Volume II Part 3 (2/2)

Reynolds, in the _Evangelical Review_ which he had established 1849 (1870 succeeded by the _Lutheran Quarterly_), denounced the Platform as a declaration of ”separation from the whole Lutheran Church of the past.” ”We trust,” said he, ”that no Lutheran synod will be beguiled into the awful movement here so abruptly, yet so confidently proposed to them--to revolutionize their whole previous history, and declare separation from the whole Lutheran Church of the past, and all their brethren in the present who hold to the faith of their fathers, 'the faith once delivered to the saints.'” (360.) Reynolds, who publicly renounced his former un-Lutheran views and withdrew his endors.e.m.e.nt of Kurtz, was hailed by many as the leader of the conservatives in the General Synod. But, his confessional endeavors being vitiated and neutralized by his fundamental unionistic att.i.tude, he, too, disappointed and failed the friends of true Lutheranism. He opened the pages of the _Evangelical Review_ to both, liberals as well as conservatives, to the advocates as well as the opponents of the Platform and its theology. Reynolds stood for mutual toleration, and in 1864--turned Episcopalian. (_L. u. W._ 1857, 314; 1870, 156.) J. N.

Hoffmann entered the controversy with his ”Broken Platform,” and W. J.

Mann with his pamphlet ”A Plea for the Augsburg Confession,” according to Spaeth ”the strongest refutation of the Definite Platform.” (_L. u.

W._ 1856, 75; 1857, 283.) Dr. Mann wrote, May 7, 1856: ”If Schmucker had not the _Observer_ as an ally, he would accomplish absolutely nothing.

As it is, however, the two gentlemen fabricate a public opinion, supported by a mult.i.tude of uninformed members of the Lutheran Church.

The ma.s.s of all influential, well-meaning members, preachers as well as laymen, whatever their views may otherwise be, are indignant at Schmucker, Kurtz, _Observer_, and the whole Platform affair. I would not be astonished if the matter should lead to a breach between us and the General Synod. The consequence will be that involuntarily we shall be brought closer to the strict Lutheranism, all the more so as the Missourians of late seem to become milder.” But Dr. Mann was rudely awakened from his optimism when, in the following year, his ”Lutheranism in America: an essay on the present condition of the Lutheran Church in the United States,” was severely criticized even by Charles Philip Krauth, in the _Evangelical Review_. And the result? ”I have no desire at all to make any further concessions to Old Lutheranism,” Mann meekly declared in a letter of April 15, 1857, in which he referred to the cold reception and stern rebuke which his book had received by the press within the General Synod. (Spaeth, 179 f.) Thus even the most conservative men within the General Synod rendered the cause of true Lutheranism but little service in the Platform emergency. Being in the minority and without a clear insight into the nature of Lutheranism, also without an organ, except, in part, the _Evangelical Review_, they lacked the courage and seriousness to take a determined and open stand against the corrupters and a.s.sailants of Lutheranism. They favored a policy of silent, watchful waiting. H. I. Schmidt, who, in the _Evangelical Review_, had defended the Lutheran doctrine of the Lord's Supper, wrote in a letter dated February 4, 1853: ”We Lutherans had better keep perfectly quiet at the next General Synod, and say nothing at all about 'Doctrinal Basis.' ... If all open conflict is avoided, our cause will continue silently and surely to gain ground, and thus the character of the General Synod will gradually be changed and righted.”

(Spaeth, 1, 349.)

61. ”Pacific Overture.”--The storm caused by the Platform was hardly brewing, when Old and New School men united in pouring oil on the troubled waters. Instead of holding Schmucker to strict accountability, 41 prominent ministers and laymen published in the _Observer_ of February 15, 1856, a ”Pacific Overture,” in which they ”deprecate the further prosecution of this controversy, and hereby agree to unite and abide on the doctrinal basis of the General Synod, of absolute a.s.sent to the ”Word of G.o.d, as the only infallible rule of faith and practise, and fundamental agreement with the Augsburg Confession.” This doc.u.ment was signed by such men as H.L. Baugher, M. Jacobs, M.L. Stoever, S.S.

