f the Augsburg Confession, on account of its
importance as a link in the chain of historical Christianity, and by
prescribing its _qualified_ adoption, _viz_., as to the fundamental
aspects of Scripture doctrine. . . . It is an incontestable fact, which
can easily be established, that the original standpoint of the General
Synod, whilst controlled by the Pennsylvania Synod, was rejection of the
binding authority of the old confessions. This is undeniably proved by
their not even naming the Augsburg Confession in their Constitution, by
their declining even a qualified recognition of it, and by their
inserting a clause expressly giving authority to the General Synod to
form a confession of faith; yea, even going further, and giving the same
authority to each District Synod also. (See the original Constitution,
Article III, Section 2.) It seems to me no intelligent and unprejudiced
mind can resist this conclusion as to their doctrinal standpoint, whilst
I and others who were present know it to have been as above stated." In
his manuscript notes Schmucker says: "It is worthy of constant
remembrance that during the first four centuries, under the immediate
pupils of the inspired apostles and their successors, the voice of the
universal Church under the whole heaven was that nothing more than
fundamental agreement should be required for communion in the Christian
Church and Christian ministry. Not a single orthodox church practised
differently. All required assent only to the several ecumenical
confessions, the so-called Apostles' and the Nicene Creeds. . . . No,
the practise of binding the conscience of ministers and members to
extended creeds, containing minor points, on which men in all churches
and all ages have differed and ever will differ, and thus splitting up
the Body of Christ without His authority, is, and must be, highly
criminal. The fathers who founded the General Synod all considered the
recognition of fundamentals as sufficient, and here, in this free
country, determined to return to the practise of the earlier and purer
centuries of the Church. These fathers were Drs. J. G. Schmucker, George
Lochmann, C. Endress, F. W. Geissenhainer, Daniel Kurtz, H. A.
Muhlenberg, P. F. Mayer, H. Schaeffer, and D. F. Schaeffer, Rev. Gottl.
Shober, and Rev. Peter Schmucker, with their younger colaborers, Drs.
Benjamin Kurtz, S. S. Schmucker [Charles Philip Krauth?]. [tr. note: sic]
Holding this opinion, they did not introduce a