.

Thus also did the Lutheran Reformers of the sixteenth century, when
cited by the Emperor to appear before the Diet at Augsburg, present the
Confession, bearing the name of that city, as an expose of their
principal doctrines; in which they also professedly reject only the
_greater part_ of the errors that had crept into the Romish Church.
(See conclusion of the Abuses Corrected.)

Again, a quarter of a century after Luther's death, this and other
writings of Luther and Melancthon, together with another work which
neither of them ever saw, the Form of Concord, were made binding on
ministers and churches, not by the church herself, acting of her own
free choice, but by the civil authorities of certain kingdoms and
principalities, in consultation with some prominent theologians. The
majority of Lutheran kingdoms, however, rejected one or more of them,
and the Augsburg Confession alone has been acknowledged by the entire
Lutheran Church. (Hutterus Red. p. 116, Sec. 50.)

Whereas the entire Lutheran Church of Germany has rejected the binding
authority of the symbolical books as a whole, and also abandoned some
of the doctrines of the Augsburg Confession, and our fathers in this
country more, [sic] than half century ago, ceased to require
a pledge to any of these books, whilst they still believed and in
various ways avowed the great fundamental doctrines contained in them:

And whereas the General Synod of the American Lutheran Church, about a
quarter of a century ago, again introduced a qualified acknowledgment of
the Augsburg Confession, in the Constitution of her Theological
Seminary, and in her Constitution for District Synods, at the ordination
and licensure of ministers, without specifying tho doctrines to be
omitted, except by the designation that they are not fundamental
doctrines of Scripture; and whereas a desire has extensively prevailed
amongst our ministers and churches, to have this basis expressed in a
more definite manner; and the General Synod has left this matter
optional with each district Synod:

_Therefore, Resolved_, That this Synod hereby avows its belief in the
following doctrinal Basis, namely, the so-called _Apostles' Creed_, the
_Nicene Creed_, and _the American Recension of the Augsburg Confession_,
as a more definite expression of the doctrinal pledge prescribed by the
General Synod's Constitution for District Synods, and as a correct
exhibition of the Scripture doctrines discussed in it: