Formula of Concord

Comprehensive Summary, Rule and Norm according to which all dogmas should be judged, and the erroneous teachings [controversies] that have occurred should be decided and explained in a Christian way. 1. We believe, teach, and confess that the sole rule and standard according to which all dogmas together with [all] teachers should be estimated and judged are the prophetic and apostolic Scriptures of the Old and of the New Testament alone, as it is written Ps. 119:105: Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. And St. Paul: Though an angel from heaven preach any other gospel unto you, let him be accursed, Gal. 1:8. Other writings, however, of ancient or modern teachers, whatever name they bear, must not be regarded as equal to the Holy Scriptures, but all of them together be subjected to them, and should not be received otherwise or further than as witnesses, [which are to show] in what manner after the time of the apostles, and at what places, this [pure] doctrine of the prophets and apostles was preserved. 2. And because directly after the times of the apostles, and even while they were still living, false teachers and heretics arose, and symbols, i. e., brief, succinct [categorical] confessions, were composed against them in the early Church, which were regarded as the unanimous, universal Christian faith and confession of the orthodox and true Church, namely, the Apostles' Creed, the Nicene Creed, and the Athanasian Creed, we pledge ourselves to them, and hereby reject all heresies and dogmas which, contrary to them, have been introduced into the Church of God. 3. As to the schisms in matters of faith, however, which have occurred in our time, we regard as the unanimous consensus and declaration of our Christian faith and confession, especially against the Papacy and its false worship, idolatry, superstition, and against other sects, as the symbol of our time, the First, Unaltered Augsburg Confession, delivered to the Emperor Charles V at Augsburg in the year 1530, in the great Diet, together with its Apology, and the Articles composed at Smalcald in the year 1537, and subscribed at that time by the chief theologians. And because such matters concern also the laity and the salvation of their souls, we also confess the Small and Large Catechisms of Dr. Luther, as they are included in Luther's works, as the Bible of the laity, wherein everything is comprised which is treated at greater length in Holy Scripture, and is necessary for a Christian man to know for his salvation. To this direction, as above announced, all doctrines are to be conformed, and what is contrary thereto is to be rejected and condemned, as opposed to the unanimous declaration of our faith. In this way the distinction between the Holy Scriptures of the Old and of the New Testament and all other writings is preserved, and the Holy Scriptures alone remain the only judge, rule, and standard, according to which, as the only test-stone, all dogmas shall and must be discerned and judged, as to whether they are good or evil, right or wrong. But the other symbols and writings cited are not judges, as are the Holy Scriptures, but only a testimony and declaration of the faith, as to how at any time the Holy Scriptures have been understood and explained in the articles in controversy in the Church of God by those then living, and how the opposite dogma was rejected and condemned.

STATUS CONTROVERSIAE: The Principal Question in This Controversy. Whether original sin is properly and without any distinction man's corrupt nature, substance, and essence, or at any rate the principal and best part of his essence [substance], namely, the rational soul itself in its highest state and powers; or whether, even after the Fall, there is a distinction between man's substance, nature, essence, body, soul, and original sin, so that the nature [itself] is one thing, and original sin, which inheres in the corrupt nature and corrupts the nature, another. AFFIRMATIVE THESES. 1. We believe, teach, and confess that there is a distinction between man's nature, not only as he was originally created by God pure and holy and without sin, but also as we have it now after the Fall, namely, between the nature itself, which even after the Fall is and remains a creature of God, and original sin, and that this distinction is as great as the distinction between a work of God and a work of the devil. 2. We believe, teach, and confess also that this distinction should be maintained with the greatest care, because this doctrine, that no distinction is to be made between our corrupt human nature and original sin, conflicts with the chief articles of our Christian faith concerning creation, redemption, sanctification, and the resurrection of our body, and cannot coexist therewith. 3. But, on the other hand, we believe, teach, and confess that original sin is not a slight, but so deep a corruption of human nature that nothing healthy or uncorrupt has remained in man's body or soul, in his inner or outward powers, but, as the Church sings: Through Adam's fall is all corrupt, nature and essence human. This damage is unspeakable, and cannot be discerned by reason, but only from God's Word. And no one but God alone can separate from one another the nature and this corruption of the nature. NEGATIVE THESES: Rejection of the False Opposite Dogmas. 1. Therefore we reject and condemn the teaching that original sin is only a reatus or debt on account of what has been committed by another, without any corruption of our nature. 2. Also, that evil lusts are not sin, but con-created, essential properties of the nature. 3. We likewise reject the Pelagian error, by which it is alleged that man's nature even after the Fall is incorrupt, and especially with respect to spiritual things has remained entirely good and pure in naturalibus, i. e., in its natural powers. 4. Also, that original sin is only a slight, insignificant spot on the outside, dashed upon the nature, or a blemish that has been blown upon it. 5. Also, that original sin is only an external impediment to the good spiritual powers, and not a despoliation or want of the same. 6. Also, that in man the human nature and essence are not entirely corrupt, but that man still has something good in him, even in spiritual things, namely, capacity, skill, aptness, or ability in spiritual things to begin, to work, or to help working for something good. 7. On the other hand, we also reject the false dogma of the Manicheans, when it is taught that original sin, as something essential and self-subsisting, has been infused by Satan into the nature, and intermingled with it, as poison and wine are mixed. 8. Also, that not the natural man, but something else and extraneous to man, sins, on account of which not the nature, but only original sin in the nature, is accused. 9. We reject and condemn also as a Manichean error the doctrine that original sin is properly and without any distinction the substance, nature, and essence itself of the corrupt man. For original sin is not a sin which is committed, but it inheres in the nature, substance, and essence of man, so that, though no wicked thought ever should arise in the heart of corrupt man, no idle word were spoken, no wicked deed were done, yet the nature is nevertheless corrupted through original sin, which is born in us by reason of the sinful seed, and is a fountainhead of all other actual sins, as it is written Matt. 15:19: Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts. Also Gen. 8:21: The imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth.

STATUS CONTROVERSIAE: The Principal Question in This Controversy. Since the will of man is found in four unlike states, namely: 1. before the Fall; 2. since the Fall; 3. after regeneration; 4. after the resurrection of the body, the chief question is only concerning the will and ability of man in the second state, namely, what powers in spiritual things he has of himself after the fall of our first parents and before regeneration, and whether he is able by his own powers, prior to and before his regeneration by God's Spirit, to dispose and prepare himself for God's grace, and to accept, or not, the grace offered through the Holy Ghost in the Word and holy Sacraments. AFFIRMATIVE THESES. 1. Concerning this subject, our doctrine, faith, and confession is, that in spiritual things the understanding and reason of man are altogether blind, and by their own powers understand nothing, as it is written 1 Cor. 2:14: The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him. 2. Likewise we believe, teach, and confess that the unregenerate will of man is not only turned away from God, but also has become an enemy of God, so that it only has an inclination and desire for that which is evil and contrary to God, as it is written Gen. 8:21 and Rom. 8:7: The carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the Law of God, neither indeed can be. Yea, as little as a dead body can quicken itself to bodily life, so little can man, who by sin is spiritually dead, raise himself to spiritual life. 3. God the Holy Ghost, however, does not effect conversion without means, but uses for this purpose the preaching and hearing of God's Word, as it is written Rom. 1:16: The Gospel is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth. Also Rom. 10:17: Faith cometh by hearing of the Word of God. With this Word the Holy Ghost is present, and opens hearts, so that they are attentive to it, and are thus converted alone through the grace and power of the Holy Ghost, whose work alone the conversion of man is. NEGATIVE THESES: Contrary False Doctrine. 1. The delirium of philosophers who are called Stoics, as also of the Manicheans, who taught that everything that happens must so happen, and cannot happen otherwise, and that everything that man does, even in outward things, he does by compulsion. 2. We reject also the error of the gross Pelagians, who taught that man by his own powers, without the grace of the Holy Ghost, can turn himself to God, believe the Gospel, be obedient from the heart to God's Law, and thus merit the forgiveness of sins and eternal life. 3. We reject also the error of the Semi-Pelagians, who teach that man by his own powers can make a beginning of his conversion, but without the grace of the Holy Ghost cannot complete it. 4. Also, when it is taught that, although man by his free will before regeneration is too weak to make a beginning, yet, if the Holy Ghost by the preaching of the Word has made a beginning, then the will of man from its own natural powers can add something to this end, can help and cooperate, qualify and prepare itself for grace. 5. Also, that man, after he has been born again, can perfectly observe and completely fulfil God's Law, and that this fulfilling is our righteousness before God, by which we merit eternal life. 6. Also, we reject and condemn the error of the Enthusiasts, who imagine that God without means, without the hearing of God's Word, also without the use of the holy Sacraments, draws men to Himself, and enlightens, justifies, and saves them. But, on the other hand, it is correctly said that in conversion God, through the drawing of the Holy Ghost, makes out of stubborn and unwilling men willing ones, and that after such conversion the regenerate will of man is not idle, but also cooperates in all the works of the Holy Ghost, which He performs through us. Therefore, before the conversion of man there are only two efficient causes, namely, the Holy Ghost and the Word of God, as the instrument of the Holy Ghost, by which He works conversion. This Word man is to hear; however, it is not by his own powers, but only through the grace and working of the Holy Ghost that he can yield faith to it and accept it.

