Chapter 21

109. Krauth's Manly Recantation.--During the first half of his ecclesiastical activity C.P. Krauth was a pronounced unionistic theologian. He fully endorsed the indifferentistic principles of the General Synod, whose champion he was till 1864. During the Platform controversy Krauth was zealous to settle the difficulties on the accustomed unionistic lines of the General Synod. He framed the compromise resolutions of the Pittsburgh Synod in 1856 on the Definite Platform. In the following year he wrote a series of articles for the _Missionary_ in defense of the General Synod and its doctrinal basis. In 1858 he defended S.S. Schmucker against the charges of unsound doctrine, preferred by J.A. Brown. In 1859 he offered the motion for the admission of the liberal Melanchthon Synod. As late as 1864 he continued to defend the distinction between fundamental and non-fundamental articles in the Augsburg Confession, and declared that the pledge referred to the fundamental articles only, specifically excluding Article XI of the Augsburg Confession from this pledge. In the _Lutheran and Missionary_, April 7, 1864, Krauth declared: "Let the old formula stand, and let it be defined." As late as 1868, three years after his public retraction of former errors, and later, Krauth held that, exceptionally, non-Lutherans might be admitted to Lutheran pulpits and altars. Dr. Singmaster writes: "That the Definite Platform caused the secession of the Ministerium [of Pennsylvania] some years later seems quite improbable, for the chief promoter of the General Council, the Rev. C.P. Krauth, Jr., was at this time an ardent defender of the General Synod. He made apologies for his old teacher [S.S. Schmucker], and probably prevented his impeachment by the Seminary Board when it was urged by the Rev. J.A. Brown." (_Dist. Doctr_., 1914, 53.) In the _Lutheran and Missionary_, July 13, 1865, Krauth published that remarkable declaration in which he, defining his position as to fundamentals, retracted, as he put it, his former "crudities and inconsistencies" on this point. Among his statements are the following: "We do not feel ashamed to confess that time and experience have modified our earlier views, or led us to abandon them, if we have so modified or so forsaken them." "In Church and State the last years have wrought changes, deep and thorough, in every thinking man, and on no point more than this, that compromise of principle, however specious, is immoral, and that, however guarded it may be, it is perilous; and that there is no guarantee of peace in words where men do not agree in things." "To true unity of the Church is necessary an agreement in fundamentals, and a vital part of the necessity is an agreement as to what are fundamentals. The doctrinal articles of the Augsburg Confession are all articles of faith, and all articles of faith are fundamental. Our Church can never have a genuine internal harmony, except in the confession, without reservation or ambiguity of these articles, one and all. This is our deep conviction, and we hereby retract, before God and His Church, formally, as we have already earnestly and repeatedly done indirectly, everything we have written or said in conflict with this our present conviction. This we are not ashamed to do. We thank God, who has led us to see the truth, and we thank Him for freeing us from the temptation of embarrassing ourselves with the pretense of a present absolute consistency with our earlier, very sincere, yet relatively very immature views." (Spaeth, 2, 114 f.) Walther, who had rounded out almost a quarter century of faithful Lutheran work when Krauth was still a champion of the original basis of the General Synod, gloried in this frank and manly retraction of Krauth as "an imperishable monument of the sincerity of his convictions."

110. Endorsing Walther's Views on Christian Union.--In opposition to the unionistic tendencies of the Lutheran synods in the United States, especially those affiliated with the General Synod, Walther had maintained that church union dare not be advocated and effected at the expense of any doctrine clearly revealed in the Scripture. It was in complete agreement with this view that Krauth, in his address before the Pittsburgh Synod, October 1866, declared: "With her eternal principles, what shall be the future of our beloved Zion in this land? Shall it be conflict, division, weakness, or shall it be peace, unity, zeal, unfolding all her energies? It is unity. Every difficulty in her way, every barrier to her progress, proceeds from the lack of unity. But what is the unity of the Church? That question was answered three centuries ago by the Reformers, and fifteen centuries before that in the New Testament. True unity is oneness in faith, as taught in the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. We are one with the Church of the apostles because we hold its faith; one with the Church of the Reformers, alone because we hold its faith. Outward human forms are nothing; ecclesiastical government, so far as it is of man, is nothing; all things are nothing, if there be not this oneness of faith. With it begins, in its life continues, in its death ends, all true unity. There can be, there is, no true unity but in the faith.... The one token of this unity, that by which this internal thing is made visible, is one expression of faith, one 'form of sound words,' used in simple earnestness, and meaning the same to all who employ it.... You may agree to differ; but when men become earnest, difference in faith will lead first to fervent pleadings for the truth, and, if these be hopelessly unheeded, will lead to separation. All kinds of beliefs and unbeliefs may exist under the plea of toleration; but when the greatest love is thus professed, there is the least. Love resulting from faith is God's best gift. Love that grows out of opposition or indifference to faith, God abhors. There can be no true love where there is not also true hatred,--no love to truth without abhorrence of error.... In Christ we can alone find unity. Only when we meet in this center of all true unity will we have peace. And we can be in Christ only in a faith which accepts His every word in His own divine meaning, and shrinks with honor from the thought that, in the prostituted name of peace and love, we shall put upon one level the pure and heavenly sense of His Word and the artful corruption of that sense by the tradition of Rome or the vanity of carnal reason." (Spaeth, 2, 162 f.) With respect to the Missouri Synod Krauth wrote, April 7, 1876: "I have been saddened beyond expression by the bitterness displayed towards the Missourians. So far as they have helped us to see the great principles involved in this disputation [concerning the Four Points], they have been our benefactors, and although I know they have misunderstood some of us, that was perhaps inevitable. They are men of God, and their work has been of inestimable value." (2, 236.)

