They have the Confession. They have the gospel.
If they are willing to yield to it, then it is well. If they are
unwilling, they may go. If war comes out of it, let it come. We have
entreated and done enough. The Lord has prepared them as victims for the
slaughter, that he may reward them according to their works. But us, his
people, he will deliver, even if we were sitting in the fiery furnace at
Babylon." [Note 17] Thus have we heard abundant evidence from the lips
of Melancthon and Luther themselves, that the circumstances under which
the Augsburg Confession was composed, in eight days, before its
submission for Luther's sanction, and the increasing pressure under
which Melancthon afterwards made numerous changes in it, during five
weeks before its presentation to the Diet, were far from being favorable
to a full and free exhibition of the deliberate views of the Reformers
even at that date, and fully account for some of the remnants of
Romanism still found in that confession, whose import we are now to
examine. The declaration of that elaborate historian _Arnold_, is
therefore only too true; "_Melancthon had prepared the Confession amid
great fear and trembling, and in many things accommodated himself to
the Papists_." (Nun hatte dieselbe Melancthon zuvor in grossen Zittern
und Angsten aufgesetzet, und sich in vielen nach den Papisten
bequemet.
Pages:
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76