which were in conflict with the spirit and Confession of our Church. Over against those things the renewed appreciation of the Lutheran Confession and the honest return to the same was of comparatively recent date. It was therefore not to be expected that there should have been on all sides at the very outset a thorough insight into all the consequences and obligations of a decided and consistent adoption of the Lutheran Confession. On the other hand, most of the Lutheran synods of the West had been founded at a much more favorable season. Out of the very fulness and freshness of the revived Confession, partly even in the martyr-spirit of a persecuted Church, have their foundations been laid and their structures raised. Accordingly, their whole congregational life could much more easily and more consistently be organized on the principles established in the Confession, and many evils could be excluded which in other places had taken root and had been growing for nearly a century." (164.) However, both Spaeth and Ochsenford fail to see the real issue; for the grievance at Fort Wayne was not the inability to abolish immediately all abuses referred to in the Four Points, but rather the persistent refusal on the part of the General Council to take, as such, a definite and unequivocal Lutheran attitude with respect to these questions. Nor was the charge, at least on the part of Missouri, with respect to the "educational method," as advocated and applied from 1867 to 1918 by the Council, directed against this method as such, but against the mutilation of this method by practically eliminating its eventual natural termination, expulsion according to Matt. 18, and against the apparent insincerity in the advocacy, and the lack of seriousness in the application of this method. Indeed, the real grievance was not that weak members of the General Council were lagging behind in Lutheran doctrine and practise, but that many of her prominent leaders and her periodicals occupied an un-Lutheran position and championed un-Lutheran doctrine and practise.

AKRON-GALESBURG RULE.

122. Non-Lutherans Admitted Exceptionally.—Regarding the Four Points, especially the question of altar- and pulpit-fellowship, the General Council during its subsequent history never really rose above the Fort Wayne level. In 1868, at Pittsburgh, the Council declared "that no man shall be admitted to our pulpits, whether of the Lutheran name or any other, of whom there is just reason to doubt whether he will preach the pure truth of God's Word as taught in the Confessions of our Church." (208.) As though a sectarian minister could preach in accordance with the Lutheran symbols; or offense and unionism were fully eliminated when the sectarian minister, preaching in a Lutheran pulpit, proclaims none of his errors! The same convention held: "Lutheran ministers may properly preach wherever there is an opening in the pulpit of other churches, unless the circumstances imply, or seem to imply, a fellowship with error or schism, or a restriction on the unreserved expression of the whole counsel of God." (209.) But, apart from other considerations, the fact is that, as a rule, these conditions were not and could not be complied with. Furthermore, the same convention declared: "Heretics and fundamentally false teachers are to be excluded from the Lord's Table." (209.) But the convention at Chicago, in 1870, explained: "Although the General Council holds the distinctive doctrines of our Evangelical Lutheran Church as in such sense fundamental that those who err in them err in fundamental doctrines, nevertheless, in employing the terms 'fundamental errorists,' in the declaration made at Pittsburgh, it understands not those who are the victims of involuntary mistake, but those who wilfully, wickedly, and persistently desert, in whole or in part, the Christian faith, especially as embodied in the Confessions of the Church Catholic, in the purest form in which it now exists on earth, to wit, the Evangelical Lutheran Church, and thus overturn or destroy the foundation in them confessed; and who hold, defend, and extend these errors in the face of the admonitions of the Church, and to the leading away of men from the path of life." (215 f.) Accordingly, the fact that a Christian held the Reformed view on the Lord's Supper did not per se exclude him from the altars of the General Council.