111. Krauth on Predestination.--In a letter dated February 13, 1880, Dr. Krauth said: "I have not read Dr. Walther's exposition of the doctrine of election, but I purpose, as soon as I can command leisure, to write something whose object shall be to show that the New Testament doctrine, confessed by our Church, in regard to election, as fully as the most extreme Calvinism, gives all the glory to God and ascribes to Him the total merit of our salvation, both as secured and applied, and yet clearly and properly makes man responsible for his own destruction.... Luther is constantly claimed by the Calvinists, and I have known intelligent Calvinists who are entirely satisfied with the Formula of Concord on the 'Five Points.' Yet, the claim and the satisfaction are both groundless. The truth in the Formula so strictly follows the line of Scripture thinking that it is hard to get a spear's point under the scales of its armor. My own conviction about Luther is, that he was never a Calvinist on the 'Five Points,' but Augustinian, with some aspects of coincidence and _many_ of divergence, even where he was nearest Calvinism." In an article found among his papers after his death, Krauth says: "Why do men in completely parallel relations to this election move in opposite directions? The one believes, the other disbelieves. Is the election of God in any sense the cause of the difference? The answer of the Calvinist is: Yes. The answer of the Lutheran is: No. The election of God is indeed the cause of the faith of the one, but it is neither positively nor negatively, neither by act nor by failure to act, the cause of the unbelief of the other. Hence it is not the cause of the difference. I choose (or elect) to offer bread to two beggars. The election of bread for his food and the election to offer it to him are the proper cause of the reception of the bread on the part of the one, but they are not the cause of the rejection on the part of the other. The first concurs in my election, but his concurrence is the effect, not the cause, of my election. The second refuses, but his refusal is not the effect of my election, but an effect in spite of it. As between me and the men the decision must be, that the acceptance of one is no more than the refusal of the other, the cause of my election. But between the one and the other the difference is made by the willingness to receive, wrought by me through the offer, and the unwillingness to receive, wrought by the man himself in spite of the offer. Faith is not the cause of our general election. That must be admitted by all. But neither can it be the cause of our particular election, for the particular is only possible, and indeed only thinkable, as the result of the general. But it is the cause of the difference between the man who receives the benefits of this election, and the man who refuses them. This faith is foreseen indeed, but it does not become by that the cause of the election--it is foreseen as an effect of the election and therefore cannot be considered as the cause; it is a finality in the work of God in the restoration of fellowship. It is, as a condition, part of the election, and cannot therefore be the cause of the whole." (2, 327 ff.) Evidently, then, Krauth was not ready to solve the mystery of election by assuming that, in the last analysis, a difference in their respective guilt is the final cause why some are saved while others are lost.

OTHER REPRESENTATIVE THEOLOGIANS.

