Volume II Part 7 (1/2)

ATt.i.tUDE 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 a.s.sociation 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 G.o.d's holy Word as contained in the Old and New Testaments; which do not recognize our Lord Jesus Christ as the true G.o.d and the only Mediator between G.o.d and man; which teach doctrines or have usages or forms of wors.h.i.+p condemned in G.o.d's Word and in the Confessions of His Church; which a.s.sume to themselves what G.o.d has given to His Church and its ministers; which require undefined obligations to be a.s.sumed by oath, are unchristian, and we solemnly warn our members and ministers against all fellows.h.i.+p with, or connivance at, a.s.sociations which have this character. 3. All connection with infidel and immoral a.s.sociations we consider as requiring the exercise of prompt and decisive discipline, and after faithful and patient monition and teaching from G.o.d'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 pa.s.sed 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 att.i.tude 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 ap.r.o.n and other paraphernalia of his order, he, in eloquent fas.h.i.+on, 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 members.h.i.+p 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 const.i.tution, 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 pet.i.tion signed by thirteen members was presented to amend the const.i.tution _by striking out_ section 51 in Art. 10, according to which ”any minister belonging to the Ministerium who shall, after due admonition, persist in fellows.h.i.+p 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-members.h.i.+p, 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-members.h.i.+p).

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 fellows.h.i.+p with, or connivance at, secret societies (_Doc. Hist._, 208); but from the att.i.tude 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 doc.u.ment 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 Att.i.tude.--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, fellows.h.i.+p 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 G.o.d'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 Pet.i.tion of the Lord's Prayer and, among others, also the following pa.s.sages 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 const.i.tuting the General Council. The Reading _Kirchenblatt_, December 19, 1903, wrote: ”On the second Sunday in Advent the Philadelphia Sabbath-a.s.sociation 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 inst.i.tutions 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 'pet.i.tioning, demanding, and insisting upon special legislation for abolis.h.i.+ng the saloon,' and doing a thousand other things which is the business, not of the Church, but of the State.... Individual synods have pa.s.sed 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 a.s.sumption 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 doc.u.ments. What is properly confessional in these doc.u.ments 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 pa.s.sages from their connection, or to represent isolated pa.s.sages 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 G.o.d.” (_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 ill.u.s.trate 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 ant.i.thesis 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 G.o.d, 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.