123. "The Rule Is."—At Akron, O., 1872, in answer to a question of the Iowa Synod referring to the declaration of 1870, Dr. Krauth, then President of the General Council, submitted the following: "1. The rule is: Lutheran pulpits are for Lutheran ministers only. Lutheran altars are for Lutheran communicants only. 2. The exceptions to the rule belong to the sphere of privilege, not of right. 3. The determination of the exceptions is to be made in consonance with these principles, by the conscientious judgment of pastors, as the cases arise." (216.) At Galesburg, 1875, the General Council declared: "The rule which accords with the Word of God and with the Confessions of our Church is: 'Lutheran pulpits for Lutheran ministers only—Lutheran altars for Lutheran communicants only.'" (217.) However, this declaration, which, for the time being, satisfied the Iowa Synod, admits of the interpretation: The exceptions are: Lutheran pulpits for non-Lutheran ministers, and Lutheran altars for non-Lutheran communicants, as was virtually admitted also by the General Council in her answer of 1877 to an appeal from the Ministerium of New York against violation of the Galesburg Rule. (217.) Returning—if indeed a return was required—to the Akron Declaration, the General Council, in 1889, stated "that at the time of the passage of the Galesburg Rule, by the General Council, the distinct statement was made that all preceding action of the General Council on pulpit- and altar-fellowship was unchanged…. Inasmuch as the General Council has never annulled, rescinded, or reconsidered the declarations made at Akron, 0., in the year 1872, they still remain, in all their parts and provisions, the action and rule of the General Council. All subsequent action of the General Council is to be understood and interpreted according to the principles there determined and settled…. The present position of the General Council is to be understood and interpreted in such manner that neither the amendment and further explanation at Galesburg nor the original action at Akron be overlooked or ignored, both of which remain in full force and mutually interpret and supplement one another." (219.) Exceptionally, non-Lutherans may be admitted to Lutheran pulpits and altars—such, then, was the final official decision of the General Council as to the question of pulpit- and altar-fellowship. In the Lutheran of May 3, 1917, Rev. J.E. Whitteker, president of the General Council Home Mission Board, said that it was his custom not to refuse the Lord's Supper to non-Lutherans. (L. u. W. 1917, 463.) Dr. J. Fry, The Pastor's Guide, says: "It is not considered proper to give a general invitation to persons belonging to other congregations to participate in the Communion at the time when it is administered. If any public invitation is given, it should be at the time when the Communion and preparatory services are announced, and such persons be requested to make personal application to the pastor, so he may know who they are, and judge of their fitness to join in the Communion. The door should not be opened wider to strangers than to children of the household." (54.) In 1904 Dr. Deindoerfer of the Iowa Synod declared: "We do not see that in the circles of the General Council, as a whole, the churchly practise has improved and become less offensive, and that earnest proceedings are instituted against members who are guilty of offensive practise—a state of affairs which our Synod never can and will sanction." (L. u. W. 1904, 516.)

INTERDENOMINATIONAL FELLOWSHIP.

124. Sound Principles.—The doctrinal basis of the General Council as well as a number also of its later declarations and resolutions as to church-fellowship and cooperation with non-Lutherans are sound. They breathe the Lutheran spirit revealed in the manly words of C.P. Krauth: "The Lutheran Church can never have real moral dignity, real self-respect, a real claim on the reverence and loyalty of her children while she allows the fear of denominations around her, or the desire of their approval, in any respect to shape her principles or control her actions. It is a fatal thing to ask, not, What is right? What is consistent? but, What will be thought of us? How will our neighbors of the different communions regard this or that course? Better to die than to prolong a miserable life by such a compromise of all that gives life its value." (L. u. W. 1917, 468.) In 1909 Dr. T.E. Schmauk, then president of the General Council, declared in regard to the World's Missionary Conference: "We regret our inability, on account of our sound fundamental principle of unity as a prerequisite to cooperation, to enter in as one of the active elements in such a meeting." The committee reported: "We approve of the President's position as to the World Conference and the Federal Council." In 1913 the General Council resolved with respect to participation in "The World Conference on Faith and Order": "While regretting that it is unable to unite with the Communion of the Episcopal Church in arranging for, and conducting, a Conference on Faith and Order, yet, nevertheless, it hereby resolves to appoint a Committee on the Unity of Faith, which shall be authorized, without participating in organization or arrangement of any conference, to present and set forth the Lutheran faith touching particular doctrines, either independently, or when they are under discussion in any conference or gathering, without, however, granting the committee any power of association, arrangement, fellowship, or practical direction, but confining it to the one specific function of witness and testimony to the faith that is in us, and which we rejoice to confess, and to have tested, before all the world." In 1915 the General Council made the statement: "Regarding general movements in the Christian world which have arisen in the last few years looking to the drawing together of the whole Christian Church on earth, such as the movement of a free Protestantism toward a united foreign mission objective, the Federation of Churches, and other movements of a similar character, we recommend that, while we cannot at this time [sic!] organically participate, it is well, nevertheless, to keep fully informed as to their trend, direction, and development." (467.) In 1917 Schmauk said in the Lutheran: "The Lutheran faith has suffered terribly in the past by attempts of union and cooperation with various Christian denominations and tendencies. Usually they have penetrated insidiously into our spirit, and poisoned our own life-roots, and taken possession of our palaces. But these damages have been wrought through an attempted unity with men who are not at one with us in the profession of a common faith. As Luther said: 'They have a different spirit.'" (468.)

