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Making a full confession about Christ
and His Word has hardly been the goal of Atlantic District President David
Benke, who worshiped with Moslems at Yankee Stadium, or President
Kieschnick, who will not answer questions about the Trinity, or Waldo
Werning’s false doctrine about the Trinity in his book, “Health and
Healing for the LCMS.”
Sunday, January 18, 2004
is recognized as “The Confession
Of St. Peter” in many churches, including the LCMS.
In
honor of this occasion, Reclaim News is publishing quotations from Dr. Theodore
E. Schmauk and C. Theodore Benze’s book, “The Confessional Principle and
the Confessions, as Embodying the Evangelical Confession of the Christian
Church,” Philadelphia: General Council Publication Board, 1911”
This
962-page book, with 131 pages of introduction and preface, was
photographically reproduced and republished in 1980 by CPH in its Heritage
Series.
Schmauk
was the President of the old General Council that later became the LCA and
then the ELCA. His own church
body rejected his work. However,
the LCMS regarded Schmauk’s book as one of the great confessional writings
of the 20th Century. Pieper
quotes him in Vol. 1., page 180, and Vol. II, page 482, of his Christian
Dogmatics.
The
following are quotations from Schmauk’s: “The
Confessional Principle and the Confessions of the
Lutheran
Church
:”
“The
word of God, Scripture, is a self-legitimizing authority and testimony of
the truth” (Schmauk
iii) brought down from heaven.
“The
weakness of Protestantism today is its failure to recognize the necessity
and value of a common witness . . . . Religion
is thought, even by many ministers, to be a matter of private and personal
conviction, in its inner aspect;” (Schmauk
page v)
“If
we cannot bear witness to Christ and the Church, we cannot, in any other
way, teach His doctrine. (Schmauk
page iv)
“Hence,
while the tyranny of
Rome
is the supreme authority of the
Church over conscience, the tyranny of liberal Protestantism is the supreme
authority of every man’s conscience over the Scripture and the Church” (Schmauk
page vi)
“The
end of Protestantism without the Word of God as the one common and absolute
authority is either skepticism or Romanism.” (Schmauk
page vii)
Since
one of the essential elements of religion, as of all truth is
unchangeableness; and since in religion there must be both unchangeableness
and finality, even this Twentieth Century should see that, if it is to keep
any religion at all, it must not be a religion of individualism, of
pietistic values, and speculative outlook, of temperamental trust, but a
religion of authority. (Schmauk
page vii)
“The
final authority comes from God, through His Word; and not form humanity,
through its reason.” (Schmauk
page viii)
“Change
in itself is not progress; and the right of every individual to think as he
pleases is not, in itself the attainment of liberty.” (Schmauk
page ix)
“The
distinction cannot be drawn between soundness in faith and soundness in
doctrine, except in so far as doctrine is not clearly the unchangeable
revelation of and unchangeable Word of God.” (Schmauk
page x)
“As
a believing witness, we are ready to stand and to suffer for the Confession
that abides through all the ages, because it corresponds to the Truth that
forms, rules, and judges, all the ages.” (Schmauk
page x)
“The
enemies of the Church’s doctrine and Confession are often her own most
brilliant and thoughtful sons.” (Schmauk
page x)
Critics
say: “The church is blindly bent on upholding obsolete doctrine . . . ”
(Schmauk
page xi)
“Four
expressions of faith in the world
a.
Absolute dependence on the church
b.
Absolute dependence on the Word.
c.
Relative dependence on the Book
d.
Mental independence of Book, Word, and church
“Have
God’s representatives on earth the option to offer a discount on the terms
set by God, in order to meet a given situation?
May we overlook the sola fide in order that our churches on earth be
filled with quests, and that Heaven itself be not too utterly empty?” (Schmauk
page xviii)
“The
faith which believes, and therefore saves; which believes, and therefore
confesses; which believes, and therefore examines, which believes, and
therefore testifies, and transmits and upholds the testimony dear to it;
which believes, and acts because it is lives in its belief: this faith in
which heart and voice and work unite, because one and the same Spirit fills
them all, is irresistible in the Church, and is the victory that over cometh
the world.” (Schmauk
page xxxii)
Creeds
are a necessity. Creeds are the
Faith infixed form, and go back as far as the Scripture. (Schmauk
page lxxxv)
“The
Lutheran Confession is unchangeable.” (Schmauk
page lxxxvi)
“.
. . the question of The Confessions of the
Lutheran
Church
, and of their relation to a true
Lutheranism, has arisen.
It
is a question which will never be settle until it is settled right, on the
basis of the real character of the original foundation, and in recognition
of the light thrown upon it by four centuries of history,--unless it be
settled, as Schaff intimates, by the absorption of the Lutherans of this
land in and under the Reformed principle.” (Schmauk
Page 4)
“Scripture
itself will not serve either as a form of public Confession or as a form of
public worship, for the simple reason that Scripture has been give to us in
historical and not in doctrinal or liturgical form.” (Schmauk
Page 13)
“Thus
we see how Common Principles of Faith and a common expression of Faith in a
common Order of Worship are the finished product and express the reaction of
the preceding Christian generations of the Church . . .”
(Schmauk
page 14)
The
use of Confessions, . . . They bring us into agreement in the one true
interpretation, and thus set a public standard, which become a guard against
false doctrine and practice;”(Schmauk
page 21)
“.
