CHARACTER AND VALUE.
The Augsburg Confession breathes throughout an earnest and devout evangelical Christian spirit, and is expressed in clear, mild, dignified language. It professes to be both Scriptural and churchly, and in harmony even with the Roman Church as known from the genuine tradition of antiquity. [426] It is remarkably moderate and conciliatory in tone, and free from all harsh or abusive terms. It is not aggressive, but defensive throughout. Hence its original modest name Apology. [427] It pleads only for toleration and peace. It condemns the ancient heresies (Arianism, Manicheism, Pelagianism, Donatism), which were punishable according to the laws of the German Empire. It leaves the door open for a possible reconciliation with Rome. [428] Popery itself, and many of its worst abuses, are not even touched, at least not expressly. The modest and peaceful author wrote under a painful sense of responsibility, with a strong desire for the restoration of the unity of faith, and hence he avoided, all that might give unnecessary offense to the ruling party. [429]
But the same motive made him unjust toward his fellow-Protestants, who differed from him far less than both differed from the Romanists. The Lutheran divines, after refusing at Marburg all connection with the Zwinglians, yet, being unable to convince the Catholic majority, felt that by protesting against what they regarded as ultra-Protestant radicalism they would better succeed in securing toleration for themselves. One of their leaders, however, Philip of Hesse, openly sympathized with Zwingli, and had to be specially urged by Luther to subscribe the Confession, which he did with a dissent from the tenth article. The majority of the citizens of Augsburg likewise adhered to Zwingli at that time. [430]
The Augsburg Confession is the fundamental and generally received symbol of the Lutheran Church, which also bears the name of 'the Church of the Augsburg Confession.' It is inseparable from the theology and history of that denomination; it best exhibits the prevailing genius of the German Reformation, and will ever be cherished as one of the noblest monuments of faith from the pentecostal period of Protestantism. [431]
But its influence extends far beyond the Lutheran Church. It struck the key-note to other evangelical confessions, and strengthened the cause of the Reformation every where. It is, to a certain extent, also the Confession of the Reformed and the so-called Union Churches, in Germany, namely, with the explanations and modifications of the author himself in the edition of 1540, which extended, as it were, the hand of fellowship to them (see below). In this qualified sense, either expressed or understood, the Augsburg Confession was frequently signed by Reformed divines and Princes, even by John Calvin, while ministering to the Church at Strasburg, and as delegate to the Conference of Ratisbon, 1541; [432] by Farel and Beza at the Conference in Worms, 1557; by the Calvinists at Bremen, 1562; by Frederick III., (the Reformed) Elector of the Palatinate, at the convent of Princes in Naumburg, 1561, and again at the Diet of Augsburg, 1566; by John Sigismund, of Brandenburg, in 1614. It is true that till the close of the Thirty-Years' War (1648) the Reformed were tolerated in the German Empire only as allies of the Augsburg Confession, [433] but even afterwards they continued their friendly relation to it, and maintain it to the present day without feeling any more bound by it. [434]
The last, and the most memorable occasion since 1530, on which this noble Confession was publicly acknowledged, but with a saving clause as to the interpretation of the tenth article relating to the doctrine of the Lord's Supper, was at the German Church Diet of Berlin, 1853, composed of over 1400 clergymen, of four denominations--Lutheran, German Reformed, Evangelical Unionists, and Moravians. [435]
On this fact and the whole history of the Augsburg Confession some German writers of the evangelical Unionist school have based the hope that the Augsburg Confession may one day become the united Confession or oecumenical Creed of all the evangelical churches of Germany. [436] This scheme stands and falls with the dream of a united and national Protestant Church of the German Empire. Aside from other difficulties, the Reformed and the majority of Unionists, together with a considerable body of Lutherans, can never conscientiously subscribe to the tenth article as it stands in the proper historical Confession of 1530; while orthodox Lutherans, on the other hand, will repudiate the Altered edition of 1540. The Invariata is, after all, a purely Lutheran, that is, a denominational symbol; and the Variata is a friendly approach of Lutheranism towards the Reformed communion, which had no share in its original production and subsequent modification, although it responded to it. Neither the one nor the other edition can be the expression of a union, or confederation of two distinct denominations, of which each has its own genius, history, and symbols of faith. Such an expression must proceed from the theological and religious life of both, and meet the wants of the present age. Great as the Augsburg Confession is, the Church will produce something greater still whenever the Spirit of God moves it to a new act of faith in opposition to the unbelief and misbelief of modern times. Every age must do its own work in its own way.