112. Dr. Wm. Julius Mann (1819--1892) was born at Stuttgart, Wuerttemberg; graduated at Tuebingen, 1841; active as teacher till 1844; came to America in 1845, influenced by his intimate friend Ph. Schaff at Mercersburg, who had left Germany in 1844; 1846 assistant pastor of a German Reformed congregation in Philadelphia; 1850 assistant to Dr. Demme, pastor of Zion Ev. Luth. Congregation, Philadelphia, to which H.M. Muhlenberg had been called in 1742; in 1851 he was received into the Ministerium of Pennsylvania; served as president of this body from 1860 to 1862 and 1880; from 1864 to 1892 he was professor in Philadelphia Seminary. From 1848 to 1859 Dr. Mann cooperated in editing the _Deutsche Kirchenzeitung_, established by Schaff as "an organ for the common interests of the American German [Reformed and Lutheran] churches." The _Kirchenzeitung_, of which Mann in 1854 became editor-in-chief, was a paper for theologians, not for laymen. It bore the motto: "In necessariis unitas, in dubiis libertas, in omnibus caritas." Its object was "to prepare the way for the Lord, and add a few stones to the dome of the Church of the future." It served the Lutheran and Reformed churches by antagonizing revivalism. From 1863 to 1866 Dr. Mann was editorially responsible for _Evangelische Zeugnisse_, a German homiletic monthly, also established by his friend Ph. Schaff. In 1856 Mann opposed the Definite Platform in his _Plea for the Augsburg Confession_, and 1857 in his _Lutheranism in America_. In 1864 he translated the _New Testament Commentary_ of the American Tract Society into German for this society. In 1886 he edited _Hallesche Nachrichten_ (Vol. I); 1887 he published the _Life and Times of H.M. Muhlenberg_; 1891 the same in German. Apart from quite a number of other books, Dr. Mann wrote articles for various German and English periodicals. "I always prepare myself closely," said Mann in a letter of February 14, 1866, "for the recitations in the seminary, write every week for the _Lutheran_, more for the _Lutherische Zeitschrift_ of Brobst, continue the translation of the Tract Society's Commentary on the New Testament, keep up some correspondence, and at the same time perform my various and burdensome duties as a pastor and, find yet a little, a very little, time for light reading." Mann, for many years a bosom friend of the arch-unionist Ph. Schaff, whom he admired as "the presiding genius of international theology," gradually became a conservative confessional Lutheran theologian, opposed also to the unionism as practised by the General Synod. On April 7, 1892, Schaff wrote to his friend: "What right had the sixteenth and seventeenth century to prescribe to future generations all theological thinking? We are as near to Christ and to the Bible as the framers of the confessions of faith." Dr. Mann answered: "In the air in which this letter breathes I cannot live.... What right had the framers of the American Constitution to lay down a basis for the administrative side of the life of this nation?" As to the General Synod, Dr. Mann's love for it gradually turned into aversion, because of its utterly un-Lutheran features. He charged the General Synod with living "in a concubinage with the Presbyterians and Methodists." In 1853 he wrote: "I have rejoiced over the union of our Pennsylvania Synod with the General Synod, and now I rejoice still more." (173.) Mann still failed to see that no one can truly love the Lutheran Church who despises, ignores, and denies her doctrines and usages. In 1855 he said of Missouri: "They have no patience with their weaker sister," meaning the General Synod. (176.) But in the immediately following years Mann himself began to attack the Definite Platform and its American Lutheranism. With respect to the doctrines controverted within the Lutheran Church of America, however, Dr. Mann never occupied a clear, firm, and determined Lutheran position. He revealed no interest in the discussions on the Four Points. Of the Missouri Synod Dr. Mann wrote in 1866: "These theological scratchbrushes (_Kratzbuersten_) of the West do an important work. They discipline thousands of Germans ecclesiastically, as otherwise only Catholic priests are able to do. Most of them lead a rough, self-denying life. They defy effeminate, sentimental, hazy ecclesiastical Americanism. There is a firm character here. They will not always remain as rugged as they are now. The coming generation will be English and milder in many respects. The Missourians are a power in the West, where the Germans generally are becoming a power, the longer the more. They will obtain an ever stronger elementary influence. The German [?] blood will make its influence felt for a long time." (Spaeth, _W.J. Mann_.)