STATUS CONTROVERSIAE: The Principal Question in This Controversy. Since it is unanimously confessed in our churches, in accordance with God's Word and the sense of the Augsburg Confession, that we poor sinners are justified before God and saved alone by faith in Christ, and thus Christ alone is our Righteousness, who is true God and man, because in Him the divine and human natures are personally united with one another, the question has arisen: According to which nature is Christ our Righteousness? and thus two contrary errors have arisen in some churches. AFFIRMATIVE THESES. 1. Against both the errors, we unanimously believe, teach, and confess that Christ is our Righteousness neither according to the divine nature alone nor according to the human nature alone, but that it is the entire Christ according to both natures, in His obedience alone, which as God and man He rendered to the Father even unto death, and thereby merited for us the forgiveness of sins and eternal life, as it is written: As by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of One shall many be made righteous, Rom. 5:19. 2. Accordingly, we believe, teach, and confess that our righteousness before God is this, that God forgives us our sins out of pure grace, without any work, merit, or worthiness of ours preceding, present, or following, that He presents and imputes to us the righteousness of Christ's obedience, on account of which righteousness we are received into grace by God, and regarded as righteous. 3. We believe, teach, and confess that faith alone is the means and instrument whereby we lay hold of Christ, and thus in Christ of that righteousness which avails before God, for whose sake this faith is imputed to us for righteousness, Rom. 4:5. 4. We believe, teach, and confess that this faith is not a bare knowledge of the history of Christ, but such a gift of God by which we come to the right knowledge of Christ as our Redeemer in the Word of the Gospel, and trust in Him that for the sake of His obedience alone we have, by grace, the forgiveness of sins. 5. We believe, teach, and confess that according to the usage of Holy Scripture the word justify means in this article, to absolve, that is, to declare free from sins. Rom. 8:33: Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth. 6. We believe, teach, and confess also that notwithstanding the fact that many weaknesses and defects cling to the true believers, even to the grave, still they must not on that account doubt either their righteousness which has been imputed to them by faith, or the salvation of their souls. 7. We believe, teach, and confess that for the preservation of the pure doctrine concerning the righteousness of faith before God it is necessary to urge with special diligence the exclusive particles, i. e., the following words of the holy Apostle Paul: Of grace, without merit, without Law, without works, not of works. 8. We believe, teach, and confess that, although the contrition that precedes, and the good works that follow, do not belong to the article of justification before God, yet after man has been justified by faith, then a true living faith worketh by love, Gal. 5:6, so that thus good works always follow justifying faith, and are surely found with it, if it be true and living. NEGATIVE THESES: Rejection of the False Opposite Dogmas. 1. That Christ is our Righteousness according to His divine nature alone. 2. That Christ is our Righteousness according to His human nature alone. 3. That in the sayings of the prophets and apostles the words justify and to be justified are not to signify declaring or being declared free from sins, but actually being made righteous before God, because of love infused by the Holy Ghost. 4. That faith looks not only to the obedience of Christ, but to His divine nature, as it dwells and works in us, and that by this indwelling our sins are covered. 5. That faith is such a trust in the obedience of Christ as can exist and remain in a man even when he has no genuine repentance, in whom also no love follows, but who persists in sins against his conscience. 6. That not God Himself, but only the gifts of God, dwell in believers. 7. That faith saves on this account, because by faith the renewal, which consists in love to God and one's neighbor, is begun in us. 8. That faith has the first place in justification, nevertheless also renewal and love belong to our righteousness before God. 9. That believers are justified before God and saved jointly by the imputed righteousness of Christ and by the new obedience begun in them. 10. That the promise of grace is made our own by faith in the heart, and by the confession which is made with the mouth, and by other virtues. 11. That faith does not justify without good works; so that good works are necessarily required for righteousness, and without their presence man cannot be justified.

STATUS CONTROVERSIAE: The Principal Question in the Controversy concerning Good Works. Concerning the doctrine of good works two divisions have arisen in some churches. First, some theologians have become divided because the one side wrote: Good works are necessary for salvation. It is impossible to be saved without good works. But the other side, on the contrary, wrote: Good works are injurious to salvation. Afterwards a schism arose also with respect to the two words necessary and free. AFFIRMATIVE THESES. 1. That good works certainly and without doubt follow true faith, if it is not a dead, but a living faith, as fruits of a good tree. 2. We believe, teach, and confess also that good works should be entirely excluded, just as well in the question concerning salvation as in the article of justification before God, as the apostle testifies: By grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not of works, lest any man should boast, Eph. 2:8-9. 3. We believe, teach, and confess also that all men, but those especially who are born again and renewed by the Holy Ghost, are bound to do good works. 4. In this sense the words necessary, shall, and must are employed correctly and in a Christian manner also with respect to the regenerate, and in no way are contrary to the form of sound words and speech. 5. Nevertheless, by the words necessity and necessary, if they be employed concerning the regenerate, not coercion, but only due obedience is to be understood, which the truly believing render not from coercion or the driving of the Law, but from a voluntary spirit; because they are no more under the Law, but under grace, Rom. 6:14. 6. Accordingly, when it is said: The regenerate do good works from a free spirit, this is not to be understood as though it is at the option of the regenerate man to do or to forbear doing good when he wishes, and that he can nevertheless retain faith if he intentionally perseveres in sins. 7. Yet this is not to be understood otherwise than as the Lord Christ and His apostles themselves declare, namely, regarding the liberated spirit, that it does not do this from fear of punishment, like a servant, but from love of righteousness, like children, Rom. 8:15. 8. Although this voluntariness in the elect children of God is not perfect, but burdened with great weakness, as St. Paul complains concerning himself, Rom. 7:14-25; 9. Nevertheless, for the sake of the Lord Christ, the Lord does not impute this weakness to His elect, as it is written: There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, Rom. 8:1. 10. We believe, teach, and confess also that not works maintain faith and salvation in us, but the Spirit of God alone, through faith, of whose presence and indwelling good works are evidences. NEGATIVE THESES: Rejection of the False Opposite Dogmas. 1. Accordingly, we reject and condemn the following modes of speaking: when it is taught and written that good works are necessary to salvation; also, that no one ever has been saved without good works; also, that it is impossible to be saved without good works. 2. We reject and condemn as offensive and detrimental to Christian discipline the bare expression, when it is said: Good works are injurious to salvation. 3. We also reject and condemn the dogma that faith and the indwelling of the Holy Ghost are not lost by wilful sin, but that the saints and elect retain the Holy Ghost even though they fall into adultery and other sins and persist therein.

