Samuel Simon Schmucker - American Lutheranism Vindicated

Ken McGuire

I started this project of Lutheran works after re-reading the LCMS's Brief Statement.  I know enough Lutheran History that it is pretty obvious that it reflects animated theological discussion that happened in 19th Century Lutheranism, especially the Predestination Controversy.  This ground is very not very familiar to most people, and so I thought I would release some works that give a context for this all.

For multiple reasons I wanted to start with the American Lutheran Controversy of east coast Lutherans in the 1850's.  Granted, the LCMS was not a party in this discussion - they instead generally reacted with horror what was taught by them.  That said, these issues have not gone away and there are still echos of the issues discussed in both ELCA and LCMS circles to this day.

I wanted to start with the "Definite Synodical Platform" for this collection, but have yet to find an electronic copy to convert.  So, for better or worse, I started with Rev. Mann's reply to it.  But I wanted a voice from the other side as well, namely Samuel Simon Schmucker, if for no other reason than that of his historical influence.  Preparing this etext version has reminded me that S.S. Schmucker was not someone who just ignored the Lutheran Confessions.  He is a quite competent historical theologian in many respects.  I have learned things from him.  Unfortunately, much of the reason I am Lutheran, and key parts of my Lutheran identity are either ignored or denied by him.

The following work is largely based on the version complied by a major Internet free etext project named after a quite famous early printer.  I hesitate to be more specific because of their license which they have to protect the quality of documents that have their name attached.  In addition the Google Books version was consulted and is the source for page breaks, etc.

The proofreading of the original leaves a little to be desired.  I have chosen to leave in the errors found in the original manuscript without comment.  The original book has footnotes numbered BY PAGE.  This is not practical in this edition.  I tried to do this in the docx, but when complied into Logos, it is converted into numbering for the whole document.  If someone can tell me how to make it at least restart with "1" for each chapter, I would appreciate it.

An appendix to the document includes a version of the Definite Platform, so I guess I got my wish in this respect after all.

Future works in various stages of completion on my computer include William Julius Mann's reply to this work, as well as _The Broken Platform_ by Rev. Hoffman, and and earlier SS Schmucker work - _The American Lutheran Church_

SDG,

Ken McGuire

Martin Horn

Thank you for the Lutheran material.  I appreciate it.

Martin Horn

Milford Charles Murray

SDG,

Ken McGuire

Yes, Ken!          *smile*                      You are doing this to the Glory of God indeed!

                                     ...........    as well as providing great benefits to your brothers and sisters..

                                                                      I'm quite excited about this and your other works that you have shared and will be sharing this with my young (40's!  *smile* ) pastor who is quite a theologian and likes to keep up with studies on Lutheranism in North America!   *smile*

           Peace and Joy in the Lord always!                              Thank you very much!

 

He will be thrilled!

Ken McGuire

This is probably the most substantial update.  I added multiple links to The Book Of Concord, as well as the 39 Articles and Westminster Confession.  I caught a typo, and since Schmucker puts his suggested doctrinal basis in an appendix, I included milestones for it in the Apostles Creed and Book of Concord Datatypes, so that this book can serve as a TARGET for these types.

I very much hesitated to do this for his proposed (and widely rejected) version of the Augsburg Confession, but did it anyway.  This will allow it to scroll with an actual Augsburg Confession if you want to.  For the Ausgburg Confession, I marked it at the Article level, but NOT at the paragraph level - mostly to save me time.

The problem with providing milestones for these types is that I don't know how to turn it off when done.  This means that aposcrd:12 and BookOfConcord:AC:I:21 have additional text...

I have looked at the other Mann and Schmucker works I provided and since I was linking by type for them, do not see a reason to update them at this time.

SDG

Ken McGuire