Again, says the Plea: "Those who undertake to change the doctrinal
basis of a church, take upon themselves an awful responsibility," p. 7.
True; but there is an equally awful responsibility resting on those
who, favored by Providence with the increased light of three centuries,
continue to avow in their creed, and thus lead multitudes to embrace
the superstitious and truly dangerous errors, which remain in these
documents issued in the earlier and immature stages of the Reformation,
and some of them under circumstances unpropitious to a free expression
of views of Scripture doctrine. If these errors constituted the essence
of Lutheranism, we ought to forsake the church; but as they do not, we
are under sacred obligation to expunge them from our creed, so that we
may not aid in their perpetuation.
"From this renewed church (of the Reformation) as from a new heart, of
mankind, new and fresh and vigorous blood flows in an uninterrupted
stream through mighty arteries, into the whole world." p. 7. Or rather,
we would say, this fresh and vigorous blood flows not from the church,
much less from the errors which she retained in her symbols, but from
that amount, of _God's truth_, which constitutes the great mass of her
confession. The separation of these errors, instead of impairing the
efficiency of the church, will greatly multiply her energies, and pave
the way for new and enlarged conquests over the world.
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