714 THE GERMAN REFORMATION. A.D. 1517 To 1580.
The Confession concludes with these words: “ Peter forbids bishops to be lords, and to be imperious over the churches (1 Pet. v. 8). Now, our meaning is not to take the rule from the bishops, but this one thing only is requested at their hands, that they would suffer the gospel to be purely taught, and that they would relax a few observances which cannot be held without sin. But if they will remit none, let them look how they will give account to God for this, that by their obstinacy they afford cause of division and schism.” ἢ Thus the responsibility of schism in the Latin Church was thrown upon Rome. But even if Rome and the Diet had accepted the Augsburg Confession, the schism would still have occurred by the further progress of the Protestant spirit, which no power on earth, not even Luther and Melanchthon, could arrest.
The style of the Latin edition is such as may be expected from the rare classic culture and good taste of Melanchthon ; while the order and arrangement might be considerably improved.
The diplomatic preface to the Emperor, from the pen of a lawyer, Chancellor Brick, is clumsy, tortuous, dragging, extremely obsequious, and has no other merit than to introduce the reader into the historical situation. The brief conclusion (Epilogus) is from the same source, and is followed by the signatures of seven princes and two magistrates. Several manuscript copies omit both preface and epilogue, as not properly belonging to the Confession.
Space forbids us to discuss the questions of the text, and the important variations of the Unaltered Confession of 15380,
1 It was Melanchthon’s wish (which Kéllner chose as motto for his Symb. d. luth. Kirche) : ‘‘Utinam utinam possim non quidem doninationem confirmare, sed administrationem restituere episcoporum. Video enim, qualem habituri simus ecclesiam, dissoluta πολιτεία ecclesiastica.’? Occasionally lonely voices are heard for the restoration of episcopacy in the Lutheran Church, but without effect. See F. Haupt, Der Episcopat der deutschen Reformation, oder
Artikel 28 der Augsburg Conf., Frankf., 1866; Luther und der Episcopat, 1866.
§ 120. THE CONFUTATION AND THE APOLOGY. 714
and the Altered Confession of 1540, which embodies the last improvements of its author, but has only a semi-official character and weight within the Lutheran Church.!
§ 120. The Roman Confutation and the Protestant Apology.
I. Corpus Reformatorum (MELANCHTHONIS Opera), ed. by Bretschneider and Bindseil, vol. XX VII. (1859), 646 columns, and vol. X X VIII. 1-326. These volumes contain the Confutatio Confessionis Augustane, and the two editions of Melanchthon’s Apologia Conf. Aug., in Latin and German, with Prolegomena and critical apparatus. The best and most complete edition. There are few separate editions of the Apology, but it is incorporated in all editions of the Lutheran Symbols; see Lit. in § 119. The Latin text of the Confutatio was first published by A. Fabricius Leodius in Harmonia Confess. Augustane, 1573; the German, by C. G. Miiller, 1808, from a copy of the original in the archives of Mainz, which Weber had previously inspected (rit. gesch. der Augsb. Conf., II. 439 sqq.).
II. K. ΚΙΕΒΕΕΒ (R. Cath.).. Die Augsburger Confession und ihre Widerlegung, Regensburg, 1845. Hugo LAMMER: Die vor-tridentinisch-katholische Theologie des Reformations-Zeitalters, Berlin, 1858, pp. 33-46. By the same: De Confessionis Augustane Confutatione Pontificia, in Niedner’s “ Zeitschrift fiir hist. Theol.,’’ 1858. (Lammer, a Lutheran, soon afterwards joined the Roman Church, and was ordained a priest, 1859, and appointed missionarius apostolicus, 1861.) G. PLirT (Luth.): Die Apologie der Augustana geschichtlich erklart, Erlangen, 1873. ScHAFF: Creeds, etc., I. 248. The history and literature of the Apology are usually combined with that of the Confession, as in J. G. WALCH, FEUERLIN-RIEDERER, and KOLLNER.
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The Roman “Catholic Confutation,” so called, of the Augsburg Confession, was prepared in Augsburg by order of the Emperor Charles, by the most eminent Roman divines of Germany, and bitterest opponents of Luther, especially Drs. Eck, Faber, Cochleus, in Latin and German.? The final
1 See on these questions Schaff, Creeds, I. 237 sqq., and especially Kollner, Symbolik der luth. Kirche, p. 286 sqq. and 267 sqq.
2 The full title is Catholica et quasi-extemporanea Responsio Pontificia sew Confutatio Augustane Confessionis. The first draught was verbose and bitter (‘‘ verbosior et acrior’’); the second, third, fourth, and fifth were briefer and milder,