history of that body, the recognition of the
Augsburg Confession. At that time there were none amongst the friends of
the General Synod who did not reject several tenets of the Augsburg
Confession, such as private confession and absolution, as we all still
do. Accordingly, the assent to the Augsburg Confession, expressed in the
statutes for the Theological Seminary presented by me, was a _qualified_
one; it should and was intended to bind only to the _fundamentals_ of
the Scriptures as taught in the Augsburg Confession. The language was
well understood then, and was deemed clear and satisfactory; it has
always been interpreted in the same way since, except by some, of late,
whose predilections would incline them to find in it, if possible, some
support for their more rigidly symbolic views." (Spaeth, 1, 338.) In the
_Evangelical Review_, April, 1851, Schmucker declared: The General Synod
established her theological seminary "not for the purpose of teaching
the symbolic system of the sixteenth century,--for her leading members
had all relinquished some of its features,--but, as her Constitution,
adopted in 1825, explicitly declares, to prepare men to teach, not all
the doctrines or aspects of doctrine in the Augsburg Confession, but the
'_fundamental_ doctrines'; and not those aspects of doctrine which might
be considered fundamental peculiarities of that Confession, but 'the
fundamental doctrines _of the Scriptures_' those aspects of doctrine
which Christians generally regard as fundamental truths of the Word of
God. The symbolical books of the General Synod and the seminary at
Gettysburg are the Bible and the Augsburg Confession, as a substantially
correct exhibition of the fundamental truths of the Bible. To this the
professorial oath of office in the seminary adds a similar _fundamental_
assent to the two Catechisms of Luther. For the professors to inculcate
on their students the obsolete views of the old Lutherans contained in
the former symbols of the Church in some parts of Germany, such as
exorcism, the real presence of the body and blood of Christ in the
Eucharist, private confession, baptismal regeneration, immersion in
baptism, as taught in Luther's Larger Catechism, etc., would be to
betray the confidence of those who elected them to office, and to defeat
the design of the institution." (Spaeth, 1, 338 f.)

24. Doctrinal Statements from 1829 to 1835.--The Pastoral Letter of
the convention of the General Synod