Schmucker, Krauth, Sr., E.W. Hutter, T. Stork, C.A. Hay, W.H. Lochman, M. Valentine, B. Sadtler, and J.A. Brown. The pledge of the ”Overture”

involved the obligation of abstinence from newspaper controversy. Kurtz did not sign the doc.u.ment, and Schmucker reserved for himself the right of replying to Mann's ”Plea,” which he did in _American Lutheranism Vindicated_. This book, according to the _Observer_, proves that the Augustana does teach baptismal regeneration, the bodily presence of Christ in the Eucharist, private confession and absolution, and denial of the divine inst.i.tution of the Lord's Day, and that all of these doctrines are errors conflicting with the Scriptures. (_L. u. W._ 1856, 320.) Thus Kurtz and Schmucker, who had kindled the conflagration, persisted in pouring oil into the flames, while the rest were shouting, ”Extinguish the fire!” H.I. Schmidt wrote from New York: ”I can see no use in signing that 'Overture'; the compromise which it proposes cannot preserve the peace of the Church or prevent a disruption. Schmucker has got up that 'Overture' simply because he was utterly disappointed in the effect produced by his proposed Platform; because he saw that he had raised a conflagration that was very likely to burn him up. And now, after doing all he could to disrupt the Church, after getting up a platform, the adoption of which would have expelled all of us confessional Lutherans from the Lutheran Church; after laboring with all his might to fasten the charge of serious errors upon our venerable Confession, he very coolly comes forward and asks us to sign a compromise, in which, forsooth, we are to declare the points of difference between us to be non-essential.... No, indeed. Those points are not non-essential: the Lutheran doctrine of the Sacraments is so completely interwoven with our whole view of the scheme of redemption and salvation, that concerning the Eucharist grows so directly and necessarily out of the great doctrine of Christ's Person, that for me to give up those doctrinal points alleged to be non-essential is to give up all, to give up the whole Gospel. And what good would come of patching up such a hollow peace? At the first favorable opportunity Schmucker would break it, and even if he seemed to keep quiet, he would be secretly and incessantly working and machinating against our side of the house. And, what is more, the editor of the _Observer_ refuses to sign the 'Overture'; he will keep his hands unfettered, to knock us on the head right and left, as soon and as often as he pleases.” Schmidt added: ”Not a soul here in New York is willing to touch the 'Overture.'”

(Spaeth, 1, 363.) But no determined action followed on the part of Schmidt and the conservatives in New York who agreed with him.

62. Krauth, Jr., and Schmucker.--The fact that the conservatives failed to take a decided stand against Schmucker and his Platform theology was due, apart from their general policy of silent waiting, chiefly to Charles Porterfield Krauth, who was in complete agreement with the unionistic ”Overture,” and whose influence soon became paramount in the General Synod. Krauth counseled mutual toleration. On January 1, 1856, he had written to his father: ”I have written down a few thoughts on the 'Platform,' but I do not know that I will ever prepare anything for the press on that subject. My thoughts all have an irenical direction.”

(376.) In the following year Krauth prepared a series of articles for the _Missionary_ (published by W. A. Pa.s.savant in Pittsburgh), in which he pleaded the cause of the General Synod, and defended and justified its doctrinal basis, requiring subscription only to the ”fundamentals”

of the Augustana as ”substantially correct.” Krauth insisted that, while the Augustana must remain unmutilated and unchanged, liberty should be granted to such as, _e. g._, deny the real presence in the Lord's Supper. The Lutheran and the other churches of the Reformation, he argued, agree as to the divine inst.i.tution and perpetual obligation of the Eucharist, the administration in both kinds, the necessity of a living faith for enjoying its blessings, and the rejection of transubstantiation and the ma.s.s. And securing these points of the Tenth Article of the Augsburg Confession, Krauth continued: ”Let the General Synod allow perfect freedom, as she has. .h.i.therto done, to reject or receive the rest of the article.” (Jacobs, 431.) Spaeth remarks with respect to the articles published by Krauth in defense of the General Synod: ”In looking over the articles, we do not wonder that the leader in the Platform movement was willing to have, and actually proposed and drew up, a compromise on the basis laid down there. For while the articles kept the Confession intact in form, they abandoned it in fact.

