# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_November 1855_S347
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Synodical Declaration. — Confession of G. H. v. Schubert. 347

(From Der Lutheraner.)
Synodical Declaration.

October 15, 1855.

The undersigned, as Secretary of the Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Virginia, forwards the enclosed preamble and resolutions, which were adopted at the 26th convention of the said synod, held in Zion's Church, Augusta Co., Va., from October 4 to 9, 1855, with respect to the "Definite Synodical Platform," for insertion in "Der Lutheraner:"

"Whereas a certain anonymous document under the name 'Definite Synodical Platform' has appeared in the congregations and been distributed among our preachers, and whereas we do not know whether this was done by a friend or an enemy, and whereas the matter is unauthorized and calculated to produce divisions and strife, and moreover appears as an irresponsible encroachment upon the doctrinal foundation of our church and as a presumptuous and shameless dictation;"

Be it therefore resolved, first, "that we as a synod set our seal of condemnation upon this attempt, as upon all others of a like kind, and warn our sister synods against accepting this strange document; resolved, second, that we deeply lament the proceeding of our brethren of the Wittenberg Synod, who have accepted this strange document, and earnestly entreat them to reconsider the said proceeding; further resolved, that this preamble and these resolutions be sent by the Secretary to the various church papers for publication." A. S. Rude, Secr.

Confession of G. H. v. Schubert.

Last year there appeared in Erlangen a small work by the man named in the heading, well known and highly esteemed among Christians of the German tongue in our time, bearing the title: "The Sins of Sorcery, Considered in Their Old and New Form." The author opens this little work with the following confession: "The writer of these pages has, in several of his earlier writings, allowed himself to be led astray by a morbid inclination dwelling within himself, so as to regard many of those phenomena, as rare as they are strange, out of a nocturnal dream-realm of human nature, as sound and spiritually estimable, which are yet, by their very nature, morbid and lacking the higher consecration of the spirit. He gave superstitious heed to the bird-cry of fantastic visions, to the oracular sayings of our modern Pythias and Cassandras, and did not recognize the dangers that meet our inquiries at every step in the night-realm of magical states and phenomena: dangers of a deception that is of more than human kind." Further