Now, if it be admitted that
when an enumeration of the parts of a whole is professedly and
explicitly made, any thing not included in that enumeration is excluded,
then certainly, as the first two resolutions enumerated specifically
the Apostles' Creed, the Nicene Creed, and the American Recension of the
Augsburg Confession, as the parts constituting the Platform to which
assent was required, it follows that the list of Symbolic Errors
rejected, which is not named at all, and which formed a separate part of
the pamphlet, is excluded. But the misapprehension evidently arose from
the fact, that after the term _doctrinal platform_ had been used in the
work, to designate the doctrinal and disciplinarian basis contained in
the first part of it, the name _Definite Synodical Platform_ was
selected for the whole pamphlet, and the distinction not kept up with
sufficient prominence before the mind of the reader. This is remedied in
the second edition, by employing the phrase _Doctrinal Basis or Creed_
for the first, and "_Synodical Disclaimer_, or List of Symbolical
Errors" for the second part. Moreover it is expressly stated, on p. 5,
that "whilst we will not admit into our Synod any one who believes in
Exorcism, Private Confession, and Absolution, or the Ceremonies of the
Mass," (not one of which is practiced, so far us we know, by a single
minister connected with the General Synod), the Platform "grants
liberty in regard to all the other topics, omitted from the Augsburg
Confession in the American Recension of it.
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