125. Facts Discounting Declarations.—Although the General Council as such has always confined its fraternal intercourse and cooperation to Lutheran synods (General Synod, United Synod South, etc.), its members and official boards have not. In 1916 several representatives of the General Council attended the Latin-America Missionary Conference, its Mission Board was connected with the "Foreign Mission Conference," a body composed of Adventists, Baptists, Quakers, Universalists, Reformed, etc. (461.) In his pamphlet, Dangerous Alliances, 1917, Rev. W. Brenner, a member of the General Council, wrote: "The Woman's Mission Worker, the Foreign Missionary, and the Home Missionary [periodicals of the General Council] have published letters and articles defending Lutheran participation in 'union movements.' In the Lutheran of September 14, 1916, Rev. C.F. Fry lauds federation in 'mission-work' and 'Reformation celebrations.' 'On Tuesday evening pastors of non-Lutheran churches presented their greetings,' so the Lutheran of November 18, 1915, describes in part the 175th anniversary celebration of St. John's Ev. Lutheran Church at Easton, Pa. Rev. E.S. Bromer, D.D., of the Reformed Church, addressed the congregation of the First Lutheran Church of Greensburg, Pa., on the occasion of its hundredth anniversary. (Lutheran, Nov. 18, 1915.) Emmanuel Lutheran Church of the Augustana Synod laid the corner-stone of a new church edifice, November 12, 1916, at Butte, Mont. 'Brief congratulatory speeches were made by Hon. C.H. Lane, mayor of Butte, and the Rev. J.H. Mitchell, chairman of Butte's Ministerial Association.' (Lutheran, Nov. 30, 1916.) We have also read of Anti-Saloon League representatives, and Women's Christian Temperance lecturers, male and female, who delivered speeches in the Lutheran churches." (463.) In 1915, when the General Council met in Rock Island, Dr. Gerberding occupied the pulpit of the Presbyterian church. At Port Colborne, Can., on November 11, 1918, Rev. Knauff of the General Council fellowshiped with Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, and Anglicans in a united Thanksgiving service. (Luth. Witness 1919, 14.) Dr. J. Fry in his Pastor's Guide: "A Lutheran pastor may officiate on any occasion, or perform a ministerial act in which ministers of other creeds take part, provided the occasion and circumstances are such as will not violate synodical order, nor compromise his confessional position." (84.) Again: "Y.M.C.A.'s, W.C.T.U.'s, Christian Endeavor, etc., are rarely [sic!] to be recommended to our people, as they are generally conducted on 'new-measure' lines, and their influence is to make our members dissatisfied with Lutheran or churchly ideas and usages." (97.) It may be safely said that without the sanction of this species of unionism openly practised within the General Council, the Lutheran Merger of 1918 would have been an impossibility. And yet, this practise admits of but one construction: mutual acknowledgment. "When teachers and preachers exchange pulpits and chairs, it is an emphatic way of declaring, not their personal friendship, but their endorsement of each other's teachings; it is all the same as to infer that they are in accord in their essential teachings." (Editor of the Presbyterian.)

