Again, says the Plea:  “Those who undertake to change the doctrinal basis of a church, take upon themselves an awful responsibility,” p. 7.  True; but there is an equally awful responsibility resting on those who, favored by Providence with the increased light of three centuries, continue to avow in their creed, and thus lead multitudes to embrace the superstitious and truly dangerous errors, which remain in these documents issued in the earlier and immature stages of the Reformation, and some of them under circumstances unpropitious to a free expression of views of Scripture doctrine.  If these errors constituted the essence of Lutheranism, we ought to forsake the church; but as they do not, we are under sacred obligation to expunge them from our creed, so that we may not aid in their perpetuation.

“From this renewed church (of the Reformation) as from a new heart, of mankind, new and fresh and vigorous blood flows in an uninterrupted stream through mighty arteries, into the whole world.” p. 7.  Or rather, we would say, this fresh and vigorous blood flows not from the church, much less from the errors which she retained in her symbols, but from that amount, of God’s truth, which constitutes the great mass of her confession.  The separation of these errors, instead of impairing the efficiency of the church, will greatly multiply her energies, and pave the way for new and enlarged conquests over the world.

“Let any one examine the theological mastership, which this learned and honored disciple of Christ (Melancthon) exhibited in his Apology for the Augsburg Confession—­and he will be convinced of the folly of those, who presume to think, that he, or his mighty coadjutor, (Luther,) might be materially benefited by the dogmatical and exegetical instructions of the theological professors and authors of the present times.” p. 7.8.  This all sounds well enough in the abstract, and we ourselves have frequently and with equal sincerity, praised these great reformers.  But after all, they were fallible men.  This same Melancthon, in this same Apology for the Augsburg Confession, regards Private Confession and Absolutism [sic] as the third sacrament.  At the Diet of Augsburg, he was willing to yield to Romish bishops the dangerous powers which they formerly had exercised over the churches, and when he saw danger thicken around him, he positively wrote to Luther, inquiring whether they might not, yield to the papists in the matter of private and closet masses, as will be seen in the sequel!  Besides, these modern “professors, authors,” and, we will add, pastors, do not propose to improve the Confession by any light of their own; but by the progressive light, which the Providence of God has vouchsafed to the prayers, the philological and exegetical studies of three centuries.  This light we receive with gratitude to God, and cannot for a moment doubt, that if these noble servants of Christ were now living, they would be amongst its most grateful recipients.