113. Passavant, Schmucker, Seiss, etc.--Other names well known beyond the General Council are Drs. Passavant, B.M. Schmucker, Krotel, Seiss, Spaeth, Weidner, etc. _Dr. W.A. Passavant_ (1821--1894) was born of Huguenot ancestry at Zelienople, Pa.; graduated in Gettysburg Seminary; was pastor in Baltimore till 1844 and in Pittsburgh till 1855; published the _Missionary_ in 1845, which in 1861 was merged with _The Lutheran_, Passavant remaining coeditor. He established _The Workman_ in 1880, which he edited in a conservative, confessional spirit, while in the _Missionary_ he had been a fiery advocate of New-measurism. Cooperating with Pastor Fliedner of Kaiserswerth, Passavant introduced the first deaconesses in America; founded hospitals, orphanages, and academies; presented, in 1868, the ground for the Theological Seminary at Chicago; organized the home missionary work of the Pittsburgh Synod (whose founder he was) and of the General Council. Passavant was preeminently a missionary and philanthropist--the "American Fliedner." Dr. G.W. Sandt, in _Lutheran Church Review_ 1918: "Passavant was educated in a Presbyterian college, where revivals were a fixed part of the curriculum. He prepared for the ministry in a Lutheran seminary at a time when Lutherans were more 'anxious' about the 'bench' than they were about the faith. It is not to be wondered at that his early ministry reflected the fitful and unstable emotionalism of the 'Anxious Bench' religionism, which he later outgrew and disowned." (442.)--_Dr. Beale Melanchthon Schmucker_ (1827--1888), though a son of S.S. Schmucker, did not agree with the Definite Platform. He was secretary of the English Church Book Committee, a member of the German Kirchenbuch and Sonntagsschulbuch Committee, and of the Joint Committee on Common Service. He was regarded as the greatest liturgical scholar of the Lutheran Church in America and admired as a parliamentarian. He was a passionate lover of the Reformation and its literature. The _Church Book_ of the General Council has been said to be "his lasting monument." Through it he laid the foundation also for the Common Service. "Next to Dr. C.P. Krauth," said the _Kirchenblatt_ of the Iowa Synod (1918), "there is no man to whom the General Council owes so much as to Dr. B.M. Schmucker." B.M. Schmucker published articles on liturgical, hymnological, biographical, and other themes, and wrote the preface to the Common Service, first published by the United Synod of the South, 1888.--_Dr. G.F. Krotel_ (1826--1907) studied theology under Dr. Demme; was renowned as pulpit orator; succeeded Krauth in the editorship of the _Lutheran_; repeatedly served the Pennsylvania Synod and the General Council as president.--_Dr. J.A. Seiss_ was pastor in Philadelphia from 1858 till his death in 1904; he also served as president of the Pennsylvania Synod and the General Council. Seiss was one of the most prolific Lutheran authors in America. "There was a strength, a stateliness, a dignity, and an artistic finish to all his greatest pulpit efforts that compelled a hearing." (_Luth. Church Review_ 1918, 90.) His style is oratorical rather than churchly. His _Lectures on the Gospels and Epistles_ are the fruit of many years of careful sermonizing and study. In his lectures on the _Last Times_, 1856, and on the _The Apocalypse_, 1866, Seiss championed the cause of a chiliasm which the General Council refused to reject.--_Dr. Adolph Spaeth_ (1839--1910) graduated at Tuebingen; active in Wuerttemberg, Italy, France, and Scotland till he accepted a call as Dr. Mann's assistant in Philadelphia in 1864; served as professor at the Seminary from 1867 till his death; was president of the General Council from 1880 to 1888, and of the Pennsylvania Synod from 1892 to 1895. He wrote the biographies of W.J. Mann, 1895, and of C.P. Krauth, Vol. I, 1898; Vol. II, 1909.--_Dr. R.F. Weidner_ (1851--1915), president of the Seminary of the General Council at Chicago since its opening in 1891, reproduced in the English language a number of modern German theological works.

CONSTITUTION.

114. Fundamental Articles of Faith.--At the preliminary meeting at Reading, 1866, "Fundamental Principles," embracing nine Articles of Faith and Church Polity and eleven Articles of Ecclesiastical Power and Church Government, were adopted as a necessary condition of the contemplated union. The first Article of Faith states that, "to the true unity of the Church, it is sufficient that there be agreement touching the doctrine of the Gospel," etc. The second declares: "The true unity of a particular church, in virtue of which men are truly members of one and the same church, and by which any church abides in real identity, and is entitled to a continuation of her name, is unity in doctrine and faith and in the Sacraments, to wit, that she continues to teach and to set forth, and that her true members embrace from the heart, and use, the articles of faith and the Sacraments as they were held and administered when the Church came into distinctive being and received a distinctive name." The third article distinguishes general and particular symbols. The fourth emphasizes that these confessions are a testimony of unity and a bond of union only when "accepted in their own true, native, original, and only sense." Those who "subscribe them must not only agree to use the same words, but must use and understand those words in one and the same sense." According to the fifth article the unity of the Lutheran Church "depends upon her abiding in one and the same faith." Article six reads: "The Unaltered Augsburg Confession is by preeminence the Confession of that faith. The acceptance of its doctrines and the avowal of them without equivocation or mental reservation make, mark, and identify that Church, which alone, in the true, original, historical, and honest sense of the term, is the Evangelical Lutheran Church." According to the seventh article the only churches "entitled to the name Evangelical Lutheran are those which sincerely hold and truthfully confess the doctrines of the Unaltered Augsburg Confession." The next article reads: "We accept and acknowledge the doctrines of the Unaltered Augsburg Confession in its original sense as throughout in conformity with the pure truth of which God's Word is the only rule. We accept its statements of truth as in perfect accordance with the canonical Scriptures: We reject the errors it condemns, and believe that all which it commits to the liberty of the Church of right belongs to that liberty." The ninth article declares "that the other Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, inasmuch as they set forth none other than its system of doctrine and articles of faith, are of necessity pure and Scriptural," and that all of them "are, with the Unaltered Augsburg Confession, in the perfect harmony of one and the same Scriptural faith." (Ochsenford, _Documentary History_, 178 f.) According to the By-laws of the Constitution "the first two morning sessions after the opening of the convention shall be devoted to the discussion of doctrinal points and important practical questions."