ATTITUDE TOWARD LODGES.

126. Sound Lutheran Principles.—At its convention at Pittsburgh, 1868, the General Council made the following declarations with respect to secret societies: "1. Though mere secrecy in association be not in itself immoral, yet as it is so easily susceptible of abuse, and in its abuse may work, as it has often worked, great mischief in family, Church and State, we earnestly beseech all good men to ponder the question whether the benefits they believe to be connected with secret societies might not be equally reached in modes not liable to the same abuse. 2. Any and all societies for moral and religious ends which do not rest on the supreme authority of God's holy Word as contained in the Old and New Testaments; which do not recognize our Lord Jesus Christ as the true God and the only Mediator between God and man; which teach doctrines or have usages or forms of worship condemned in God's Word and in the Confessions of His Church; which assume to themselves what God has given to His Church and its ministers; which require undefined obligations to be assumed by oath, are unchristian, and we solemnly warn our members and ministers against all fellowship with, or connivance at, associations which have this character. 3. All connection with infidel and immoral associations we consider as requiring the exercise of prompt and decisive discipline, and after faithful and patient monition and teaching from God's Word, the cutting off the persistent and obstinate offender from communion of the Church until he abandons them and shows a true repentance." (Doc. Hist.,208.)

127. Practise out of Tune with Principles.—From the very beginning the official declarations of 1868 were and remained a dead letter. With the exception of the Augustana Synod, lodges were generally tolerated and, in part, practically encouraged within the General Council throughout its history—resolutions to the contrary notwithstanding. Lodge-men were received with open arms, and no questions were asked. In 1873 the English District Synod of Ohio, affiliated with the Council, deposed Rev. Bartholomew because, for one reason, he, in a sermon, had testified against the lodgism prevailing in Synod. (Report 1874, 45. 47 ff.) The Pilger, a German paper published within the General Council, wrote in 1875: "Testimony against secret societies will bring little result so long as the Church [General Council] looks on in silence while pastors of the Christian Church are members of antichristian lodges. Indeed, many resolutions have been passed against pastors being members of secret orders; but paper is patient, and those who are rebuked laugh at Synod's resolutions." Herold und Zeitschrift, August 2, 1884, related of a pastor connected with the Council: "He is a Freemason. He does not refrain from showing his attitude toward the lodge. Recently, after delivering the funeral address for a Freemason, he put on his Masonic uniform before the congregation, and marched out to the grave. Some time ago he announced a lecture on Masonry in his church. Appearing before a large audience which had gathered, in the white leathern apron and other paraphernalia of his order, he, in eloquent fashion, set forth the advantages of Masonry, etc., making special mention of its great antiquity and marvelous liberality." In 1886, the Lutheran declared that excommunication because of membership in a secret society had never been an official demand of the General Council. The Lutherisches Kirchenblatt, edited by pastors connected with the Council, reported a meeting of the Pennsylvania Ministerium, held in January, 1887, as follows: "Pastor Hinterleiter made a motion that pastors ought not belong to secret societies. Pastor Struntz vehemently opposed this motion, declaring that it had no place in a constitution, but was part of a pastor's private life. Dr. Fry expressed it as his opinion that such a resolution would give offense." In the Lutheran Church Review, April, 1903, Carl Swensson wrote: "I believe the entire stand taken by, for instance, our Augustana Synod on the secret society question has been a mistake and a misfortune. Society members, inside or outside of the Church, should be treated just as any other people." (L. u. W. 1903, 184.) In the same year a number of General Council ministers publicly joined the Mystic Shriners. On May 6, 1917, the pastor of the First English Lutheran Church in Kitchener (Berlin), Ont., held a lodge-service for the Freemasons and Odd-Fellows. At the convention of the Ministerium of Pennsylvania in 1917 a petition signed by thirteen members was presented to amend the constitution by striking out section 51 in Art. 10, according to which "any minister belonging to the Ministerium who shall, after due admonition, persist in fellowship and cooperation with any such antichristian society or order [lodges], whether secret or not, shall be subject to discipline." (Proceedings 1917, 182.) No action was taken by Synod.

