edeemer's Kingdom
may not pass by neglected and unavailing." (1839, 50; 1829, 53.)--
According to Article III, Section 2, quoted in the preceding paragraph,
the General Synod claimed the right to propose to the special synods not
only catechisms, forms of liturgy, and collections of hymns, but also a
confession of faith. Appealing to this section, S. S. Schmucker, in
1855, claimed that he was within his constitutional rights in urging the
General Synod to substitute the Definite Platform for the Augsburg
Confession. Spaeth: "It was, with a good show of justice, claimed by the
American Lutheran side in the General Synod that the very constitution
of the body entitled it to make a new revision even of the Augsburg
Confession!" (335.) It was in keeping with these principles as well as
the conditions then prevailing in the Lutheran synods that the
constitution adopted at Hagerstown contained no confessional basis
whatever, not even a mere reference to the Augsburg Confession. Shober,
probably in order to obviate the charges of the Tennessee Synod, made an
effort to have a recognition of the Augsburg Confession incorporated in
the constitution, but failed. That the omission was intentional is
apparent also from the fact that the General Synod maintained its
silence in spite of the vigorous protests of the Tennessee Synod and her
refusal to join the general body, especially for the reason that neither
the Bible nor the Augsburg Confession was mentioned in its Constitution.
"With this constitution before him," says Spaeth, "the editor of the
_Lutheran Observer_, Dr. Benjamin Kurtz, in Baltimore, was right in
stating the case after this manner (_Lutheran Observer_, April 16, 1852):
'We admit that the General Synod never formally or by express resolution
repudiated or abandoned the doctrinal basis (as laid down in the
Augsburg Confession and the Catechism of Luther).' But did it ever
either formally or tacitly profess belief in that basis? What necessity
is there for a body formally to repudiate or abandon what it never
received or adopted? It is a notorious fact that the symbolic basis had
been abandoned in the Church, to a very great extent, before the General
Synod was called into existence, and at its organisation special pains
were taken to guard against all possibility of its future imposition
upon the Church. In defining the doctrinal position of the General
Synod, the manifest intention was to give to each other, and to
e