line; nevertheless they receive the Augustan
Confession _because_ it exhibits the same views they have on the
Scriptures, and is a formal declaration of what they believe. But if it
were possible to prove that the views on the points of doctrine
contained in the Augustan Confession were erroneous, it would be the
duty of this body to renounce it; nevertheless, in that case they could
by no means be Lutherans, as they would have rejected the views of
Lutherans. As there have been various editions of the Augustan
Confession, this body have chosen the one which is extant in the book
entitled 'The Christian Concordia,' because they are well assured that
that is genuine." (22.) The revised constitution of 1866 recognized the
entire Book of Concord as being the doctrinal basis of the Tennessee
Synod, thereby merely giving expression to the position which the
Tennessee Synod had actually occupied from the very beginning. In their
letter of December 10, 1826, addressed to the pastors of the North
Carolina Synod, Daniel Moser and David Henkel declared: "We also wish to
appeal to the book called 'Concordia,' as it is one of the principal
symbolical books of the Lutheran Church." (R. 1827, 28.) The sixth of
the "Alterable Articles" of the proposed constitution submitted to synod
in 1827 reads: "The book entitled 'Concordia,' which contains the
Symbolical Books of the Lutheran Church, shall be viewed as a directory
in Theology." (24.) After visiting the Tennessee Synod in 1855, Brohm
wrote: "Creditable witnesses have given me the assurance that, as far as
their persons are concerned, all the pastors of the Synod adhere to the
entire Concordia." (_Lutheraner_ 11, 78.) When the Tennessee Synod was
organized, it was the only American Lutheran synod which was pledged to
the Lutheran Confession, not merely with a _quatenus, i.e._, as far as
it agrees with the Bible, but with an honest _quia, i.e._, because it
agrees with the Bible.

CONFESSION ENFORCED.

107. Confession No Mere Dead Letter.--That Tennessee did not regard
the Lutheran Confession a mere dead document appears from her attitude
toward the Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and other unfaithful Lutheran
synods, as delineated above. The treatise appended to the Report of 1827
declared: It is necessary to correct the wrong opinion that Lutheran
ministers are at liberty to deviate from the Augustan Confession
whereinsoever they conceive it as erroneous. As long as a minister
pre