STATUS CONTROVERSIAE: The Principal Question in This Controversy. Whether the preaching of the Holy Gospel is properly not only a preaching of grace, which announces the forgiveness of sins, but also a preaching of repentance and reproof, rebuking unbelief, which, they say, is rebuked not in the Law, but alone through the Gospel. AFFIRMATIVE THESES. 1. We believe, teach, and confess that the distinction between the Law and the Gospel is to be maintained in the Church with great diligence as an especially brilliant light, by which, according to the admonition of St. Paul, the Word of God is rightly divided. 2. We believe, teach, and confess that the Law is properly a divine doctrine, which teaches what is right and pleasing to God, and reproves everything that is sin and contrary to God's will. 3. For this reason, then, everything that reproves sin is, and belongs to, the preaching of the Law. 4. But the Gospel is properly such a doctrine as teaches what man who has not observed the Law, and therefore is condemned by it, is to believe, namely, that Christ has expiated and made satisfaction for all sins, and has obtained for him, without any merit of his, forgiveness of sins, righteousness that avails before God, and eternal life. 5. But since the term Gospel is not used in one and the same sense in the Holy Scriptures, we believe, teach, and confess that if by the term Gospel is understood the entire doctrine of Christ which He proposed in His ministry, as also did His apostles, it is correctly said and written that the Gospel is a preaching of repentance and of the forgiveness of sins. 6. But if the Law and the Gospel, likewise also Moses himself as a teacher of the Law and Christ as a preacher of the Gospel are contrasted with one another, we believe, teach, and confess that the Gospel is not a preaching of repentance or reproof, but properly nothing else than a preaching of consolation, and a joyful message which does not reprove or terrify, but comforts consciences against the terrors of the Law, points alone to the merit of Christ, and raises them up again by the lovely preaching of the grace and favor of God, obtained through Christ's merit. 7. As to the revelation of sin, because the veil of Moses hangs before the eyes of all men as long as they hear the bare preaching of the Law, and nothing concerning Christ, Christ takes the Law into His hands, and explains it spiritually, Matt. 5:21ff; Rom. 7:14. And thus the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all sinners, how great it is; by this means they are directed to the Law, and then first learn from it to know aright their sins. 8. Yet as long as all this proclaims God's wrath and terrifies man, it is still not properly the preaching of the Gospel, but the preaching of Moses and the Law, and therefore a foreign work of Christ, by which He arrives at His proper office, that is, to preach grace, console, and quicken, which is properly the preaching of the Gospel. NEGATIVE THESES: Contrary Doctrine which is Rejected. Accordingly we reject and regard as incorrect and injurious the dogma that the Gospel is properly a preaching of repentance or reproof, and not alone a preaching of grace; for thereby the Gospel is again converted into a doctrine of the Law, the merit of Christ and Holy Scripture are obscured, Christians robbed of true consolation, and the door is opened again to the errors and superstitions of the Papacy.

STATUS CONTROVERSIAE: The Principal Question in This Controversy. Since the Law was given to men for three reasons: first, that thereby outward discipline might be maintained against wild, disobedient men; secondly, that men thereby may be led to the knowledge of their sins; thirdly, that after they are regenerate and the flesh notwithstanding cleaves to them, they might on this account have a fixed rule according to which they are to regulate and direct their whole life, a dissension has occurred concerning the third use of the Law, namely, whether it is to be urged or not upon regenerate Christians. The one side has said, Yea; the other, Nay. AFFIRMATIVE THESES. 1. We believe, teach, and confess that, although men truly believing in Christ and truly converted to God have been freed and exempted from the curse and coercion of the Law, they nevertheless are not on this account without Law, but have been redeemed by the Son of God in order that they should exercise themselves in it day and night, Ps. 119. For even our first parents before the Fall did not live without Law, who had the Law of God written also into their hearts, because they were created in the image of God, Gen. 1:26f. 2. We believe, teach, and confess that the preaching of the Law is to be urged with diligence, not only upon the unbelieving and impenitent, but also upon true believers, who are truly converted, regenerate, and justified by faith. 3. For although they are regenerate and renewed in the spirit of their mind, yet in the present life this regeneration and renewal is not complete, but only begun, and believers are, by the spirit of their mind, in a constant struggle against the flesh, that is, against the corrupt nature and disposition which cleaves to us unto death. On account of this old Adam, which still inheres in the understanding, the will, and all the powers of man, it is needful that the Law of the Lord always shine before them, in order that they may not from human devotion institute wanton and self-elected cults; likewise, that the old Adam also may not employ his own will, but may be subdued against his will, not only by the admonition and threatening of the Law, but also by punishments and blows, so that he may follow and surrender himself captive to the Spirit, 1 Cor. 9:27; Rom. 6:12; Gal. 6:14. 4. Now, as regards the distinction between the works of the Law and the fruits of the Spirit, we believe, teach, and confess that the works which are done according to the Law are and are called works of the Law as long as they are only extorted from man by urging the punishment and threatening of God's wrath. 5. Fruits of the Spirit, however, are the works which the Spirit of God who dwells in believers works through the regenerate, and which are done by believers so far as they are regenerate, as though they knew of no command, threat, or reward; for in this manner the children of God live in the Law and walk according to the Law of God, which St. Paul in his epistles calls the Law of Christ and the Law of the mind, Rom. 7:25; 8:7; Gal. 6:2. 6. Thus the Law is and remains both to the penitent and impenitent, both to regenerate and unregenerate men, one and the same Law, namely, the immutable will of God; and the difference, so far as concerns obedience, is alone in man, inasmuch as one who is not yet regenerate does for the Law out of constraint and unwillingly what it requires of him, as also the regenerate do according to the flesh; but the believer, so far as he is regenerate, does without constraint and with a willing spirit that which no threatenings of the Law could ever extort from him. NEGATIVE THESES: False Contrary Doctrine. Accordingly, we reject as a dogma and error injurious to, and conflicting with, Christian discipline and true godliness the teaching that the Law in the above-mentioned way and degree is not to be urged upon Christians and true believers, but only upon unbelievers, non-Christians, and the impenitent.

