# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_October 1855_S319
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

American Lutheran Church. 319

...Scripture; and since among our ministers and churches there prevailed a general desire to possess this foundation of doctrine in a more definite form and elaboration, while the General Synod left this determination to the discretion of each district synod,

"We therefore hold ourselves obligated, both for the sake of the cause of truth and for our own sake and that of our children, to state more precisely which doctrinal articles of the Augsburg Confession and of the former symbolical system are rejected — some by all, others by the great majority of the ministers and churches of the General Synod in this country."

"We therefore state that the American Recension of the Augsburg Confession was drawn up through the deliberation and joint labor of a number of evangelical Lutheran ministers, of eastern and western synods connected with the General Synod, at the particular request of western brethren, whose churches need it above all, since they exist in the very midst of German churches which confess the whole body of the earlier Symbols. In this recension not a single article has been added to the Augsburg Confession, while those several doctrinal positions have been omitted which have long since been held by the great majority of our churches to be contrary to Scripture and to be remnants of Roman doctrine."

"The only errors which the Confession contains, and which this recension of it omits, are:

1. The approval of the ceremonies of the Mass.

2. Private confession and absolution.

3. The denial that the divine command of Sabbath observance is binding upon us.

4. Regeneration through holy Baptism.

5. The true (real) presence of the body and blood of Christ in the holy Supper."

"With these few exceptions we hold fast to the Augsburg Confession, together with all the great doctrines of the Reformation."

"The other errors rejected in the second part of this Doctrinal Basis, such as, for example, exorcism, etc., are not found in the Augsburg Confession, but in the other earlier Symbols, and are listed here among the grounds for our rejection of all the other books besides the Augsburg Confession."

"With all this, while we admit no one into our Synod who believes in exorcism, private confession and absolution, and the ceremonies of the Mass, we allow freedom with regard to the other omitted articles of doctrine, and are willing to work together in peace and unity with those who reject these same things and who subscribe to this Doctrinal Basis.

1. We therefore resolve that this Synod hereby declares its faith in the following Doctrinal Basis, namely the so-called Apostles' Creed, the Nicene Creed, and the American