The Plea objects to what it styles “the officious manner in which some persons raise alarm throughout the church, promulgate their intention to change the Augsburg Confession, and act in such a manner as if their views in regard to the so-called errors of the Augsburg Confession were absolutely above all possibility of error.” p. 13.  This objection is probably based on a want of acquaintance with the history of our church in this country, if it is designed to refer particularly to the Definite Platform; which would be excuseable in our brother, as his residence amongst us is comparatively of recent date.  But the truth is, that the rejection of the custom of requiring assent to the Augsburg Confession by the fathers in the Pennsylvania Synod fifty years ago, is proof enough of their dissatisfaction with that document.  Nor did they hesitate distinctly to declare their dissent from some of its tenets.  This was done not only privately, but also in their occasional publications.  As to private confession and absolution, they never adopted that practice in this country; but from the beginning employed a public and general confession, preparatory to the Lord’s Supper, as our church in Sweden and Denmark did in the days of the Reformation.  As to the ceremonies of the public mass, they were rejected by our church universally, some years after the diet of Augsburg, as private and closet masses had been before.  The General Synod, at the adoption of her constitution in 1820, freely expressed her dissatisfaction in the public discussions, with some parts of the Augsburg Confession, and inserted a clause in her constitution, giving power both to the General Synod and to each District Synod to form a new Confession of Faith, for their own use. Dr. Lochman, one of the most active, pious, and respected divines of our church, in his Catechism, published in 1822, states it as one of “the leading principles of our church, [sic on quotation marks] “that the Holy Scriptures and not human authority, are the only source whence we are to draw our religious sentiments, whether they relate to faith or practice.”  “That Christians are accountable to God alone for their religious principles,” and says not a word about adherence to the Augsburg Confession, as one of the principles of our church.

He also published an edition of the Augsburg Confession, in his work, entitled Doctrine and Discipline of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, in which he made more omissions than are found in the American Recension; and yet no one found fault with him for doing so.  That the reader may judge of the extent of these omissions, we specify them:  In

Art.  I. he omitted the definition of person, in the Trinity.

Art.  II. omits the condemnatory clause.

Art.  III. omits the epithet pure, in reference to the Virgin Mary, and the reference to the so called “Apostles’ Creed.”