They absolutely coordinated truth and error on the disputed points and said: 'Tolerate us in holding the truth[?], and we will tolerate you in holding the error.'” ”There was evidently,” Dr. Spaeth continues, ”in those days a singular approach between the leader of American Lutheranism and Charles Porterfield Krauth, which even inspired the New School men with a hope of ultimately 'seeing Charles right,' for whom they personally had nothing but the kindest feelings. 'I think,' wrote his father after the Reading Convention of the General Synod, 'you have become pretty much of a favorite with Dr. S. S. Schmucker. He does not think you so hard a Lutheran, and your zeal for the General Synod was quite to his taste. I hope you will continue, as you have heretofore done, to treat him with respect.'” (1, 409.) What Dr. Krauth objected to was not so much the theology of the Platform as, on the one hand, the intolerance which it demanded, and, on the other hand, the mutilation of the venerable Augustana, the Magna Charta of Lutheranism. Also in the controversy between J. A. Brown and Schmucker, in which the latter's teaching on natural depravity, regeneration, and justification was declared unsound, Krauth, Jr., defended his former teacher with the result that the impeachment proceedings, contemplated at Gettysburg against Schmucker, were arrested. (411.) Thus, as far as the leading theologians were concerned, the commotion caused by the Platform ended in an agreement to disagree.

POSITION OF DISTRICT SYNODS.

63. For and Against the Platform.--Dr. E. J. Wolf, 1889: ”The Platform was indignantly and universally rejected by the Eastern synods.” (365.) Dr. Jacobs, 1893: ”It was endorsed by one of the smaller synods in Ohio, but everywhere else it aroused intense indignation, as a misrepresentation and detraction of the Lutheran Church.” (426.) Dr.

Neve, 1915: ”Only three smaller District Synods in Ohio adopted the Platform temporarily, the East Ohio, the Olive Branch, and the Wittenberg Synods. At all other places it was most decidedly rejected, not only by men of the synods under whose leaders.h.i.+p, soon after, the General Council was organized, but just as decidedly by such as remained in the General Synod.”--Among the facts in the case are the following.

The Wittenberg Synod (organized 1847 in Ohio and led by Ezra Keller and S. Sprecher, professors of Wittenberg College), claiming to be ”wholly loyal to the doctrines and interests of the General Synod,” adopted the Platform in September, 1855, stating that the General Synod in the past had given the Augustana only a limited recognition without specifying the doctrines which were to be omitted, and that now the Platform, in the interest of truth, had pointed out the five errors of the Augustana which the great majority of the General Synod had long ago viewed as unscriptural and Roman. Synod resolved not to receive any pastor who would not accept the Platform as his own confession. (_L. u. W._ 1855, 319. 336.) In September, 1855, the Olive Branch Synod of Indiana adopted the Platform unanimously, and, in October of the same year, the East Ohio Synod, with but one dissenting vote. (350. 381.) In June, 1856, the Miami Synod declared its allegiance to the Augustana, with the limitation that they reject as errors contained in this Confession the approval of certain ceremonies of the ma.s.s, private confession and absolution, the denial of the divine obligation of the Sabbath, the doctrines of baptismal regeneration and of the real presence in the Eucharist. (1856, 349.) In September, 1856, the Wittenberg Synod recommended the Platform for adoption to its congregations, and at the same time expressed satisfaction and joy that the Platform had been adopted by the English Synod of Ohio, the Olive Branch Synod of Indiana, the Northern Synod of the same State, and by the Kentucky Synod; that the Miami Synod had accepted the Augsburg Confession in the sense of the Platform; and that the Pittsburgh Synod, through influence of the Platform, was now immune against ”symbolism.” (1856, 380.) The Synod of Southern Illinois (organized 1856, and in 1897 united with the Synod of Central Illinois under the name of Synod of Central and Southern Illinois), in October, 1857, unanimously approved of the Platform as a measure against the insidious tendencies of symbolism. (1857,352.) It was a sore disappointment to the Platform men when the Synod of East Pennsylvania, in 1855, at the motion of J. A. Brown (who was in essential agreement with Schmucker, doctrinally), unanimously condemned, and ”most solemnly warned” against, the Platform as a ”most dangerous attempt to change the doctrinal basis and revolutionize the existing character of the Lutheran churches now united in the General Synod.”

