American Lutheranism, page 99 by Friedrich Bente
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toward Non-Lutherans.--In the Lutheran Encyclopedia H. E. Jacobs says in praise of Muhlenberg: "He knew how to combine width of view and cordiality of friendship towards those of other communions, with strict adherence to principle." (331.) Similar views had been expressed by Dr. W. J. Mann at the First Free Lutheran Diet at Philadelphia. In his "Theses on the Lutheranism of the Fathers of the Church in This Country" he said: "Their Lutheranism did not differ from the Lutheran orthodoxy of the preceding period, in the matter of doctrine, but to an extent in the manner of applying it. It was orthodoxy practically vitalized. They were less polemical and theoretical. Whilst tolerant toward those of other convictions, they were, however, neither indifferent nor unionistically inclined, and never conformed Lutheranism to any other form of Christianity, though in their days the pressure in this direction was heavy." (Spaeth, C. P. Krauth, 1, 318.) However, though Muhlenberg's intentions undoubtedly were to be and remain a Lutheran, his fraternal intercourse and intimate fellowship with the Reformed, Episcopalians, Methodists, and other denominations, was of a nature incompatible with true Lutheranism. He evidently regarded the various Christian communions as sister churches, who had practically the same divine right to exist and to propagate their distinctive views as the Lutheran Church. Such was the principle of indifferentism on which Muhlenberg based his practise of fraternal recognition and fellowship. The natural and inevitable result of his relations with the sects was that the free, open, and necessary confession of Lutheran truth over against Reformed error was weakened and muffled, and finally smothered and entirely silenced and omitted. Nor can it be denied that Muhlenberg, by this unionism and indifferentism, wasted and corrupted much of the rich blessings which God bestowed, and purposed to bestow, on the American Lutheran Church through him. Like Dr. Wrangel and the Swedes in Delaware ge