Although the Zwinglian teachers are not to be reckoned among the theologians who affiliate with the Augsburg Confession, as they separated from them at the very time when this Confession was presented, nevertheless, since they are intruding themselves and are attempting, under the name of this Christian Confession, to spread their error, we intend also to make a needful statement concerning this controversy. STATUS CONTROVERSIAE: Chief Controversy between Our Doctrine and That of the Sacramentarians regarding This Article. Whether in the Holy Supper the true body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ are truly and essentially present, are distributed with the bread and wine, and received with the mouth by all those who use this Sacrament, whether they be worthy or unworthy, godly or ungodly, believing or unbelieving; by the believing for consolation and life, by the unbelieving for judgment? The Sacramentarians say, No; we say, Yes. For the explanation of this controversy it is to be noted in the beginning that there are two kinds of Sacramentarians. Some are gross Sacramentarians, who declare in plain, clear words as they believe in their hearts, that in the Holy Supper nothing but bread and wine is present, and distributed and received with the mouth. Others, however, are subtle Sacramentarians, and the most injurious of all, who partly speak very speciously in our own words, and pretend that they also believe a true presence of the true, essential, living body and blood of Christ in the Holy Supper, however, that this occurs spiritually through faith. Nevertheless they retain under these specious words precisely the former gross opinion, namely, that in the Holy Supper nothing is present and received with the mouth except bread and wine. For with them the word spiritually means nothing else than the Spirit of Christ or the power of the absent body of Christ and His merit, which is present; but the body of Christ is in no mode or way present, except only above in the highest heaven, to which we should elevate ourselves into heaven by the thoughts of our faith, and there, not at all, however, in the bread and wine of the Holy Supper, should seek this body and blood of Christ. AFFIRMATIVE THESES: Confession of the Pure Doctrine concerning the Holy Supper against the Sacramentarians. 1. We believe, teach, and confess that in the Holy Supper the body and blood of Christ are truly and essentially present, and are truly distributed and received with the bread and wine. 2. We believe, teach, and confess that the words of the testament of Christ are not to be understood otherwise than as they read, according to the letter, so that the bread does not signify the absent body and the wine the absent blood of Christ, but that, on account of the sacramental union, they are truly the body and blood of Christ. 3. Now, as to the consecration, we believe, teach, and confess that no work of man or recitation of the minister produces this presence of the body and blood of Christ in the Holy Supper, but that this is to be ascribed only and alone to the almighty power of our Lord Jesus Christ. 4. But at the same time we also believe, teach, and confess unanimously that in the use of the Holy Supper the words of the institution of Christ should in no way be omitted, but should be publicly recited, as it is written 1 Cor. 10:16: The cup of blessing which we bless, etc. This blessing occurs through the recitation of the words of Christ. 5. The grounds, however, on which we stand against the Sacramentarians in this matter are those which Dr. Luther has laid down in his Large Confession concerning the Lord's Supper. The first is this article of our Christian faith: Jesus Christ is true, essential, natural, perfect God and man in one person, undivided and inseparable. The second: That God's right hand is everywhere; at which Christ is placed in deed and in truth according to His human nature, being present, rules, and has in His hands and beneath His feet everything that is in heaven and on earth, where no man else, nor angel, but only the Son of Mary is placed; hence He can do this. The third: That God's Word is not false, and does not deceive. The fourth: That God has and knows of various modes of being in any place, and not only the one which philosophers call localis. 6. We believe, teach, and confess that the body and blood of Christ are received with the bread and wine, not only spiritually by faith, but also orally; yet not in a Capernaitic, but in a supernatural, heavenly mode, because of the sacramental union; as the words of Christ clearly show, when Christ gives direction to take, eat, and drink, as was also done by the apostles; for it is written Mark 14:23: And they all drank of it. St. Paul likewise says, 1 Cor. 10:16: The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? that is: He who eats this bread eats the body of Christ, which also the chief ancient teachers of the Church, Chrysostom, Cyprian, Leo I, Gregory, Ambrose, Augustine, unanimously testify. 7. We believe, teach, and confess that not only the true believers and the worthy, but also the unworthy and unbelievers, receive the true body and blood of Christ; however, not for life and consolation, but for judgment and condemnation, if they are not converted and do not repent, 1 Cor. 11:27-29. For although they thrust Christ from themselves as a Savior, yet they must admit Him even against their will as a strict Judge, who is just as present also to exercise and render judgment upon impenitent guests as He is present to work life and consolation in the hearts of the true believers and worthy guests. 8. We believe, teach, and confess also that there is only one kind of unworthy guests, namely, those who do not believe, concerning whom it is written John 3:18: He that believeth not is condemned already. And this judgment becomes greater and more grievous, being aggravated, by the unworthy use of the Holy Supper, 1 Cor. 11:29. 9. We believe, teach, and confess that no true believer, as long as he retains living faith, however weak he may be, receives the Holy Supper to his judgment, which was instituted especially for Christians weak in faith, yet penitent, for the consolation and strengthening of their weak faith. 10. We believe, teach, and confess that all the worthiness of the guests of this heavenly feast is and consists in the most holy obedience and perfect merit of Christ alone, which we appropriate to ourselves by true faith, and whereof we are assured by the Sacrament, and not at all in our virtues or inward and outward preparations. NEGATIVE THESES: Contrary, Condemned Doctrines of the Sacramentarians. On the other hand, we unanimously reject and condemn all the following erroneous articles, which are opposed and contrary to the doctrine presented above, the simple faith, and the confession concerning the Lord's Supper: 1. The papistic transubstantiation, when it is taught in the Papacy that in the Holy Supper the bread and wine lose their substance and natural essence, and are thus annihilated; that they are changed into the body of Christ, and the outward form alone remains. 2. The papistic sacrifice of the Mass for the sins of the living and the dead. 3. That to laymen one form only of the Sacrament is given, and, contrary to the plain words of the testament of Christ, the cup is withheld from them, and they are deprived of His blood. 4. When it is taught that the words of the testament of Christ must not be understood or believed simply as they read, but that they are obscure expressions, whose meaning must be sought first in other passages of Scripture. 5. That in the Holy Supper the body of Christ is not received orally with the bread; but that with the mouth only bread and wine are received, the body of Christ, however, only spiritually by faith. 6. That the bread and wine in the Holy Supper are nothing more than tokens by which Christians recognize one another. 7. That the bread and wine are only figures, similitudes, and representations of the far absent body and blood of Christ. 8. That the bread and wine are no more than a memorial, seal, and pledge, through which we are assured that when faith elevates itself to heaven, it there becomes partaker of the body and blood of Christ as truly as we eat bread and drink wine in the Supper. 9. That the assurance and confirmation of our faith in the Holy Supper occur through the external signs of bread and wine alone, and not through the true, present body and blood of Christ. 10. That in the Holy Supper only the power, efficacy, and merit of the absent body and blood of Christ are distributed. 11. That the body of Christ is so enclosed in heaven that it can in no way be at once and at one time in many or all places upon earth where His Holy Supper is celebrated. 12. That Christ has not promised, neither could have effected, the essential presence of His body and blood in the Holy Supper, because the nature and property of His assumed human nature cannot suffer nor permit it. 13. That God, according to all His omnipotence, is not able to cause His body to be essentially present in more than one place at one time. 14. That not the omnipotent words of Christ's testament, but faith, produces and makes the presence of the body and blood of Christ in the Holy Supper. 15. That believers must not seek the body and blood of Christ in the bread and wine of the Holy Supper, but raise their eyes from the bread to heaven and there seek the body of Christ. 16. That unbelieving, impenitent Christians do not receive the true body and blood of Christ in the Holy Supper, but only bread and wine. 17. That the worthiness of the guests at this heavenly meal consists not alone in true faith in Christ, but also in the external preparation of men. 18. That even the true believers, who have and retain a true, living, pure faith in Christ, can receive this Sacrament to their judgment, because they are still imperfect in their outward life. 19. That the external visible elements of the bread and wine should be adored in the Holy Sacrament. 20. Likewise, we consign also to the just judgment of God all presumptuous, frivolous, blasphemous questions and expressions, which most blasphemously and with great offense are proposed by the Sacramentarians in a gross, carnal, Capernaitic way concerning the supernatural, heavenly mysteries of this Sacrament. 21. Hence we hereby utterly condemn the Capernaitic eating of the body of Christ, as though His flesh were rent with the teeth, and digested like other food, which the Sacramentarians, against the testimony of their conscience, after all our frequent protests, wilfully force upon us, and in this way make our doctrine odious to their hearers; and on the other hand, we maintain and believe, according to the simple words of the testament of Christ, the true, yet supernatural eating of the body of Christ, as also the drinking of His blood, which human senses and reason do not comprehend, but as in all other articles of faith our reason is brought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, and this mystery is not apprehended otherwise than by faith alone, and revealed in the Word alone.