(1855, 337.) The Synod of West Pennsylvania, urged by the Synod of East Pennsylvania to endorse its resolutions, refused to enter the controversy or pa.s.s on the Platform, declaring that they were satisfied with their present const.i.tution and unwilling to add new test-questions.

(1855, 320.) It came as a relief to Kurtz and the Platform men when the Synod of Central Pennsylvania, in May, 1856, unanimously and solemnly, by a rising vote, adopted the Platform. (1856, 223.) In October, 1856, the Synod of Maryland declared that every member was at liberty to accept or reject the alleged errors of the Augsburg Confession, enumerated by the Platform, provided that thereby the divine inst.i.tution of the Sabbath was not rejected, nor the doctrinal basis of the General Synod subverted. (1856, 382.) In October, 1856, the Allegheny Synod declared its adherence to the doctrinal basis of the General Synod, but, at the same time, rejected the doctrines enumerated by the Platform as errors contained in the Augsburg Confession. (1856, 27; 1857, 156.) A similar compromise was adopted by the Pittsburgh Synod. The knock-out blow to the Platform came from the older, larger, and conservative synods. In May, 1856, the Ministerium of Pennsylvania, then numbering 98 pastors, condemned the Platform and reaffirmed its own basis of faith. (1856, 224; 1857, 252.) The New York Ministerium instructed its delegates for the convention of the General Synod in 1857 to vote against the Platform. Whence the wind was blowing was apparent also from the fact that representative men of both the New York and Pennsylvania synods partic.i.p.ated in the Free Evangelical Lutheran Conferences (1856-1859), advocated and led by Walther (1856, 348).

64. Pittsburgh and Hartwick Synods.--In the _Observer_, February 15, 1856, Kurtz suggested with respect to the Platform controversy that a District Synod adopt a resolution to the effect that the Augustana did not contain the errors charged with by the Platform, and that respecting these doctrines every member of Synod was at liberty to follow his own judgment. In accordance with this advice the Pittsburgh Synod, in the same year, compromised the differences of the Old and New School men in a number of resolutions framed by Charles Porterfield Krauth, who then was still spending his efforts in trying to mediate between the adherents and opponents of the Definite Platform. Among these resolutions are the following: ”II. Resolved, That while the basis of our General Synod has allowed of diversity in regard to some parts of the Augsburg Confession, that basis never was designed to imply the right to alter, amend, or curtail the Confession itself.” ”III.

Resolved, That while this Synod, resting on the Word of G.o.d as the sole authority in matters of faith, on its infallible warrant rejects the Romish doctrine of the real presence of transubstantiation, and with it the doctrine of consubstantiation; rejects the Ma.s.s, and all ceremonies distinctive of the Ma.s.s; denies any power in the Sacraments as an _opus operatum_, or that the blessings of Baptism and the Lord's Supper can be received without faith; rejects auricular confession and priestly absolution; holds that there is no priesthood on earth except that of all believers, and that G.o.d only can forgive sins; and maintains the sacred obligation of the Lord's Day; and while we would with our whole heart reject any part of any confession which taught doctrines in conflict with this our testimony, nevertheless, before G.o.d and His Church, we declare that in our judgment the Augsburg Confession, properly interpreted, is in perfect consistence with this our testimony and with Holy Scripture as regards the errors specified.” ”IV. Resolved, That while we do not wish to conceal the fact that some parts of the doctrine of our Confession in regard to the Sacraments are received in different degrees by different brethren, yet that even in these points, wherein we as brethren in Christ agree to differ, till the Holy Ghost shall make us see eye to eye, the differences are not such as to destroy the foundation of faith, our unity in labor, our mutual confidence, and our tender love.” ”VI. Resolved, That if we have indulged harsh thoughts and groundless suspicions, if we have without reason criminated and recriminated, we here humbly confess our fault before our adorable Redeemer, beseeching pardon of Him and of each other,” etc. ”VII.

