e wrought out
more expansively, and led him to find the cause for the actual variation
in the working of God's grace in man, its object. This subtle
synergistic spirit attacks the very foundation of Lutheranism, flows out
into almost every doctrine, and weakens the Church at every point. And
it was practically this weakness which the great multitude of
Melanchthon's scholars, who become the leaders of the generation of
which we are speaking, absorbed, and which rendered it difficult to
return, finally, and after years of struggle, to the solid ground once
more recovered in the Formula of Concord." (611; _L. u. W._ 1912, 33.)
Evidently, this is sound Lutheranism; and similar testimonies were
occasionally heard within the General Council throughout its history.
(_L. u. W._ 1904, 273: Rev. Rembe; 1917, 473: Rev. G.H. Schnur.) But it
was the song of rare birds. The synergistic note was struck much more
frequently and emphatically. For making his anti-synergistic utterances
Schmauk was called to order by Dr. Gerberding. And in 1916 Schmauk
himself opened the _Lutheran Church Review_ to L.S. Keyser, the zealous
exponent of synergism within the General Synod, who wrote: "Faith's
experience always includes the fact that, while the ability of faith is
divinely conferred, the exercise of that ability is never coerced, but
belongs to the domain of liberty.... The same is true of all volitions:
the ability to will is divinely implanted; the act itself belongs to the
sphere of freedom. The ability to repent is from God; the use of that
ability belongs to man's liberty." "The Scriptures never command men to
regenerate; they always put that category in the passive voice, 'Except
any one be born again'; but the Bible again and again commands men to
repent and believe, putting the verbs in the active voice, imperative
mood. What inconsistent commands these would be if man possessed no
freedom in the exercise of repentance and faith!" "God's fiat of the
individual's election unto salvation must have been decided upon in
foresight and foreknowledge of the whole content of faith, including
both its divine enablement and its human element of freedom." (65.)
Similar views on man's freedom and responsibility were expressed by Dr.
Haas in _Trends of Thought_, 1915. In his book, _The Way of Life_, 1917,
Dr. Gerberding explains: "After prevenient grace, however, begins to
make itself felt, then the will begins to take part. It must now assume
an