128. Educational Method a Pretense.—In dealing with offenders also against the Lutheran principles pertaining to lodge-membership, the General Council advocated the "educational method." But the fact is that during the whole course of its history no serious and persevering efforts whatever were made to enlighten the congregations as to the utter incompatibility of Lodgism and Lutheranism. Geo. Fritschel: "It cannot be denied that the General Council as such has done nothing to bring about a progress in this question" (concerning lodge-membership). The same, he says, was true of its chief synods. Partly they did not want any discussions on this question. The officers of the Pennsylvania Synod remained unconcerned even when ministers joined the lodges. (Geschichte, 2, 322.) The Iowa Kirchenblatt, November 24, 1917, declared that the policy of education as advocated by the Council had utterly and finally failed. (Luth. Witness 1918, 387.) In the same year Rev. W. Brenner wrote: "There is an official General Council declaration which solemnly warns its pastors and people against all fellowship with, or connivance at, secret societies (Doc. Hist., 208); but from the attitude of some General Council ministers and their practise no one would ever suspect that they had ever read, or were aware of the fact, that such a document existed. During their seminary days little was heard on the subject, and so they are surprised when they see how other pastors who studied in other seminaries take a firm stand and refuse absolutely to officiate at any funeral where lodge-chaplains are permitted to take any part in the service." (L. u. W. 1917, 462.) Dr. J. Fry, professor in the Seminary of the General Council at Mount Airy, advises in his Pastor's Guide: "Ministers should not refuse to officiate at the funerals of persons who were not members of the Church, or who died impenitent…. Neither should a minister refuse to officiate because some lodge or other society may be present and have its service at the grave…. He should finish his service, and quietly step back." (64.) Again: "Pastors are sometimes asked to preach special sermons before lodges…. If there should be any good reason for their coming as a body, the service should be at an hour which interferes with no other service." (75.)

CHILIASM.

129. Official Attitude.—At the convention in Pittsburgh, in 1868, the following declaration regarding Chiliasm was adopted by the General Council: "2. The General Council has neither had, nor would consent to have, fellowship with any synod which tolerates the 'Jewish opinions' or 'chiliastic opinions' condemned in the Seventeenth Article of the Augsburg Confession. 3. The points on which our Confession has not been explicit, or on which its testimony is not at present interpreted in precisely the same way by persons equally intelligent and honest, and equally unreserved and worthy of belief in the profession of adherence to the Confessions, should continue to be the subject of calm, thorough, Scriptural, and prayerful investigation, until we shall see perfectly eye to eye both as regards the teaching of God's Word and the testimony of our Church." (Doc. Hist., 207.) According to the General Council, then, while the gross and carnal millennialism of the Jews must be rejected, there is a chiliasm which should be tolerated and continue to be the subject of further prayerful research. Pastors Bading, Adelbert, and Klingmann of the Wisconsin Synod, however, immediately, protested that they "rejected every form of chiliasm as against the Scriptures and the Confessions."

130. Kind of Chiliasm Tolerated.—The chiliasm which had always been advocated by members of the General Synod, and which the General Council refused to reject, was of a kind with the one entertained by Dr. John Geo. Schmucker (1771—1854), the father of S.S. Schmucker, and by the Drs. Helmuth, Lochman, Daniel Kurtz (died 1856), by Loehe and leaders of the Iowa Synod, and especially by Dr. J.A. Seiss of the Pennsylvania Synod. According to J.G. Schmucker, the Second Petition of the Lord's Prayer and, among others, also the following passages of the New Testament: Matt. 5, 35; 8, 11. 26. 29; Acts 3, 20. 21; Rom. 8, 20. 21; 11, 25. 26, treat of a coming millennium, in which Christ will reveal Himself in a visible pavilion, take possession also of the civil power, govern the world according to the principles of the New Testament, bring about a great temporal happiness, prolong the life of the saints, etc. These and similar views were endorsed and advocated also by the Lutheran, the organ of the conservatives within the General Synod. (L. u. W. 1861, 282.) In his Last Times and Lectures on the Apocalypse, Dr. Seiss taught: "There is a first resurrection at the beginning of the Millennium, and a second resurrection at the end of the Millennium. The one embraces the martyrs and saints,—who are 'blessed and holy,' 'who have fallen asleep through Jesus,'—the other is the resurrection of the remaining dead." Seiss also denied that the Papacy is the true Antichrist. In the Lutheran Cyclopedia, published by Jacobs and Haas, Dr. Seiss states: "That there have been teachings and beliefs put forth, and usually called chiliasm, which are heretical and subversive of the true Gospel, there can be no question. That Jesus and His apostles, as well as the great body of primitive Christians, held and taught what some call chiliasm, or millenarianism, can as readily be substantiated. And that there are various open questions touching these eschatological particulars on which the final word has not yet been spoken, and which may be considered chiliasm, must likewise be admitted." (87.) A chiliasm, then, which expects a time of universal prosperity and glory for the Church on this side of the resurrection, a time when the whole world will be converted to Christ, a time when peace and righteousness will be established from the rivers to the ends of the earth; a chiliasm which believes in a future twofold coming of Christ, a double resurrection, a conversion and restoration of Israel, a future personal Antichrist, embodying all antichristian elements,—such a chiliasm, according to Seiss, the Lutheran Cyclopedia, and the General Council, conflicts neither with the Bible, nor the Confessions, nor Lutheran orthodoxy. (87 f.)

OTHER ABBERRATIONS.

131. Reformed Tendencies.—In the Lutheran and Missionary, April 13, 1876, Dr. Seiss declared that it was an arrogance to make the doctrine that unbelievers as well as believers receive the true body and blood of Christ at the Lord's Table an article of faith. Nor was the Puritanic doctrine concerning the divine obligation of the Sunday, universally held in the General Synod, discarded by the synods and congregations constituting the General Council. The Reading Kirchenblatt, December 19, 1903, wrote: "On the second Sunday in Advent the Philadelphia Sabbath-Association celebrated its anniversary in the Evangelical Lutheran Church (Rev. C.L. Fry) in Philadelphia. Addresses were made by prominent Sabbath-workers. The leading speakers were the well-known John Wanamaker (Presbyterian) and the Methodist Rev. Dr. Mutchler…. Pastors of our own Synod foster un-Lutheran doctrine, and our superiors remain silent. Do they know of it? Certainly! All the dailies brought the news: first the invitations, then long reports. And what do our professors say to it? They keep silence…. But why do so many of our pastors hold a false, Puritan doctrine of the Sabbath? Because they have learned no better. If the students in our institutions would learn Luther's true doctrine concerning Sunday and sanctifying the holy-day, they could not, after becoming pastors of Lutheran congregations, take part in the fanatical doings of the sects. But, as it is, they go hand in hand with the sects, invite them to their churches, and permit them to present a false doctrine of the Sabbath to their Lutheran church-members." (L. u. W. 1904, 38; 1901, 85.) In his Catechist Dr. Gerberding teaches: "The law of one holy day of rest: its purpose is rest for the body and refreshment for the soul. All works of mercy and real necessity are allowed." In 1816 the District Synod of Ohio refused to discipline a pastor who did not believe that a child becomes a Christian, and is endowed with faith, in Baptism. (Luth. Witness 1918, 341. 356.) Rev. Brenner: "How long ago has it been considered a good policy in the General Council for its Mission Boards to agitate 'working together with the denominations about us for the best interest of our fellow-men,' and to 'agree on a program to lift the world to a higher level' by 'petitioning, demanding, and insisting upon special legislation for abolishing the saloon,' and doing a thousand other things which is the business, not of the Church, but of the State…. Individual synods have passed prohibition resolutions. Individual pastors have gone entirely too far in this matter. They are fanatical on the subject. Some have almost gone daft over the liquor problem." (L. u. W. 1917, 465.) The Home Missionary, December, 1916, declared that what the Lutheran Church teaches in reference to the separation of Church and State is "rot" and "fool" theology. (464.)