From the controversy concerning the Holy Supper a disagreement has arisen between the pure theologians of the Augsburg Confession and the Calvinists, who also have confused some other theologians, concerning the person of Christ and the two natures in Christ and their properties. STATUS CONTROVERSIAE: Chief Controversy In This Dissension. The chief question, however, has been whether, because of the personal union, the divine and human natures, as also their properties, have realiter, that is, in deed and truth, a communion with one another in the person of Christ, and how far this communion extends. The Sacramentarians have asserted that the divine and human natures in Christ are united personally in such a way that neither has realiter, that is, in deed and truth, in common with the other that which is peculiar to either nature, but that they have in common nothing more than the name alone. For unio, they plainly say, facit communia nomina, i. e., the personal union makes nothing more than the names common, namely, that God is called man, and man God, yet in such a way that God has nothing realiter, that is, in deed and truth, in common with humanity, and humanity nothing in common with divinity, its majesty and properties. Dr. Luther, and those who held with him, have contended for the contrary against the Sacramentarians. AFFIRMATIVE THESES: Pure Doctrine of the Christian Church concerning the Person of Christ. To explain this controversy, and settle it according to the guidance of our Christian faith, our doctrine, faith, and confession is as follows: 1. That the divine and human natures in Christ are personally united, so that there are not two Christs, one the Son of God, the other the Son of man, but that one and the same is the Son of God and Son of man, Luke 1:35; Rom. 9:5. 2. We believe, teach, and confess that the divine and human natures are not mingled into one substance, nor the one changed into the other, but that each retains its own essential properties, which can never become the properties of the other nature. 3. The properties of the divine nature are: to be almighty, eternal, infinite, and to be, according to the property of its nature and its natural essence, of itself, everywhere present, to know everything, etc.; which never become properties of the human nature. 4. The properties of the human nature are: to be a corporeal creature, to be flesh and blood, to be finite and circumscribed, to suffer, to die, to ascend and descend, to move from one place to another, to suffer hunger, thirst, cold, heat, and the like; which never become properties of the divine nature. 5. As the two natures are united personally, i. e., in one person, we believe, teach, and confess that this union is not such a copulation and connection that neither nature has anything in common with the other personally, i.e. because of the personal union, as when two boards are glued together, where neither gives anything to the other or takes anything from the other. But here is the highest communion, which God truly has with the assumed man, from which personal union, and the highest and ineffable communion resulting therefrom, there flows everything human that is said and believed concerning God, and everything divine that is said and believed concerning the man Christ; as the ancient teachers of the Church explained this union and communion of the natures by the illustration of iron glowing with fire, and also by the union of body and soul in man. 6. Hence we believe, teach, and confess that God is man and man is God, which could not be if the divine and human natures had in deed and truth absolutely no communion with one another. For how could the man, the son of Mary, in truth be called or be God, or the Son of God the Most High, if His humanity were not personally united with the Son of God, and He thus had realiter, that is, in deed and truth, nothing in common with Him except only the name of God? 7. Hence we believe, teach, and confess that Mary conceived and bore not a mere man and no more, but the true Son of God; therefore she also is rightly called and truly is the mother of God. 8. Hence we also believe, teach, and confess that it was not a mere man who suffered, died, was buried, descended to hell, arose from the dead, ascended into heaven, and was raised to the majesty and almighty power of God for us, but a man whose human nature has such a profound, ineffable union and communion with the Son of God that it is one person with Him. 9. Therefore the Son of God truly suffered for us, however, according to the property of the human nature which He assumed into the unity of His divine person and made His own, so that He might be able to suffer and be our High Priest for our reconciliation with God, as it is written 1 Cor. 2:8: They have crucified the Lord of glory. And Acts 20:28: We are purchased with God's blood. 10. Hence we believe, teach, and confess that the Son of Man is realiter, that is, in deed and truth, exalted according to His human nature to the right hand of the almighty majesty and power of God, because He was assumed into God when He was conceived of the Holy Ghost in His mother's womb, and His human nature was personally united with the Son of the Highest. 11. This majesty He always had according to the personal union, and yet He abstained from it in the state of His humiliation, and on this account truly increased in all wisdom and favor with God and men; therefore He exercised this majesty, not always, but when it pleased Him, until after His resurrection He entirely laid aside the form of a servant, but not the nature, and was established in the full use, manifestation, and declaration of the divine majesty, and thus entered into His glory, Phil. 2:6ff, so that now not only as God, but also as man He knows all things, can do all things, is present with all creatures, and has under His feet and in His hands everything that is in heaven and on earth and under the earth, as He Himself testifies Matt. 28:18; John 13:3: All power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth. And St. Paul says Eph. 4:10: He ascended up far above all heavens, that He might fill all things. And this His power, He, being present, can exercise everywhere, and to Him everything is possible and everything is known. 12. Hence He also is able and it is very easy for Him to impart, as one who is present, His true body and blood in the Holy Supper, not according to the mode or property of the human nature, but according to the mode and property of the right hand of God, as Dr. Luther says in accordance with our Christian faith for children, which presence is not earthly, nor Capernaitic; nevertheless it is true and substantial, as the words of His testament read: This is, is, is My body, etc. By this our doctrine, faith, and confession the person of Christ is not divided, as it was by Nestorius, who denied the communicatio idiomatum, that is, the true communion of the properties of both natures in Christ, and thus divided the person, as Luther has explained in his book Concerning Councils. Neither are the natures together with their properties confounded with one another into one essence (as Eutyches erred); nor is the human nature in the person of Christ denied or annihilated; nor is either nature changed into the other; but Christ is and remains to all eternity God and man in one undivided person, which, next to the Holy Trinity, is, as the Apostle testifies, 1 Tim. 3:16, the highest mystery, upon which our only consolation, life, and salvation depends. NEGATIVE THESES: Contrary False Doctrine concerning the Person of Christ. Accordingly, we reject and condemn as contrary to God's Word and our simple Christian faith all the following erroneous articles, when it is taught: 1. That God and man in Christ are not one person, but that the Son of God is one, and the Son of Man another, as Nestorius raved. 2. That the divine and human natures have been mingled with one another into one essence, and the human nature has been changed into the Deity, as Eutyches fanatically asserted. 3. That Christ is not true, natural, and eternal God, as Arius held. 4. That Christ did not have a true human nature consisting of body and soul, as Marcion imagined. 5. Quod unio personalis faciat tantum communia nomina, that is, that the personal union renders only the names and titles common. 6. That it is only phrasis et modus loquendi, that is, a phrase and mode of speaking, when it is said: God is man, man is God; since Divinity, as they say, has realiter, that is, in deed and truth, nothing in common with the humanity, nor the humanity with the Deity. 7. That there is merely communicatio idiomatum verbalis, that is, that it is nothing but words when it is said the Son of God died for the sins of the world; the Son of Man has become almighty. 8. That the human nature in Christ has become an infinite essence in the same manner as the Divinity, and that it is everywhere present in the same manner as the divine nature because of this essential power and property, communicated to, and poured out into, the human nature and separated from God. 9. That the human nature has become equal to and like the divine nature in its substance and essence, or in its essential properties. 10. That the human nature of Christ is locally extended to all places of heaven and earth, which should not be ascribed even to the divine nature. 11. That because of the property of the human nature it is impossible for Christ to be able to be at the same time in more than one place, much less everywhere, with His body. 12. That only the mere humanity has suffered for us and redeemed us, and that the Son of God in the suffering had actually no communion with the humanity, as though it did not concern Him. 13. That Christ is present with us on earth in the Word, the Sacraments, and in all our troubles, only according to His divinity, and that this presence does not at all pertain to His human nature, according to which also, as they say, He, after having redeemed us by His suffering and death, has nothing to do with us any longer upon earth. 14. That the Son of God who assumed the human nature, after He has laid aside the form of a servant, does not perform all the works of His omnipotence in, through, and with His human nature, but only some, and only in the place where His human nature is locally. 15. That according to His human nature He is not at all capable of omnipotence and other attributes of the divine nature, against the express declaration of Christ, Matt. 28:18: All power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth, and of St. Paul, Col. 2:9: In Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. 16. That to Him greater power is given in heaven and upon earth, namely, greater and more than to all angels and other creatures, but that He has no communion with the omnipotence of God, nor that this has been given Him. Hence they devise mediam potentiam, that is, a power between the almighty power of God and the power of other creatures given to Christ according to His humanity by the exaltation, such as would be less than God's almighty power and greater than that of other creatures. 17. That Christ according to His human mind has a certain limit as to how much He is to know, and that He knows no more than is becoming and needful for Him to know for His office as Judge. 18. That Christ does not yet have a perfect knowledge of God and all His works; of whom nevertheless it is written Col. 2:3: In whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. 19. That it is impossible for Christ according to His human mind to know what has been from eternity, what at present is occurring everywhere, and what will be in eternity. 20. When it is taught, and the passage Matt. 28:18: All power is given unto Me, etc., is thus interpreted and blasphemously perverted, namely, that all power in heaven and on earth was restored, that is, delivered again to Christ according to the divine nature, at the resurrection and His ascension to heaven, as though He had also according to His divinity laid this aside and abandoned it in His state of humiliation. By this doctrine not only the words of the testament of Christ are perverted, but also the way is prepared for the accursed Arian heresy, so that finally the eternal deity of Christ is denied, and thus Christ, and with Him our salvation, are entirely lost if this false doctrine were not firmly contradicted from the immovable foundation of the divine Word and our simple Christian faith.

