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LUTHERANS. 



FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF FAITH. 



We hold the following principles touching the faith 

 of the Church and its polity to be fundamental and 

 of necessity presupposed in any genuine union of 

 Evangelical Lutheran Synods : 



I. There must be, and abide through al time, one 

 holy Christian Church, which is the asseably of all 

 believers, among whom the Gospel is purely preached, 

 and the Holy Sacraments are administered, as the 

 Gospel demands. 



To the true unity of the Church, it is sufficient that 

 there be agreement touching the doctrine of the Gos- 

 pel, that it be preached in one accord, in its pure 

 sense, and that the Sacraments be administered con- 

 formably to God's Word. 



II. The true unity of a particular Church, in virtue 

 of which men are truly members of one and the same 

 Church, and by which any Church abides in real 

 identity, and is entitled to a continuation of her name, 

 is unity in doctrine and faith and in the Sacraments, 

 to wit : That she continues to teach and to set forth, 

 and that her true members embrace from the heart, 

 and use, the articles of faith and the Sacraments as 

 they were held and administered, when the Church 

 came into distinctive being and received a distinctive 

 name. 



III. The unity of the Church is witnessed to, and 

 made manifest in the solemn, public and official con- 

 fessions which are set forth, to wit : The generic 

 unity of the Christian Church in the general creeds, 

 and "the specific unity of pure parts of the Christian 

 Church iu their specific creeds ; one chief object of 

 both classes of which creeds, is, that Christians who 

 are in the unity of faith, may know each other as 

 such, and may have a visible bond of fellowship. 



IV. That confessions may be such a testimony of 

 unity and bond of unity, they must be accepted in. 

 every statement of doctrine, in their own true, native, 

 original, and only sense. Those who set them forth 

 and subscribe them, must not only agree to use the 

 same words, but must use and understand those 

 words in one and the same sense. 



V. The unity of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, 

 as a portion of the holy Christian Church, depends 

 upon her abiding in one and the same faith, in con- 

 fessing which she obtained her distinctive being and 

 name, her political recognition and her history. 



VI. The Unaltered Augsburg Confession is by pre- 

 eminence the confession of that faith. The accept- 

 ance of its doctrines and the avowal of them without 

 equivocation or mental reservation, make, mark, and 

 identify that Church which alone, in the true, original, 

 historical, and honest sense of the term, is the Evan- 

 gelical Lutheran Church. 



VII. The only Churches, therefore, of any land, 

 which are properly in the unity of that communion, 

 and by consequence entitled to its name, Evangelical 

 Lutheran, are those which siucerely hold and truth- 

 fully confess the doctrines of the Unaltered Augsburg 

 Confession. 



VIII. We accept and acknowledge the doctrines 

 of the Unaltered Augsburg Confession in its original 

 sense as throughout in conformity with the pure 

 truth of which God's Word is the only rule. We 

 accept its statements of truth as in perfect accordance 

 with the Canonical Scriptures : We reject the errors 

 it condemns ; and believe that all which it leaves to 

 the liberty of the Church, of right belongs to that 

 liberty. 



IX. In thus formally accepting and acknowledging 

 the Unaltered Augsburg Confession, we declare our 

 conviction, that the other confessions of the Evan- 

 gelical Lutheran Church, inasmuch as they set forth 

 none other than its system of doctrine, and articles 

 of faith, are of necessity pure and Scriptural. Pre- 

 eminent among such accordant, pure, and Scriptural 

 statements of doctrine, by their intrinsic excellence, 

 by the great and necessary ends for which they were 

 prepared, by their histor cal position, and by the 

 general judgment of the Church, are these : The 



Apology of the Augsburg Confession, the Smalcald 

 Articles, the Catechisms of Luther and the Formula 

 of Concord, all of which are, with the Unaltered Augs- 

 burg Confession, in the perfect harmony of one and 

 the same Scriptural faith. 



FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF ECCLESIASTICAL POWEU 

 AND CHURCH GOVERNMENT. 



I. All the power in the Church belongs primarily, 

 properly, and exclusively, to our Lord Jesus Christ, 

 " true God, begotten of the Father from eternity, and 

 true man, born of the Virgin Mary," Mediator be- 

 tween God and men, and supreme head of the Church. 

 This supreme and direct power is not delegated to 

 any man or body of men upon the earth. 



II. All just power exercised by the Church has 

 been committed to her for the furtherance of the 

 Gospel, through the Word and Sacraments, is con- 

 ditioned by this end, and is derivative and pertains 

 to her as the servant of Jesus Christ. 



The Church therefore has no power to bind the 

 conscience, except as she truly teaches what her 

 Lord teaches, and faithfully commands what He has 

 charged her to command. 



III. The absolute directory of the will of Christ is 

 the Word of God, the canonical Scriptures, inter- 

 preted in accordance with the "mind of the Spirit," 

 by which Scriptures the Church is to be guided in 

 every decision. She may set forth no article of faith 

 which is not taught by the very letter of God's Word, 

 or derived by just and necessary inference from it, 

 and her liberty concerns those things only which are 

 left free by the letter and spirit of God's Word. 



IV. The primary bodies, through which the power 

 is normally exercised which Christ commits deriva- 

 tively and ministerially to His Church on earth, are 

 the congregations. The congregation in the normal 

 state is neither the pastor without the people nor the 

 people without the pastor. 



y. In congregations exists the right of represen- 

 tation. In addition to the pastor, who by their vol- 

 untary election is already ex qfficio their represent- 

 ative, the people have the right to choose represent- 

 atives from their own number to act for them under 

 such constitutional limitations as the congregation 

 approves. 



VI. The representatives of congregations thus con- 

 vened in synod, and acting in accordance with those 

 conditions of mutual congregational compact, which 

 are called a constitution, are for the ends, and with 

 the limitations defined in it, representively, the con- 

 gregations themselves. 



A free, Scriptural general council or synod chosen 

 by the church is, within the metes and bounds fixed 

 by the Church -which chose it, representatively that 

 church itself; and in this case is applicable the lan- 

 guage of the appendix to the Smalcald Articles, "the 

 judgments of synods are the judgments of the 

 Church." 



VII. The congregations representatively constitut- 

 ing the various district synods, may elect delegates 

 through those synods, to represent themselves'in a 

 more general body, all decisions of which, when 

 made in conformity with the solemn compact of the 

 constitution, bind, so far as the terms of mutual 

 agreement make them binding, those congregations 

 which consent and continue to consent to be rep- 

 resented in that general body. 



VIII. If the final decision of any general body thus 

 constituted, shall seem to any synod within it in 

 conflict with the faith, involving violation of th'e 

 rights of conscience, it is the duty of that synod to 

 take such steps as shall be needed to prevent a com- 

 promise on its part with error. To this end, it may 

 withdraw itself from relations which make it respon- 

 sible for departure from the faith of the Gospel, or for 

 an equivocal attitude toward it. Such steps should 

 not be taken on any but well-defined grounds of con- 

 science, nor on mere suspicion, nor until prayerful, 

 earnest, and repeated efforts to correct the wrong 