Resolved, That we will resist all efforts to sow dissensions among us on the ground of minor differences, all efforts, on the one hand, to restrict the liberty which Christ has given us, or, on the other, to impair the purity of the 'faith once delivered to the saints,' and that with new ardor we will devote ourselves to the work of the Gospel,” etc.

(Spaeth, 1, 378.) A stand similar to the one of the Pittsburgh Synod was taken in the same year, 1856, by the Hartwick Synod, in declaring, on the one hand, that they adopt the fundamental doctrines of the Augsburg Confession, other articles of this Confession, however, only when rightly understood and interpreted, and in rejecting, on the other hand, the doctrines enumerated in the third of the Pittsburgh resolutions.

(_L. u. W._ 1856, 349.) On the part of the Franckean Synod this caused a declaration to the effect that they would not have withdrawn (1837) if Hartwick had taken this stand earlier. Hartwick answered, 1857, that they had not adopted a new platform, but merely the General Synod's ”interpretation of the Augustana.” (_L. u. W._ 1857, 352; 1864, 314; 1866, 119.)

65. The Pittsburgh Compromise.--The Pittsburgh resolutions, notably the third (adopted also in 1864 at York by the General Synod, and since known as the York Resolution), breathe a unionistic and, in part, a Reformed spirit. Conspicuous among their un-Lutheran features are the following. With respect to the Lutheran doctrines rejected by Schmucker and his compeers, the Pittsburgh compromise declares in general: ”We as brethren in Christ agree to differ.” The theological att.i.tude of the notorious union letter of 1845 was thus practically reaffirmed and the doctrines distinctive of Lutheranism declared irrelevant. Every Lutheran synod, according to the Pittsburgh agreement, was, indeed, to recognize the Augustana unmutilated, but, on the other hand, grant complete liberty to deviate from its doctrines in the manner of the supporters of the Platform. In addition to this unionistic feature the Pittsburgh compromise, at least in three important points, makes concessions to the Reformed tenets of the Platform theology. It does not only fail to confess the Lutheran doctrines of the Lord's Supper, absolution, and the Sunday, at a time when these doctrines were universally denied and a.s.sailed also within the General Synod, and when, accordingly, a failure to confess them was tantamount to an open denial, but itself rejects them. Concerning the Sunday, Article 28 of the Augsburg Confession declares: ”For those who judge that by the authority of the Church the observance of the Lord's Day instead of the Sabbath-day was ordained as a thing necessary, do greatly err. Scripture has abrogated the Sabbath-day.” Over against this plain teaching the General Synod always held that ”the observance of the Sunday is binding on all by divine requirement.” (_Lutheran Observer_, Oct. 1, 1915.) Siding with this un-Lutheran position, the third of the Pittsburgh resolutions declares: ”We adhere to the divine authority of the Sabbath as the Lord's Day.”

Again, absolution by Christians, and especially the minister of a Christian congregation, was one of the doctrines abhorred by the Platform men. As late as 1864 even C.P. Krauth regarded the Eleventh Article of the Augustana as excluded from the confessional subscription of the General Synod. The Pittsburgh compromise rejects ”priestly absolution” and maintains ”that G.o.d only can forgive sins” on earth, thus openly disavowing a specific Lutheran doctrine and coinciding with Schmucker and Kurtz, Zwingli, and Calvin. Furthermore, the Lutheran Church most emphatically teaches ”the real presence” of the body and blood of Christ in the Lord's Supper. And in the days of Schmucker, and later, this doctrine, openly a.s.sailed and denied by the leaders of the General Synod, was generally, though erroneously, identified with, and termed, ”consubstantiation,” without as well as within the General Synod. The _Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge_, of 1854, edited by J.

Newton Brown, describes ”consubstantiation” as ”a tenet of the Lutheran Church respecting the presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper. Luther denied that the elements were changed after consecration, and therefore taught that the bread and wine indeed remain, but that, together with them, there is present the substance of the body and blood of Christ, which is literally received by communicants.” As late as 1899 Philip Schaff wrote in his _Creeds of Christendom_: ”The Lutheran Church, as represented in Luther's writings and in the Form of Concord, rejects transubstantiation, and also the doctrine of impanation, _i. e._, a local inclusion of Christ's body and blood in the elements (_localis inclusio in pane_), or a permanent and extrasacramental conjunction of the two substances (_durabilis aliqua conjunctio extra usum sacramenti_); _but it teaches consubstantiation_ in the sense of a sacramental conjunction of the two substances effected by the consecration, or a real presence of Christ's very body and blood in, with, and under (_in, c.u.m, et sub_) bread and wine. The word consubstantiation, however, is not found in the Lutheran symbols, and is rejected by Lutheran theologians if used in the sense of impanation.” (1, 232.) Down to the present day the Lutheran doctrine of the real presence has been universally designated by its opponents as ”consubstantiation.” (_L. u.

W._ 1856, 33. 115. 255.) Respecting this use of the term outside of the Lutheran Church, compare also Worcester's Dictionary; _Cyclopedia_, Harper and Brothers, 1894; Century Dictionary, 1906; Heyse, _Fremdwoerterbuch_; etc. And as to the use made of the term within the General Synod, S. S. Schmucker, B. Kurtz, B. Sprecher, and the rest of the Platform theologians always designated the Lutheran doctrine of the real presence as consubstantiation. As late as 1880 Dr. Helwig wrote in the _Lutheran Evangelist_: ”The Missouri Lutherans adhere as closely as possible to the doctrines of Martin Luther, even his consubstantiation theory with respect to the Holy Eucharist according to the words: in, with, and under the bread.” (_L. u. W._ 1880, 246.) Viewed, then, in its historical context, the third of the Pittsburgh resolutions, instead of plainly stating and boldly confessing the Lutheran doctrine of the real presence, disavows it, at least indirectly, declaring: This Synod ”rejects the Romish doctrine of the real presence or transubstantiation, and with it the doctrine of consubstantiation.” To cap the climax, the compromise proceeds: ”Before G.o.d and His Church we declare that in our judgment the Augsburg Confession, properly interpreted, is in perfect consistence with this our testimony and with Holy Scripture as regards the errors specified.” How Charles Porterfield Krauth was able thinkingly to write as he did is a problem which still awaits a satisfactory explanation. Thus, then, though formally acknowledging the Augustana and denying the right ”to alter, amend, or curtail the Confession itself,” the Pittsburgh compromise cannot but be viewed as a distinctly unionistic and anti-Lutheran doc.u.ment. It was a surrender, if not to the Platform as such, at least to its theology.

GENERAL SYNOD'S ATt.i.tUDE.

66. Ignoring Platform, But Endorsing Its Theology.--No formal action was taken by the conventions of the General Synod with respect either to the Definite Platform itself or its authors, abettors, and endorsers. Apart from the doctrinal indifference prevailing within the General Synod also among the conservatives, this was chiefly due to the articles published by Krauth, Jr., in defense of the General Synod in the _Missionary_.

”Silently,” says Dr. Spaeth, ”yet no less surely, the brethren gave the most unmistakable evidence that the views therein expressed met their concurrence.” (1, 409.) However, Krauth himself, in advocating mutual toleration, merely acted on the old principles of the General Synod. His policy was in keeping with its unionistic traditions of ”agreeing to disagree and not to settle disputed points, but to omit them and declare them free--_quieta non movere et mota quiescere!_” Well satisfied with the course of the General Synod at its conventions in 1857 and 1859, the _Observer_ wrote: ”The convention at Pittsburgh has strengthened the bond of our union and shown that no question of doctrine or discipline can disrupt us. We are one and inseparable. Our union is based on mutual concession. We have learned a lesson which our fathers could not learn: to give and to take.” (_L. u. W._ 1859, 285.

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