STATUS CONTROVERSIAE: Chief Controversy concerning This Article. It has also been disputed among some theologians who have subscribed to the Augsburg Confession concerning this article: When and in what manner the Lord Christ, according to our simple Christian faith, descended to hell: whether this was done before or after His death; also, whether it occurred according to the soul alone, or according to the divinity alone, or with body and soul, spiritually or bodily; also, whether this article belongs to the passion or to the glorious victory and triumph of Christ. But since this article, as also the preceding, cannot be comprehended by the senses or by our reason, but must be grasped by faith alone, it is our unanimous opinion that there should be no disputation concerning it, but that it should be believed and taught only in the simplest manner; according as Dr. Luther, of blessed memory, in his sermon at Torgau in the year 1533 has explained this article in an altogether Christian manner, separated from it all useless, unnecessary questions, and admonished all godly Christians to Christian simplicity of faith. For it is sufficient that we know that Christ descended into hell, destroyed hell for all believers, and delivered them from the power of death and of the devil, from eternal condemnation and the jaws of hell. But how this occurred we should reserve until the other world, where not only this point, but also still others will be revealed, which we here simply believe, and cannot comprehend with our blind reason.

Which are Commonly Called Adiaphora or Matters of Indifference. Concerning ceremonies or church rites which are neither commanded nor forbidden in God's Word, but have been introduced into the Church for the sake of good order and propriety, a dissension has also occurred among the theologians of the Augsburg Confession. STATUS CONTROVERSIAE: Chief Controversy concerning This Article. The chief question, however, has been, whether, in time of persecution and in case of confession, even if the enemies of the Gospel have not reached an agreement with us in doctrine, some abrogated ceremonies, which in themselves are matters of indifference and are neither commanded nor forbidden by God, may nevertheless, upon the pressure and demand of the adversaries, be reestablished without violence to conscience, and we may thus have conformity with them in such ceremonies and adiaphora. To this the one side has said Yea, the other, Nay. AFFIRMATIVE THESES: The Correct and True Doctrine and Confession concerning This Article. 1. For settling also this controversy we unanimously believe, teach, and confess that the ceremonies or church rites which are neither commanded nor forbidden in God's Word, but have been instituted alone for the sake of propriety and good order, are in and of themselves no divine worship, nor even a part of it. Matt. 15:9: In vain they do worship Me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. 2. We believe, teach, and confess that the congregation of God of every place and every time has the power, according to its circumstances, to change such ceremonies in such manner as may be most useful and edifying to the congregation of God. 3. Nevertheless, that herein all frivolity and offense should be avoided, and special care should be taken to exercise forbearance towards the weak in faith. 1 Cor. 8:9; Rom. 14:13. 4. We believe, teach, and confess that in time of persecution, when a plain confession is required of us, we should not yield to the enemies in regard to such adiaphora, as the apostle has written Gal. 5:1: Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again in the yoke of bondage. Also 2 Cor. 6:14: Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers, etc. For what concord hath light with darkness? Also Gal. 2:5: To whom we gave place, no, not for an hour, that the truth of the Gospel might remain with you. For in such a case it is no longer a question concerning adiaphora, but concerning the truth of the Gospel, concerning Christian liberty, and concerning sanctioning open idolatry, as also concerning the prevention of offense to the weak in the faith; in which we have nothing to concede, but should plainly confess and suffer on that account what God sends, and what He allows the enemies of His Word to inflict upon us. 5. We believe, teach, and confess also that no Church should condemn another because one has less or more external ceremonies not commanded by God than the other, if otherwise there is agreement among them in doctrine and all its articles, as also in the right use of the holy Sacraments, according to the well-known saying: Dissonantia ieiunii non dissolvit consonantiam fidei, Disagreement in fasting does not destroy agreement in faith. NEGATIVE THESES: False Doctrine concerning This Article. Accordingly, we reject and condemn as wrong and contrary to God's Word when it is taught: 1. That human ordinances and institutions in the church should be regarded as in themselves a divine worship or part of it. 2. When such ceremonies, ordinances, and institutions are violently forced upon the congregation of God as necessary, contrary to its Christian liberty which it has in external things. 3. Also, that in time of persecution and public confession we may yield to the enemies of the Gospel in such adiaphora and ceremonies, or may come to an agreement with them, which causes injury to the truth. 4. Also, when these external ceremonies and adiaphora are abrogated in such a manner as though it were not free to the congregation of God to employ one or more in Christian liberty, according to its circumstances, as may be most useful at any time to the Church.

Concerning this article no public dissension has occurred among the theologians of the Augsburg Confession. But since it is a consolatory article, if treated properly, and lest offensive disputations concerning the same be instituted in the future, it is also explained in this writing. AFFIRMATIVE THESES: The Pure and True Doctrine concerning This Article. 1. To begin with, the distinction between praescientia et praedestinatio, that is, between God's foreknowledge and His eternal election, ought to be accurately observed. 2. For the foreknowledge of God is nothing else than that God knows all things before they happen, as it is written Dan. 2:28: There is a God in heaven that revealeth secrets and maketh known to the king Nebuchadnezzar what shall be in the latter days. 3. This foreknowledge extends alike over the godly and the wicked, but it is not the cause of evil, neither of sin, namely, of doing what is wrong (which originally arises from the devil and the wicked, perverse will of man), nor of their ruin, for which they themselves are responsible; but it only regulates it, and fixes a limit to it how long it should last, and all this to the end that it should serve His elect for their salvation, notwithstanding that it is evil in itself. 4. The predestination or eternal election of God, however, extends only over the godly, beloved children of God, being a cause of their salvation, which He also provides, as well as disposes what belongs thereto. Upon this our salvation is founded so firmly that the gates of hell cannot overcome it. John 10:28; Matt. 16:18. 5. This is not to be investigated in the secret counsel of God, but to be sought in the Word of God, where it is also revealed. 6. But the Word of God leads us to Christ, who is the Book of Life, in whom all are written and elected that are to be saved in eternity, as it is written Eph. 1:4: He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world. 7. This Christ calls to Himself all sinners and promises them rest, and He is in earnest that all men should come to Him and suffer themselves to be helped, to whom He offers Himself in His Word, and wishes them to hear it and not to stop their ears or despise the Word. Moreover, He promises the power and working of the Holy Ghost, and divine assistance for perseverance and eternal salvation. 8. Therefore we should judge concerning this our election to eternal life neither from reason nor from the Law of God, which lead us either into a reckless, dissolute, Epicurean life or into despair, and excite pernicious thoughts in the hearts of men, for they cannot, as long as they follow their reason, successfully refrain from thinking: If God has elected me to salvation, I cannot be condemned, no matter what I do; and again: If I am not elected to eternal life, it is of no avail what good I do; it is all in vain anyway. 9. But it must be learned alone from the holy Gospel concerning Christ, in which it is clearly testified that God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that He might have mercy upon all, and that He is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance and believe in the Lord Christ. Rom. 11:32; Ezek. 18:23; 33:11; 2 Pet. 3:9; 1 John 2:2. 10. Whoever, now, is thus concerned about the revealed will of God, and proceeds according to the order which St. Paul has observed in the Epistle to the Romans, who first directs men to repentance, to knowledge of sins, to faith in Christ, to divine obedience, before he speaks of the mystery of the eternal election of God, to him this doctrine is useful and consolatory. 11. However, that many are called and few chosen, Matt. 22:14, does not mean that God is not willing to save everybody; but the reason is that they either do not at all hear God's Word, but wilfully despise it, stop their ears and harden their hearts, and in this manner foreclose the ordinary way to the Holy Ghost, so that He cannot perform His work in them, or, when they have heard it, make light of it again and do not heed it, for which not God or His election, but their wickedness, is responsible. 12. Thus far a Christian should occupy himself with the article concerning the eternal election of God, as it has been revealed in God's Word, which presents to us Christ as the Book of Life, which He opens and reveals to us by the preaching of the holy Gospel, as it is written Rom. 8:30: Whom He did predestinate, them He also called. In Him we are to seek the eternal election of the Father, who has determined in His eternal divine counsel that He would save no one except those who know His Son Christ and truly believe on Him. Other thoughts are to be banished, as they proceed not from God, but from the suggestion of the Evil Foe, whereby he attempts to weaken or entirely to remove from us the glorious consolation which we have in this salutary doctrine, namely, that we know that out of pure grace, without any merit of our own, we have been elected in Christ to eternal life, and that no one can pluck us out of His hand; as He has not only promised this gracious election with mere words, but has also certified it with an oath and sealed it with the holy Sacraments, which we can call to mind in our most severe temptations, and take comfort in them, and therewith quench the fiery darts of the devil. 13. Besides, we should use the greatest diligence to live according to the will of God, and, as St. Peter admonishes, 2 Pet. 1:10, make our calling sure, and especially adhere to the revealed Word: that can and will not fail us. 14. By this brief explanation of the eternal election of God His glory is entirely and fully given to God, that out of pure mercy alone, without all merit of ours, He saves us according to the purpose of His will; besides, also, no cause is given any one for despondency or a vulgar, wild life. NEGATIVE THESES: False Doctrine concerning This Article. Accordingly, we believe and hold: When any teach the doctrine concerning the gracious election of God to eternal life in such a manner that troubled Christians cannot comfort themselves therewith, but are thereby led to despondency or despair, or the impenitent are strengthened in their wantonness, that such doctrine is treated not according to the Word and will of God, but according to reason and the instigation of the cursed Satan. For, as the apostle testifies, Rom. 15:4, whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we, through patience and comfort of the Scriptures, might have hope. Therefore we reject the following errors: 1. As when it is taught that God is unwilling that all men repent and believe the Gospel. 2. Also, that when God calls us to Himself, He is not in earnest that all men should come to Him. 3. Also, that God is unwilling that every one should be saved, but that some, without regard to their sins, from the mere counsel, purpose, and will of God, are ordained to condemnation so that they cannot be saved. 4. Also, that not only the mercy of God and the most holy merit of Christ, but also in us there is a cause of God's election, on account of which God has elected us to everlasting life. All these are blasphemous and dreadful erroneous doctrines, whereby all the comfort which they have in the holy Gospel and the use of the holy Sacraments is taken from Christians, and therefore should not be tolerated in the Church of God. This is the brief and simple explanation of the controverted articles, which for a time have been debated and taught controversially among the theologians of the Augsburg Confession. Hence every simple Christian, according to the guidance of God's Word and his simple Catechism, can perceive what is right or wrong, since not only the pure doctrine has been stated, but also the erroneous contrary doctrine has been repudiated and rejected, and thus the offensive divisions that have occurred are thoroughly settled. May Almighty God and the Father of our Lord Jesus grant the grace of His Holy Ghost that we all may be one in Him, and constantly abide in this Christian unity, which is well pleasing to Him! Amen.

In order that such heresies and sects may not silently be ascribed to us, because, in the preceding explanation, we have made no mention of them, we intend at the end of this writing simply to enumerate the mere articles wherein they err and teach contrary to our Christian faith and confession to which we have often referred. Erroneous Articles of the Anabaptists. The Anabaptists are divided among themselves into many factions, as one contends for more, another for less errors; however, they all in common propound such doctrine as is to be tolerated or allowed neither in the Church, nor in the commonwealth and secular government, nor in domestic life. Articles that Cannot be Tolerated in the Church. 1. That Christ did not assume His body and blood from the Virgin Mary, but brought them with Him from heaven. 2. That Christ is not true God, but only has more gifts of the Holy Ghost than any other holy man. 3. That our righteousness before God consists not in the sole merit of Christ alone, but in renewal, and hence in our own godliness in which we walk. This is based in great part upon one's own special, self-chosen spirituality, and in fact is nothing else than a new sort of monkery. 4. That children who are not baptized are not sinners before God, but righteous and innocent, who in their innocency, because they have not yet attained the use of reason, are saved without Baptism. Therefore they reject the entire doctrine concerning original sin and what belongs to it. 5. That children are not to be baptized until they have attained the use of reason, and can themselves confess their faith. 6. That the children of Christians, because they have been born of Christian and believing parents, are holy and children of God even without and before Baptism; and for this reason they neither attach much importance to the baptism of children nor encourage it, contrary to the express words of God's promise which pertains only to those who keep His covenant and do not despise it. Gen. 17:7ff. 7. That that is no true Christian congregation in which sinners are still found. 8. That no sermon is to be heard nor attended in those churches in which formerly papal masses have been celebrated and said. 9. That one must not have anything to do with the ministers of the Church who preach the Gospel according to the Augsburg Confession, and rebuke the sermons and errors of the Anabaptists; also that he is neither to serve nor in any way to labor for them, but to flee from and shun them as perverters of God's Word. Articles that Cannot be Tolerated in the Government. 1. That under the New Testament the magistracy is not an estate pleasing to God. 2. That a Christian cannot with a good, inviolate conscience hold or discharge the office of magistrate. 3. That a Christian cannot without injury to conscience use the office of the magistracy against the wicked in matters as they occur, nor that subjects may invoke for their protection and defense the power which the magistrates possess and have received from God. 4. That a Christian cannot with a good conscience take an oath, nor with an oath do homage to the hereditary prince of his country or sovereign. 5. That under the New Testament magistrates cannot, without injury to conscience, inflict capital punishment upon malefactors. Articles that Cannot be Tolerated in Domestic Life. 1. That a Christian cannot with a good conscience hold or possess property, but is in duty bound to devote it to the common treasury. 2. That a Christian cannot with a good conscience be an innkeeper, merchant, or cutler. 3. That the married may be divorced on account of faith, and the one may abandon the other and be married to another person who is of his faith. Erroneous Articles of the Schwenkfeldians. 1. That all those have no true knowledge of Christ as reigning King of heaven who regard Christ according to the flesh as a creature. 2. That the flesh of Christ by His exaltation has assumed all divine properties in such a manner that Christ as man is in might, power, majesty, and glory altogether, as regards degree and position of essence equal to the Father and to the Word, so that now there is only one essence, property, will, and glory of both natures in Christ, and that the flesh of Christ belongs to the essence of the Holy Trinity. 3. That the ministry of the Church, the Word preached and heard, is not a means whereby God the Holy Ghost teaches men, and works in them the saving knowledge of Christ, conversion, repentance, faith, and new obedience. 4. That the water of Baptism is not a means whereby God the Lord seals the adoption of sons and works regeneration. 5. That bread and wine in the Holy Supper are not means through and by which Christ distributes His body and blood. 6. That a Christian who is truly regenerated by God's Spirit can perfectly observe and fulfil the Law of God in this life. 7. That it is not a true Christian congregation in which no public excommunication or no regular process of the ban is observed. 8. That the minister of the church who is not on his part truly renewed, regenerate, righteous, and godly cannot teach other men with profit or distribute genuine, true Sacraments. Error of the New Arians. That Christ is not true, essential, natural God, of one eternal, divine essence with God the Father and the Holy Ghost, but is only adorned with divine majesty inferior to and alongside of God the Father. Error of the Anti-Trinitarians. This is an entirely new sect, not heard of before in Christendom, composed of those who believe, teach, and confess that there is not one only, eternal, divine essence of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, but as God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are three distinct persons, so each person has its essence distinct and separate from the other persons of the Godhead; and that nevertheless they are either all three of equal power, wisdom, majesty, and glory, just as otherwise three men are distinct and separate from one another in their essence, or unequal with one another in essence and properties, so that the Father alone is properly and truly God. These and similar articles, one and all, with whatever other errors depend upon and follow from them, we reject and condemn as wrong, false, heretical, contrary to the Word of God, the three Creeds, the Augsburg Confession and Apology, the Smalcald Articles, and Luther's Catechisms, against which all godly Christians of both high and low station are to be on their guard as they love the welfare and salvation of their souls. That this is the doctrine, faith, and confession of us all, for which we will answer at the last day before the just Judge, our Lord Jesus Christ, and will neither secretly nor publicly speak or write anything against it, but that we intend by the grace of God to persevere therein, we have after mature deliberation testified, in the true fear of God and invocation of His name, by signing with our own hands this Epitome.

