Читать книгу Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church - Bente Friedrich - Страница 31

The changes made in the Augsburg Confession brought great distress, heavy cares, and bitter struggles upon the Lutheran Church both from within and without. Church history records the manifold and sinister ways in which they were exploited by the Reformed as well as the Papists; especially by the latter (the Jesuits) at the religious colloquies beginning 1540, until far into the time of the Thirty Years' War, in order to deprive the Lutherans of the blessings guaranteed by the religious Peace of Augsburg, 1555. (Salig, Gesch. d. A. K., 1, 770 ff.; Lehre und Wehre 1919, 218 ff.)

On Melanchthon's alterations of the Augsburg Confession the Romanists, as the Preface to the Book of Concord explains, based the reproach and slander that the Lutherans themselves did not know "which is the true and genuine Augsburg Confession." (15.) Decrying the Lutherans, they boldly declared "that not two preachers are found who agree in each and every article of the Augsburg Confession, but that they are rent asunder and separated from one another to such an extent that they themselves no longer know what is the Augsburg Confession and its proper sense." (1095.) In spite of the express declaration of the Lutherans at Naumburg, 1561, that they were minded to abide by the original Augsburg Confession as presented to Emperor Charles V at Augsburg, 1530, the Papists and the Reformed did not cease their calumniations, but continued to interpret their declarations to mean, "as though we [the Lutherans] were so uncertain concerning our religion, and so often had transfused it from one formula to another, that it was no longer clear to us or our theologians what is the Confession once offered to the Emperor at Augsburg." (11.)

As a result of the numerous and, in part radical changes made by Melanchthon in the Augsburg Confession, the Reformed also, in the course of time more and more, laid claim to the Variata and appealed to it over against the loyal Lutherans. In particular, they regarded and interpreted the alteration which Melanchthon had made in Article X, Of the Lord's Supper, as a correction of the original Augustana in deference to the views of Calvinism. Calvin declared that he (1539 at Strassburg) had signed the Augustana "in the sense in which its author [Melanchthon] explains it (sicut eam auctor ipse interpretatur)." And whenever the Reformed, who were regarded as confessionally related to the Augsburg Confession (Confessioni Augustanae addicti), and as such shared in the blessings of the Peace of Augsburg (1555) and the Peace of Westphalia (1648), adopted, and appealed to, the Augustana, they interpreted it according to the Variata.

Referring to this abuse on the part of the Reformed and Crypto-Calvinists, the Preface to the Book of Concord remarks: "To these disadvantages [the slanders of the Romanists] there is also added that, under the pretext of the Augsburg Confession [Variata of 1540], the teaching conflicting with the institution of the Holy Supper of the body and blood of Christ and also other corruptions were introduced here and there into the churches and schools." (11. 17.) – Thus the changes made in the Augsburg Confession did much harm to the Lutheran cause. Melanchthon belongs to the class of men that have greatly benefited our Church, but have also seriously harmed it. "These fictions" of the adversaries, says the Preface to the Book of Concord concerning the slanders based on Melanchthon's changes "have deterred and alienated many good men from our churches, schools, doctrine, faith, and confession." (11.)