. . creeds are no more a, obstruction to the Church or the man than are the
guns and armor of a battleship and obstruction to the engines or the
mariners who have the battle to fight.” (Schmauk
Page 24)
Schmauck
asks: “Will the world know what I believe, if I say the Bible is my creed?
(Schmauk
Page 28)
“The
religious fanatics, the narrow-minded legalists, as well as the most liberal
and the most loose communions, have claimed to make the Bible their
creed.” (Schmauk
Page 29)
“Dr.
C. P. Krauth was right when he said, ‘Faith makes men Christians; but
Confession alone marks them as Christians.’” (Schmauk
Page 30)
“Not
only is the creed the Word of God condensed, but it is the Word of God
pointed to defense, confession and judgment.” (Schmauk
Page 31)
“.
. . the Bible is the rule of faith not the confession of it; the Creed is
not the rule of faith, but the confession of it.” (Schmauk
Page 32)
“The
symbols are public confessions, and the preacher is a public confessor; but
only then an official confessor in the Church, when he confesses himself in
harmony with the confession of the church by whose servants he is ordained a
fellow-servant. And where the
preacher does not consent to the confessions of the church, by whose
servants he has been ordained, he is no fellow-confessor, and certainly
cannot be a preacher of a confession, which he does not acknowledge.” (Schmauk
Page 86)
“After
a thorough understanding of the general relations between Faith and Truth,
between Freedom and Loyalty, between Liberty and Standing Order, between
Criticism and Service, between a Call and an Acceptance, only those could
dispute the propriety of such an obligation who find themselves outside the
Confession, but who desire to remain in the service [of the church] from
other than the highest motives; or by those who, influenced by a false ideal
of the abstract rights of truth, desire to be unfettered in making their own
confession effective. But, as v.
Burger observes, to ask freedom from the Church itself to do this, is not
any longer a right of her servants, but a violation of the same.”
(Schmauk, page 92)
“As
faith without works is dead, so it may be said also that faith without
confession is dead” (Schmauk Page 96)
“The
Apostles’ Creed is the very spinal column of our faith, in fact and
doctrine, and rightly takes its place in our order of service as the fit
liturgical medium for the regular, ordinary and united confession, or
testimony, of faith of the worshipping congregation.” (Schmauk
Page 104-105)
“It
has already been point out that the New Testament intimately connects
Confession and Faith. The two go
together naturally and necessarily. Confession
is the counterpart of faith--it is faith come to utterance.” (Schmauk
Page 144)
“.
. . the word [symbol] nevertheless occurs in Cyprian about the middle of the
Third Century, and thenceforward it seems to have been used, at least
occasionally, as a title given to the Apostle’s Creed.” (Schmauk
Page 156)
“The
ministry of the Church presupposes the fellowship of a Confession or a
Symbol.”(Schmauk
Page 162)
[Selnecker,
who wrote "Ach bleib bei uns" (TLH #292) was bitterly attacked and
severely persecuted by the Reformed, deposed when Augustus died, reduced to
poverty, and not allowed to remain in Leipzig as a private citizen.]
(Schmauk p. 310ff)
"The
modern radical spirit which would sweep away the Formula of Concord as a
Confession of the Church, will not, in the end, be curbed, until it has
swept away the Augsburg Confession, and the ancient Confessions of the
Church--yea, not until it has crossed the borders of Scripture itself, and
swept out of the Word whatsoever is not in accord with its own critical mode
of thinking. The far-sighted
rationalist theologian and
Dresden
court preacher, Ammon, grasped the
logic of a mere spirit of progress, when he said: 'Experience teaches us
that those who reject a Creed, will speedily reject the Scriptures
themselves.'" (Schmauk p.
685)
“Luther
ever insisted that he accepted - only the ancient Church doctrine on the
Person of Christ. ‘No one can deny’, he says, ‘that we hold, believe,
sing, and confess all thing in correspondence with the Apostles’ Creed,
that we make nothing new therein, nor add anything thereto, and in this way
we belong to the old Church, and are one with it.’” (Schmauk Page 776)
“Then
too it was important from this question, as well as for all subscription to
symbols, that in the Wittenberg doctor’s vow, which dates from
Melanchthon, those to be promoted were obligated to defend the Apostolic,
Nicene and Athanasian Creeds, and that since 1535 this was extended to all
ordained in Wittenberg.” (Schmauk
Page 833)
"The
real question is not what do you subscribe, but what do you believe and
publicly teach, and what are you transmitting to those who come after?
If it is the complete Lutheran faith and practice, the name and
number of the standards is less important. If it is not, the burden of proof
rests upon you to show that your more incomplete standard does not indicate
an incomplete Lutheran faith." (Schmauk p. 890)
"Is
the Lord's Supper the place to display my toleration, my Christian sympathy,
or my fellowship with another Christian, when that is the very point in
which most of all we differ; and in which the difference means for me
everything--means for me, the reception of the Savior's atonement?
Is this the point to be selected for the display of Christian union,
when in fact it is the very point in which Christian union does not
exist?" (Schmauk 905f)
“The
first and simplest summary of the faith, testifying to the pure Gospel, is
the Apostles’ Creed, which, with the Nicene Creed and the Athanasian
Creed, are the ‘brief, plain Confessions’ of the Church to the facts of
the Gospel, which we also believe and teach, and confess as binding upon us,
and reject all principles and teaching that are contrary to these
Confessions.” (Schmauk Page
937)
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