132. Qualified Confessional Subscription.—It was an ultrasymbolism, not countenanced by the Lutheran Church, when the Lutheran and Missionary maintained in its issue of September 27, 1867, that it was false, dangerous, and inconsistent to declare it the duty of Lutherans to compare for themselves the confessions received from the fathers with the Scriptures, and if found erring, to correct them; that this unbridled and radical theory, resting on the false assumption that private investigation of the Scriptures is the foundation of our faith, could not be proved by the Scriptures, and, reduced to practise, would endanger all purity of doctrine, and finally destroy all ecclesiastical communion. (L. u. W. 1867, 371.) In the Lutheran, March 5, 1908, however, Dr. H.E. Jacobs, defending the other extreme, wrote: "Some of the difficulties that men whom we esteem have urged against the acceptance of all our Confessions are due to a misunderstanding of what is involved in a confessional subscription. They conceive of the Confessions as an external law that binds the conscience to a mechanical acceptance of all [doctrinal matter] that may be found in these documents. What is properly confessional in these documents is their answers to the questions that rendered the framing of a confessional statement necessary…. We must study our Confessions as an organism, and appreciate the relation of each part to the other parts and to the whole Confession. Where the heart of each confession and of each doctrine confessed lies, must be the object of our search. To tear passages from their connection, or to represent isolated passages and merely incidental statements as having confessional authority is as unfair to the Confessions as it is to the Holy Scriptures." (Jacobs denies that all of the astronomical, geological, historical, and similar statements of the Bible are true.) The Lutheran World, commenting on Dr. Jacobs's statements, remarked: "But do not Dr. Jacobs's declarations sound very much like a quatenus rather than a quia mode of confessional subscription? For a long time we have not seen a theological statement that reminds us so much of the 'substantially correct' mode of subscription formerly in vogue in the General Synod. It certainly does not sound as stalwart as the General Synod's resolution in 1895, when she declared 'the Unaltered Augsburg Confession as throughout in perfect consistence with that Word'—namely, the Word of God." (L. u. W. 1908, 233.) In his Book of Concord, 1893, Dr. Jacobs declared that only the primary, not the secondary, arguments of the Confessions are involved in the subscription. "'The primary,' says Jacobs, 'are the dogmas set forth with the purpose of showing they are believed and taught by the Lutheran Church, the confutations of errors whereby it wished to declare that it contradicted them, and formulas of speech either expressly prescribed or proscribed.' The secondary are 'all those particulars introduced to confirm or illustrate the former,'" etc. (2, 13.)

ROMANISM.

