To this catalogue we might add the names of many others, who have avowed the same position of dissent from this venerable symbol, long before the Definite Platform was thought of.  No one in former times presumed to deny the right of our ministers and synods expressing this dissent, and proposing to form a new creed, if they deem it requisite.  To call the dissenting position of the Definite Platform a new one, is therefore a historical error; and to attempt to cast odium on it by the charge of officiousness, is also an act of injustice.  The same charge would equally lie against the greater part of our best ministers during the last half century, and against the founders of the General Synod themselves.

With this occasional disclaimer of these errors, American Lutherans have hitherto been satisfied, nor would the question of officially adopting a new creed have been raised at this time, had not the Ultra-Lutherans of our land, of late become animated by a new zeal to disseminate their symbolic errors, and to denounce as not Lutherans, all who do not receive them.  When the adoption of a new creed was thus forced upon them, a number of the brethren advocated the formation of one entirely new; but others believing it best to retain the venerable mother symbol of Protestantism, as far as we could regard her teachings as Scriptural, proposed the omission of the few disputed points, and the adoption of the residue unaltered, thus retaining nearly the whole of the doctrinal articles.  The suggestion was adopted, as being more respectful to the venerable symbol of our church, we were urged to prepare the work for the consideration of some of the Western Synods; and thus the American Recension of the Augsburg Confession originated from respect for that creed, rather than the want of it.  The talk about sacrilege, &c., would sound more natural among Romanists than Protestants; and the idea of deception is utterly unfounded, because the very name adopted, “American Recension,” is a constant notification to the reader of some change.  Neither one or the other charge was ever made against the Methodist Episcopal Church, for making four times as many changes in the Thirty-nine Articles.  As to respect for the Confession, we see but little difference between several methods proposed amongst American Lutherans; to adopt the Confession as to the fundamentals of Scripture doctrine, leaving all free to reject the non-fundamentals; or to publish the symbol, with a list appended of some of its articles, which may be rejected; or to omit those same articles, leaving them free, and adopting all the residue unconditionally.  On neither of these three plans does the matter of the Confession remain intact, even if the letter does; for in all, certain parts of it divested of binding authority, and left to the judgment of each individual.  The American Recension is nothing more than a revised edition of the Confession, in which those parts are omitted that had already been divested of binding authority, and thus been superseded by subsequent ecclesiastical legislation.