PREFACE.  As the American Recension, contained in this Platform, adds not a single sentence to the Augsburg Confession, nor omits anything that has the least pretension to be considered “a fundamental doctrine of Scripture,” it is perfectly consistent with the doctrinal test of the General Synod, as contained in her Formula of Government and Discipline, Chap.  XVIII., Sec. 5, and XIX., Sec. 2.  The Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds are also universally received by our churches.  Hence any District Synod, connected with the General Synod, may, with perfect consistency, adopt this Platform.

DOCTRINAL BASIS OR CREED.

Whereas it is the duty of the followers of Christ to profess his [sic] religion before the world (Matt. x. 32), not only by their holy walk and conversation, but also by “walking in the apostles’ doctrines” (1 Cor. xiv. 32), and bearing testimony “to the faith once delivered to the saints” (Jude 3), Christians have, from the earlier ages, avowed some brief summary of their doctrines or a Confession of their faith.  Such confessions, also called symbols, were the so-called Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed, &c., of the first four centuries after Christ.

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: