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

It is our shield and our sword, our ensign and our arming, the constitution
of our state, the life of our body, the germ of our being. It is the bond of
our union throughout the world, and by it, and with it, our Church, as a
distinct organization, must stand or fall. Her life began, indeed, before it, as
the vital point of the embryo exists before the heart and brain are formed,
but having once evoked the Confession into which her own life flowed-they
live or perish together, as that embryo grows or dies, as the vital
organs expand in life or shrink in death.
In the Symbolical books of the Lutheran Church, the first place,
indeed, is justly held by those general Confessions, in which the pure
Church has united, in every age since their formation, and in which,
throughout the world, it now concurs. These are the Apostles', the
Nicaeno-Constantinopolitan, and Athanasian creeds. She thus vindicates
her true catholicity and antiquity, and declares that the name of Lutheran
does not define her essence, but simply refers to one grand fact
1835. BRETSCHNEIDER: Annales vitae Melanchthonis. a. 1530. (2d vol. of Corpus Reform.)-Cox: Life of
Melanchthon. Boston, 1835. Ch. viii.- 1837. KöLLNER: Symb. d. Luth. Kirche. 150-226, -D'AUBIGNE:
Reformation (1837.)-1838. AUDIN: Histoire de la vie, etc., de Martin Luther. Paris, 1845. Chap. xxiv. xxv.
Translated from the French. Philadelphia, 1841. Chap. xlvii. xlviii. Translated by Turnbull. London, 1854. Vol. ii.
319-353. -1839. STANG: M. Luther: Sein Leben u. Wirken. Stuttg. 1839. 600-687. — RANIE: Reformation
(1839.) -1840. WESSENBERG: Kirchenversammlungen des 15ten und 16ten Jahrhunderts. iii. 115.-1841.
RUDELBACH: Histor. kritisch Einleitung in die Augsb. Conf. Dresden,,1841. -1842. STEBBING: History of the
Church from the Diet of Augsburg, etc. London, 1842. i. 9-56. -NEUDECKER: Die Hauptversuche zur
Pacification der Ev. Prot. Kirche Deutschlands, von der Reformation bis auf unsere Tage. Leipz. 1846. 57-62.-1846.
MICHELET: Luther; translated by Smith. New York, 1846. p. 147.- 1847. FRANCKE: Lib. Symb. xiii-xx. -1848.
MüLLER: Symb. Bich. liv. Translated: The Book of Concord; New Market, 1851. xxxiii-xxxviii. 2d ed. 1854. 37-
43. 1849. ZIMMERMANN: Luther's Leben (Ref. Schr. iv.) 471-481. - 1853. SARTORIUS: Beitriage. 2d ed. 1-21.
"The Glory of the Augsburg Confession."-1854. HERZOG'S Real Encyclop. Hamb. 1854. i. 603-610. -
MATTHES: Comparat. Symbolik. 61-67. - 1855. LEDDERHOSE: Life of Melanchthon, translated by Krotel.
Philadelphia, 1855. Chap. xi. - 1857. HOFMANN: Rud. Symbolik. 229-231. - BINDSEIL, H. E.: Corpus
Reformatorum. xxvi. Pars. Prior. - 1866. GUERIKE: Handb. der Kirchen-Gesch. iii. ~ 176. (9th ed.) 1866.
—WINER: Darstellung. 3d ed. ii. 1866.- 1868. KURTZ: Lehrbuch d. K. C. { 132. 6. 7.