# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_December 1860_S356
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

356 The General Synod.

for outward harmony and friendship, and for a fellowship embracing as many
heads as possible. If that is acting apostolically, then Dr. Schmucker is indeed
right when he calls the General Synod an apostolic organization. But we know
who among the apostles sold the Lord for thirty pieces of silver.

So stands the General Synod, in its dominant tendency, with regard to
Scripture. How does she now stand with regard to the confession of the
Lutheran Church, since she calls herself not merely Lutheran, but also claims
to have the true Lutheran spirit within her? According to her constitution she
holds as Lutheran those who confess the fundamental doctrines of the Bible as
they are taught by our Church, and in the statutes for the theological seminary
at Gettysburg the Augsburg Confession was set up, in a qualified manner, as the
norm of doctrine, just as ordination and licensing in the district synods
proceeded on the same qualified basis.* Looked at more closely, this amounts in
reality to saying that in the General Synod no Lutheran confessional writing —
not even the Augsburg Confession — has symbolic authority. For an acceptance of
a confession which is conditioned and restricted by a reservation, one moreover
of indeterminate extent, is simply no acceptance at all. If I say, for example:
"The Augsburg Confession is the confession of my faith," then everyone knows
where he stands with me. For that means nothing other than that I regard every
doctrine contained in the Augsburg Confession as the expression and
representation of my conviction of faith drawn from God's Word; whatever stands
in the Augsburg Confession, that I also believe. But if I say: "The Augsburg
Confession is the confession of my faith, insofar as it agrees with Holy
Scripture," then by that restriction I completely cancel my statement again. My
confession of the Augsburg Confession I have at once taken back again. For as
long as I do not state precisely how far, in my opinion, the Augsburg Confession
agrees with Scripture and how far it does not — that is, what I accept of the
Augsburg Confession and what I reject of it — no one knows where he stands with
me. A qualified confession of the Augsburg Confession is therefore a mere show.
But if it turns out that the General Synod either expressly rejects, or at
least by tolerating the opposing false doctrines and by failing to bear witness
against them makes plain, that she does not hold to be alone in accord with
Scripture the chief articles of the Augsburg Confession by which the Lutheran
doctrine is distinguished from that of other Christian churches — articles which
thus belong to its essential parts, such as the doctrine of baptism, of the
Lord's Supper, of absolution, of the Sabbath — then one cannot in fact avoid
concluding that the qualified confession

* I follow here Dr. Schmucker, who, as one of the founders of the General
Synod, as its professor of theology, and as its actual leader, is best qualified
to give an authentic account.