FAITH
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FAITH
to be burdened by Buch things, as if necessary to sal-
vation. " Art. XVI inculcates the duty of obedience
to civil rulers. Art. XVII deals with the Last Judg-
ment. Art. XVIII, "On Free Will", is a bold de-
parture, on the part of Melanchthon, from Luther's
fundamental heresy of the enslaved will of fallen man.
"They teach that man's will hath some liberty to
work a civil righteousness, and to choose such things
as reason can reach unto; but that it hath no power
to work the righteousness of God or a spiritual right-
eousness, without the Spirit of God." This sounds
Catholic enough. Art. XX repels the accusation that
the Lutherans "forbid good works", and falsely ac-
cuses the Catholics of relying on good works for justifi-
cation. Art. XXI teaches that we should honour the
memory of the Saints, but not invoke their aid.
They conclude the doctrinal part of the Confession with the words: "This is about the sum of our doc- trine," with the protest of agreement with the Roman Church given above. "We have no dogmas", Mel- anchthon wrote to the papal legate. 6 .July, "which differ from the Roman Church. Moreover, we are ready to submit to the Roman Church, if Rome, with the leniency she has at all times shown to all nations, will consent to overlook and keep silence on some slight matters which we cannot alter, even if we wished to do so. We reverence the authority of the Pope of Rome", etc. Meanwhile Luther was de- nouncing "the Pope and his crew" as "veritable devils", and Melanchthon styled the pope "an Anti- Christ, under whose rule they would be like the Jews under Pharaoh in Egypt" (Janssen, History of the German People, tr. St. Louis, 1903, V, 254). The "shght matters", which Rome was asked to connive at, are enumerated in seven articles in Part II of the Confession, with such prolixity that we can scarcely blame the emperor if during the reading on a hot day he fell into a slumber. They are grouped under the headings of (1) Communion under both kinds; (2) The ilarriage of Priests; (3) The Mass; (4) Compul- sory Confession; (5) Distinction of Meats, and Tradi- tions; (6) Monastic Vows; and (7) The Authority of Bishops. To any one who hail followed the course of the Lutheran revolution, it must have been amusing to read the following statement: " Our churches are wrongfully accused to have abolished the Moss. For the Mass is retained still among us, and celebrated with great reverence, yea, and almost all the ceremo- nies that are in use" — evidently the omission of the Canon was a slight matter — "saving that with the things sung in Latin we mingle certain things sung in German."
We have given this synopsis of a document often spoken of, but seldom read, to show the spirit in which it was drawn up. It has been aptly termed a political campaign document, calculated to impress the Estates that the Lutherans, themselves supremely intolerant towards Catholics, should be permitted to proceed in peace in the uprooting of the ancient Faith. The Confession was accompanied with a Pref- ace, written by Chancellor Briick of Saxony, in which the engagement was made that should the contro- versy not be settled at the Diet, the signers were " ready to compare views and defend their cause in a general, free, and Christian Council". What this en- gagement amounted to was made manifest later on when the council convened at Trent. The studied moderation, not to say disingenuousness, of the Augs- burg Confession is said to have deceived some mem- bers of the Diet, as to the importance of the issue at stake between Catholics and Lutherans; but it could not deceive such veteran controversialists as Eck, Wimpina, CochUcus, and the other theologians to whom Charles referred the document for discussion.
In a remarkably calm and able "Answer", after- wards called "Confutation", they analyze the Confes- s-on, giving praise and censure where either is due.
Melanchthon retorted with an "Apologia" which
Lutherans generally regard as their second symbolic
book; Charles refused to accept it, because of the vio-
lent language used against the Catholic Church. Since
Melanchthon looked on the " Confessio Augustana " as
his private property, he continued ever after to com-
ment on it, and revise the text to suit his wavering
views. Most notorious, and the source of endless con-
troversies amongst Lutherans, was the altered edition
of 1540, issued at a time when Melanchthon was under
the spell of Calvin. Art. X lost its Catholic tone and
was made to read that " with the bread and wine the
Body and Blood of Christ are truly exhibited to those
who eat in the Lord's Supper", a statement to which a
Calvinist might subscribe. We must not, however,
throw too much blame on Melanchthon and other
preachers ; the political magnates have to be considered.
The Sm.\lc.\ld Articles. — Any hopes of a recon- ciliation which were founded on the studied modera- tion of the Augsburg Confession were rudely dispelled seven years later when the Protestant Estates, assem- bled at Smalcald, spurned the pope's offer of that General Council for which, with more than dubious sincerity, they had clamored so long, and commis- sioned Luther to expound the articles in which they differed from the Roman Church. Following the general lines of the Augsburg Confession, Luther, by injecting his strongest anti-papal virus into the docu- ment, changed it from an olive-branch into an open declaration of war with the Catholic Church. 'The pope and the devil are identical; the Mass is the dragon's tail, producing all sorts of abominations and idolatries; purgatory is a Satanic delusion, etc., etc. When asked to affix his signature to this insane effu- sion, Melanchthon did so, with the proviso that " if the pope would admit the gospel, we might permit him, for the sake of peace and the common concord of Christendom, to exercise by human right, his present jurisdiction over the bishops, who are now or may hereafter be under his authority." The princes, re- senting this covert attack upon their spiritual sover- eignty, compelled the weak man to write a pamphlet denouncing the pope as anti-Christ.
The Formula of Concord. — Scarcely were Luther's remains placed in the tomb than, as he had foreseen, fierce contentions broke out among the preachers, which shook the Lutheran Churches to their founda- tions. The earliest of these theological battles raged about the person of Melanchthon, who in his later years departed more and more openly from the two most important tenets of his master; on the subject of free will in fallen man, he approached closely to the Catholic position; regarding the Eucharist he became ever more Calvinistic. He also incurred the reproaches of the orthodox by accepting, with modi- fications, the "Interim Religion" of Charles V. In course of time, new topics of controversy rose to di- vide the theologians, until, in 1570, Jacobus Andrese could vvTite " that there were scarcely a couple of preachers among them who did not disagree about some article or other of the Augsburg Confession" (Janssen, op. cit., VIII, 403). Tired of their endless wranglings, which were as destructive of moral and social as of religious order, the Elector Augustus of Saxony proposed to cut the knot " by princely edict". He suggested to the Lutheran princes to convene an assembly to which each would bring his own code of doctrine. From all these different formula; they would then, with the help of a few amicable theolo- gians, construct a general code which should be printed, and should be considered binding on the whole body of preachers. This convention was held at Torgau, in June, 1576. In addition to twelve Saxon divines, whom the Elector had cowed into submission, there were present, Andrea;, Chemnitz, Chytneus, Musculus and Kccrner.
A new " Formula of Concord ", known as the "Tor-
