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

oll of the kettle-drum. In the Augsburg Confession Truth makes her
overtures of peace, in the Schmalcald Articles she lays down her
ultimatum in a declaration of war.
That which was secondary in the Augsburg Confession is primary in
the Schmalcald Articles. At Augsburg our Church stood up for the Truth,
that error might die by the life of Truth; at Schmalcald she stood up against
the error, that Truth might live by the death of error. To utter her new
testimony, to take her new vantage ground, was to use conquests made, as
a basis for conquests yet to be made.
Their value.
The Jesuits, indeed, set up the cry, that the Schmalcald Articles are in
conflict with the Augsburg Confession. Our Church, by an overwhelming
majority, has answered the falsehood, by placing them among her crown
jewels. And there they deserve to be. "Not only were the doctrines of the
Church presented clearly, but they were stated so thoroughly in Luther's
style, might and spirit, that the era which he moved so profoundly, could
not but recognize in them, alike a faithful image of the Truth, and a new
point of support for it. In these Articles Luther presents directly the
principles of the Evangelical (Lutheran) Church, and of the Romish See, in
their conflict. In the name of the Evangelical Church he has spoken
against the whole Papacy a bold and manly word, the word of refutation,
with nothing to weaken its force. And this fact is decisive in establishing
their high value for our own time. The impossibility of uniting the
Evangelical (Lutheran) Church's pure life with Rome's worldly aims, is set
in so clear a light, that the Evangelical Church will ever look upon this
Symbol with the greatest reverence, and cling to it with true devotion.
Melanchthon's Appendix to the Articles is classic alike in form and
matter. For our Church these writings must ever remain very weighty, and
the more because outside of them there is nowhere else in the Symbols so
ample a statement about the Papacy, and what is to be noted well, so
ample a statement against it." (Köllner.) "They form," says Miller, 199 "with
the earlier Symbols a complete whole, yet have, for the reasons given, an
independent
199 Die Symb. Bücher, lxxxii.