The Conservative Reformation and Its Theology - Saint Mary ...

defective in the evangelical element? The name Evangelical is now given,
out of the bounds of the Lutheran Church, to the Christianity of the heart
everywhere, to all that makes much of Christ in the right way. It is a poor
trick of some extravagant party within a party--some paltry clique in
Protestantism at large, or in one of its communions--to attempt to
monopolize the name Evangelical. Where thoughtful men accept the word
in this narrowed sense, they despise it--but it is, in its true, original
compass, a noble, a glorious name, not to be lightly abandoned to those
who abuse it. The true corrective of abuse, is to restore, or hold fast the
right use. Our Church, to which it belongs in the great historic sense, has a
claim in her actual life, second to none, to wear it. She is the Evangelical
Church.
Protestant.
At the Diet of Spire, (1529,) the Evangelical Lutheran Confessors,
from their protest against the government of the Bishops and against the
enforced imposition of the Mass, received the name of PROTESTANTS.
This continued to be the diplomatic style of the Church till the peace of
Westphalia, 1648. "The name Protestants," says Archbishop Bramhall, "is
one to which others have no right but by communion with the Lutherans."
This name, in European usage, is indeed, to a large extent, still confined to
them.
Church of the Augsburg Confession.
In Poland and Hungary, the official title of our communion is
"CHURCH OF THE AUGSBURG CONFESSION," and this is the
name which, on the title-page of the Form of Concord, and repeatedly
within it, is given, to our churches. 98
The name LUTHERAN was first used by Eck, when he published
the Bull against Luther. Pope Hadrian VI. (1522) employed it, also, as a
term of reproach. It was applied by the Romanists to all who took part
against the Pope. 99 Luther strongly disapproved of the use of his name,
while he warned men at
98 “Electors. Prince, and States of the Augsburg Confession," "who embrace the Augsburg Confession." Gerhard, in
the title-page of his "Confessio Catholica": "The Catholic and Evangelical doctrine as it is professed by the churches
devoted (addicts) to the Augsburg Confession."
99 In the German of the Apology of the A. C., 213, 44, it is said: "The saving doctrine, the precious, Holy Gospel,
they call Lutheran."