ology_, published for the first time in 1834, S. S. Schmucker wrote:
"The General Synod of the Lutheran Church has adopted only the
twenty-one doctrinal articles, omitting even the condemnatory clauses of
these, and also the entire catalog of Abuses corrected. No minister,
however, considers himself bound to believe every sentiment contained in
these twenty-one articles, but only the fundamental doctrines.
Accordingly, the pledge of adoption required at licensure and ordination
is couched in the following terms . . .: 'Do you believe that the
_fundamental_ doctrines of the Word of God are taught in a manner
_substantially_ correct in the doctrinal articles of the Augsburg
Confession?' The Lutheran divines of this country are not willing to
bind either themselves or others to anything more than the fundamental
doctrines of the Christian revelation, believing that an immense mass of
evil has resulted to the Church of God from the rigid requisition of
extensive and detailed creeds. . . . We can see no sufficient warrant
for any Christian Church to require as a term of admission or communion
greater conformity of view than is requisite to harmony of feeling and
successful cooperation in extending the kingdom of Christ. . . . Had the
early Protestants endeavored to select the principal and fundamental
doctrines of Christianity, required a belief of them from all applicants
for admission into their ranks, and agreed among themselves that
discrepance of views on matters of non-fundamental nature should neither
be a bar to ecclesiastical communion nor fraternal affection, they would
have saved the Church from the curse of those dissensions by which piety
was in a great degree destroyed and on several occasions the very
foundations of Protestantism shaken." (Edition of 1848, 50 ff.) In 1850,
attacking Reynolds in the _Lutheran Observer_ on account of his
defection from American Lutheranism, Schmucker stated: From the very
outset the General Synod had abandoned the distinctive Lutheran
doctrines, and nevertheless retained the Lutheran name; in spite of his
deviations from the Lutheran symbols he, with perfect right, could call
himself a faithful Lutheran. (_L._, 6, 139.) Schmucker, "the most
authentic interpreter of the Constitution of the General Synod and that
of its theological seminary," never identified the "fundamental
doctrines of the Bible" with the twenty-one articles of the Augsburg
Confession. According to him the fundam