133. Jacobs and Haas on Ordination, etc.—With respect to the doctrine that the public office of the ministry originates in, and is transferred by, the local congregation, Dr. Jacobs declared: "Nothing can be clearer than the antagonism of our great Lutheran divines to this position, nor anything be more convincing than their arguments against it." (Gerberding, The Lutheran Pastor, 73.) Luther's language on this question, Jacobs maintains, is "not guarded with the same care as that of the later dogmaticians." (74.) According to Jacobs the right to call a minister "belongs neither to the minister alone nor to the laity alone, but to both in due order." (Summary of Christian Faith, 427. 424.) Dr. J.A.W. Haas: "The transference theory has been developed in antithesis to Rome, and in it Lutherans have agreed with the Reformed." It "makes the ministry an organ growing out of the congregation, which ill befits the divine origin of the ministry." "In it the main accent is placed on the vocation, of which ordination is the attestation." (Gerberding, l.c., 77.) Ordination, Dr. Haas declares, is "the prerogative of the whole Church." It includes "the separation for the ministry with invocation of blessing and consecration under divine approval." For this reason "ordination is not repeated." (112.) "This realism of a divine gift [in ordination] was apparently not held by Luther…. He declares the right of all believers to the office, because of the spiritual priesthood, and sees the consecration (Weihe) in the call. 'Ordo est ministerium et vocatio ministrorum ecclesiae.'" (116.)

134. Gerberding and Fry on the Ministry.—In his Lutheran Pastor Dr. G.H. Gerberding, professor at the seminary of the General Council at Maywood (Chicago), declares: It is clear "that this transference theory is not held by our older theologians. Neither have we been able to find any ground for it in Holy Scripture. Where is there a single proof that the congregation, made up of believing priests, does on that account possess the right to exercise the ordinary functions of the ministry? Where is the proof that the ministry is created by the congregation? Where is it written that the minister is amenable to the congregation? If the congregation of laymen alone makes the minister, then it can also unmake, or depose, him from his office. The whole theory is unscriptural and unhistoric. Only the fanatical sects, which have a low view of the means of grace, can, with any consistency, hold such a view." (82.) Again: "This [the outward call] does not come from the ministry alone. Neither does it come from the laity alone. It must come from the Church. But the Church is neither the ministry without the people nor the people without the ministry…. Christ, then, exercises His power to call men into the ministry through the Church [ministers and laymen]. The Church may exist either in the congregation or in the representative Church [synod], made up of ministers and lay representatives of congregations. Either the congregation, as defined above, not without a pastor, or the representative body, made up also of pastors and people, has a right to extend the outward call." (86.) "The transference theory is unscriptural and not consistent with the Lutheran doctrine of the means of grace." (110.) "It is unscriptural and un-Lutheran to hold that the meaning and use of ordination consists essentially in this that it publicly attests and satisfies the validity of the call." (110.) Ordination "conveys the special grace needed for the special work of the ministry." (120.) In his Pastor's Guide, 1915, Dr. J. Fry, professor at the seminary of the General Council in Mount Airy, Philadelphia, teaches: The call to the ministry "must come from God, from the Church [synod] and from a particular place or congregation." (5.) "Of all these qualifications [required for the ministry] the Church [synod] must be the judge, and in her synodical organization and authority must extend the call to the ministry." (6.) "A pastor serving a parish of more than one congregation has no right to resign one congregation and retain the others without the consent of the president of the synod to which the parish belongs." (14.) "The call should also specify that either party desiring to withdraw from the agreement [between the pastor and congregation] must give three months' notice to that effect to the other party. This provision will do away with the very objectionable custom in some congregations of holding annual elections for a pastor." (9.) "The power to decide and impose penalties belongs to the pastor and church council." (92.) Dr. Fry regards "the pastor and church council as the highest authority in all congregational matters." (98.) All of these tenets are corruptions of the Scriptural and evangelical doctrines as proclaimed again by Luther. Consistently developed, their terminus is Rome. However, in the atmosphere of American liberty, where State and Church are separated and the will of the former is not foisted on the latter, Romanistic tendencies cannot thrive, nor did they ever to any extent succeed in practise in the Lutheran Church, a Church whose fundamental articles are the doctrines of justification by faith alone and absolute spiritual freedom from every human authority.