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Discourse in Commemoration of the Glorious Reformation of the Sixteenth Century
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Samuel Simon Schmucker was an American Lutheran clergyman, theologian, and educator. Outside of the church, Schmucker was a noted abolitionist.
Background
Samuel Simon was born on February 28, 1799 at Hagerstown, Maryland, United States, where his mother, Elizabeth (Gross), and his father, the Reverend John George Schmucker, were shepherding a small Lutheran flock. The atmosphere of the parental home was that of a warm pietism.
The home had contacts, however, with broad interests through the father's active participation in the affairs of organized Lutheranism. While still a youth it was given to the son to help carry forward to success the efforts of his father and a few others in the organization of the General Synod, the first united Lutheran Church in America.
Education
Samuel's formal education consisted of discipleship under his father's theological preceptor, Justus H. C. Helmuth. In 1819 Schmucker was graduated gratiae causa from the University of Pennsylvania, and in 1820, from the Princeton Theological Seminary, where he learned anew to respect puritanical notions and practices.
Career
Licensed in 1820 and ordained a year later, Schmucker served his only parish, consisting of five congregations with New Market, Virginia, as center, for nearly six years.
Later he left Princeton for the translation of some one important work on Lutheran dogmatics, the establishment of a Lutheran theological seminary, and the founding of a college. All three were early realized: his Biblical Theology of Storr and Flatt, translated from the German appeared in two volumes in 1826; in 1825, he was elected first professor in the theological seminary at Gettysburg, opened in 1826, which he helped to found; and the classical school, which he initiated in 1827, became, under a charter granted five years later, Pennsylvania College (now Gettysburg).
From 1832 to 1834 Schmucker served as president of the college. He framed model constitutions for congregations and synods; he published in 1834 the first English Lutheran work on systematic theology appearing in this country, Elements of Popular Theology; he helped to prepare hymnbooks, liturgical forms, new editions of Luther's catechism containing free interpretations; he took active part in the efforts toward church unity, particularly by his publication in 1838 of the widely discussed Appeal to the American Churches (a document antedating the fellowship plan of the present Federal Council of Churches) and by active participation in the organization of the Evangelical Alliance in 1846.
For many years he held the reins of theological leadership in the General Synod. In the 1840's, however, forces began to gather strength which ultimately took the reins from his hands. The impending explosion came with the publication of the anonymous document called the Definite Platform, Doctrinal and Disciplinarian, for Evangelical Lutheran District Synods (1855), prepared by Schmucker.
In 1864 he left his chair and died in 1873.
Achievements
Samuel Simon Schmucker was influencial in the founding of the Lutheran church body known as the General Synod, as well as the oldest continuously-operating Lutheran seminary (Gettysburg Seminary) and college in North America (Gettysburg College). His published works number more than one hundred. Among them are: Elements of Popular Theology (1834), Retrospect of Lutheranism (1841), The American Lutheran Church, Historically, Doctrinally, and Practically Delineated (1851), The Lutheran Symbols (1856) and others.
Schmucker Hall of the Gettysburg Seminary was named in his honor.
Schmucker advocated of an American Lutheranism sought to have adopted their confessional position in a recension of the Augsburg Confession as a minimum platform of agreement.
Because Schmucker denied the Real Presence in the Lord's Supper, he is categorically placed in the "Un-Lutheran" camp by Charles Porterfield Krauth. Schmucker wrote, "worthy communicants, in this ordinance, by faith spiritually feed on the body and blood of the Redeemer, thus holding communion or fellowship with Him. " This demonstrates Schmucker held to the Calvinist spiritual explanation of the Lord's Supper rather than the Lutheran teaching of Sacramental Union.
Politics
Schmucker had fervent anti-war convictions. He was one of the few Lutheran leaders in America to publicly oppose the war with Mexico.
Personality
By nature Samuel Simon Schmucker was even-tempered and irenic; though graciously tolerant of the views of others, he steadfastly and openly defended convictions of his own. He excelled greatly in the virtue of integrity. He had a systematic mind.
He generally presented the argument of a theme only after he had carefully marshaled and set forth facts; he sought for intelligent judgment and not for emotional assent.
Connections
Samuel Simon was three times married: first, February 28, 1821, to Elenora Geiger of Hagerstown, Maryland, who died July 3, 1823, having borne him one son; second, October 12, 1825, to Mary Catherine Steenbergen of the Shenandoah Valley, Virginia, who died February 11, 1848, the mother of twelve children; third, April 28, 1849, to Esther M. Wagner of Germantown, Pennsylvania. Of his four gifted sons, one, Beale Melanchthon, became a conspicuous leader in the conservative camp opposing his father's liberal outlook.
