[684] In his numerous works, so often quoted.

[684] In his numerous works, so often quoted.

[685] Dogm. Vol. II. p. 517: 'Man darf, . . mit Zuversicht aussprechen, dass die Zukunft der theologischen Forschung an dem Fortschreiten auf dem von Melanchthon eingeschlagenen Wege hängt.'

[686] Dr. Krauth calls the Formula 'the amplest and clearest confession in which the Christian Church has ever embodied her faith,' and he goes so far as to say: 'But for the Formula of Concord, it may be questioned whether Protestantism could have been saved to the world' (Conservative Reform. p. 302). And this in full view of the independent Protestantism in Switzerland, France, Holland. England, and Scotland, which materially differs from the distinctive theology of this book, and was in vain condemned by it!

[687] We can simply allude to the internal differences of the Erlangen, Leipzig, and Rostock schools of Lutherans; to Luthardt on the freedom of the will; to Thomasius on the Kenosis; to Kahnis on the Lord's Supper, inspiration, and the canon of the Scripture; to the Hofmann and Philippi controversy on the atonement; to Hengstenberg's articles on justification and the Epistle of James; to the disputes on the millenarian question; and to the controversy on Church government and the relation of the ministry to the general priesthood of believers, in which Huschke, Stahl, Kliefoth, Vilmar, and Löhe take High-Church ground against the Low-Church views of Höfling, Harless, Diedrich, etc. Some of these controversies, especially the question of the ministerial office (Amtsfrage), are also disturbing the peace of the orthodox Lutherans in America, and divide them into hostile synods (the Missouri Synod versus the Grabau Synod, Iowa Synod, and portions of the General Council, not to mention several subdivisions). The eschatological controversy separates the Iowa Synod from Grabau and the Missourians, who denounce millenarianism as a heresy. The smallest doctrinal difference among orthodox Lutherans in America is considered sufficient to justify the formation of a new synod with close-communion principles. And yet all these Lutherans adopt the Formula Concordiæ as the highest standard of pure Scripture orthodoxy. Is this Concordia concors, or Concordia discors?

[688] See the Preface. An able argument for this agreement is presented by Prof. Thomasius, of Erlangen, in his Das Bekenntniss der evangelisch-lutherischen Kirche in der Consequent seines Princips, Nürnberg, 1848. He develops the doctrines of the Formula from Luther's doctrine of justification by faith as the organic life-principle of the Lutheran Church. But the Lutheran doctrine of the eucharist with the communicatio idiomatum and ubiquity of the body have--as the creeds of the Reformed churches prove--no necessary connection with justification by faith; and on these points, which constitute the peculiar features of the Formula, the author of the Augsburg Confession himself represented, even before Luther's death, a different line of development.

[689] Andreæ, in a letter to Heshusius and Wigand, of July 24, 1576, giving an account of the results of the Torgau Convention (quoted by Heppe, Vol. III. p. 111), thus characteristically sets forth the object of the whole movement in which he and the Elector Augustus were the chief leaders: 'Hoc enim sancte vobis affirmare et polliceri ausim, Illust. Electorem Saxoniæ in hoc unice intentum, ut Lutheri Doctrina partim obscurata, partim vitiata, partim aperte vel occulte damnata, pura et sincera in scholis et Ecclesiis restituatur, adeoque Lutherus, hoc est Christus, cuius fidelis minister Lutherus fuit, vivat. Quid vultis amplius? Nihil hic fucatum, nihil palliatum, nihil tectum est, sed juxta spiritum Lutheri, qui Christi est.' And Chemnitz wrote, June 29, 1576: 'Mentio librorum Philippi expuncta est, et responsione hoc in parte retulimus nos ad Lichtenbergense decretmn.' Some zealots, like Heshusius, desired that Melanchthon should be condemned, by name, in the Formula, but Andreæ thought it better 'to cover the shame of Noah,' and to be silent about the apostasy of the Lutheran Solomon. Dr. Krauth, too, says (Conservative Reform. p. 327): 'The Book of Concord treats Melanchthon as the Bible treats Solomon. It opens wide the view of his wisdom and glory, and draws the veil over the record of his sadder days.' In the Formula itself he is nowhere named, but in the Preface to the 'Book of Concord' his writings are spoken of as 'utilia neque repudianda ac damnanda, quatenus cum ea norma, quæ Concordiæ libro expressa est, per omnia consentiunt.'

[690] There is no full and satisfactory account of the history and character of the Form of Concord in the English language, except in Dr. Krauth's Conservative Reformation and its Theology, pp. 288-328; and this, in accordance with the aim of this learned and able author, is apologetic and polemic rather than historical. Dr. Shedd, in his valuable History of Christian Doctrine (Vol. II. p. 458), devotes only a few lines to it. Dr. Fisher, in his excellent work on the Reformation (N. Y. 1873), disposes of it in a foot-note (p. 481). In Dr. Blunt's Dictionary of Sects, etc. (London, 1874), it has no place among the Protestant Confessions, and the brief allusion to it sub 'Lutherans,' p. 269, only exposes the ignorance of the writer. The doctrines of the Form of Concord are frequently, though mostly polemically, noticed in Dr. Hodge's Systematic Theology (N.Y. 1873, 3 vols.).