A controversy has occurred among some theologians of the Augsburg Confession concerning Original Sin, what it properly and really is. For one side contended that, since through the fall of Adam man's nature and essence are entirely corrupt, the nature, substance, and essence of corrupt man now since the Fall, or at any rate the principal, highest part of his essence, namely the rational soul in its highest powers, is original sin itself, which has been called nature-sin or person-sin, because it is not a thought, word, or work, but the nature itself whence, as from a root, spring all other sins; so that there is now no difference whatever between the nature and essence of man and original sin. But the other side taught, in opposition, that original sin is not properly the nature, substance, or essence of man, that is, man's body or soul, which even now since the Fall remain the creation and creatures of God in us, but that it is something in the nature, body, and soul of man and in all his powers, namely a horrible, deep, inexpressible corruption of the same, so that man is destitute of the righteousness wherein he was originally created, and in spiritual things is dead to good and perverted to all evil. This controversy concerning original sin is not unnecessary wrangling, but if rightly presented according to God's Word and separated from all Pelagian and Manichean errors, the benefits of the Lord Christ and the gracious operation of the Holy Ghost are the better known and extolled, and due honor is rendered to God when His work and creation in man is rightly distinguished from the work of the devil by which the nature has been corrupted.

First, it is true that Christians should regard as sin not only the actual transgression of God's commandments, but also that horrible, dreadful hereditary malady by which the entire nature is corrupted; this is the chief sin, the root and fountain-head of all actual sins. Dr. Luther calls it a nature-sin or person-sin, to indicate that even if a person would think, speak, or do nothing evil, his nature and person are nevertheless sinful, that is, thoroughly infected and corrupted before God by original sin, as by a spiritual leprosy; and on account of this corruption the nature is accused and condemned by God's Law, so that we are by nature children of wrath, death, and damnation, unless we are delivered by the merit of Christ. Secondly, God is not a creator, author, or cause of sin, but by the instigation of the devil through one man sin entered the world (Rom. 5:12; 1 John 3:8). This hereditary evil is the guilt that, by reason of the disobedience of Adam and Eve, we are all in God's displeasure and by nature children of wrath; it is an entire want of the concreated hereditary righteousness, or of God's image; and instead of the lost image of God it is a deep, wicked, fathomless corruption of the entire nature and all its powers, especially of the highest powers of the soul in the understanding, heart, and will. The punishment of original sin is death, eternal damnation, and the tyranny of the devil. This hereditary evil is so great that only for the sake of the Lord Christ can it be covered and forgiven before God in the baptized and believing; and human nature can be healed only by the regeneration and renewal of the Holy Ghost, which is begun in this life but not perfected until the life to come.

First, in opposition to the old and the new Pelagians, the following false dogmas are censured and rejected: that original sin is only a reatus or guilt on account of what has been committed by another, without any corruption of our nature; that sinful, evil lusts are not sins but concreated and essential properties of the nature; that the above-mentioned defect is not properly sin before God; that nature even since the Fall is incorrupt and in its natural powers perfect; that original sin is only an external, slight, insignificant spot or stain upon the nature, a corruption only of accidental qualities; that original sin is not a despoliation but only an external impediment, as when a magnet is smeared with garlic-juice whereby its power is only hindered; or that the nature, though greatly weakened, has not entirely lost all good in spiritual things but still retains some small capacity to begin or help effect something in spiritual things. These doctrines are rejected because God's Word teaches that the corrupt nature of and by itself has no power for anything good in spiritual, divine things, not even the least good thought, but can do nothing in the sight of God but sin (Gen. 6:5; 8:21).

In like manner this doctrine must be guarded against Manichean errors. The following is rejected: that human nature was in the beginning created pure and good, and that afterwards original sin from without is infused and mingled with the nature by Satan as something essential, as poison is mingled with wine. For although in Adam and Eve the nature was originally created pure, good, and holy, sin did not enter their nature as though Satan had created an evil substance and mingled it with their nature; but since man, by the seduction of Satan through the Fall, has lost his concreated hereditary righteousness, human nature is so perverted and corrupted by this deprivation that it is transmitted to all men conceived and born in a natural way. Original sin is not something self-existent in or apart from the nature; nor is it the real essence, body, or soul of corrupt man. Yet a distinction must be maintained between our nature as created and preserved by God, in which sin is indwelling, and original sin, which dwells in the nature. The chief articles of faith compel this distinction: in the article of Creation, God is shown to be the Creator of human nature even since the Fall (Job 10:8; Ps. 139:14); in the article of Redemption, the Son of God assumed our human nature without sin (Heb. 2:14); in the article of Sanctification, God cleanses man from sin (1 John 1:7); in the article of the Resurrection, the substance of this our flesh, but without sin, will rise again. Therefore the doctrine that original sin is the nature, substance, or essence itself of corrupt man, with no distinction whatever, must be rejected.

Concerning free will a division has occurred not only between the Papists and us, but also among some theologians of the Augsburg Confession. Man with respect to his free will may be considered in four distinct states; but the principal question here is only this: what the intellect and will of the unregenerate man are able to do in his conversion and regeneration from his own powers remaining after the Fall; whether he is able, when the Word of God is preached and the grace of God is offered, to prepare himself for grace, accept it, and assent thereto. One side held that, although man cannot from his own powers fulfil God's command or truly trust in God without the grace of the Holy Ghost, nevertheless he still has so much natural power left before regeneration as to be able to prepare himself to a certain extent for grace and to assent, though feebly. The ancient and modern enthusiasts taught the opposite, that God converts men through His Spirit without any created means, without the external preaching and hearing of God's Word. Against both, the pure teachers of the Augsburg Confession have taught that by the Fall man was so corrupted that in divine things pertaining to his conversion and salvation he is by nature blind, neither understands nor can understand the Word when preached, but regards it as foolishness; nor does he of himself draw near to God, but remains an enemy of God until he is converted and regenerated by the power of the Holy Ghost through the Word, out of pure grace, without any cooperation of his own.

Our doctrine, faith, and confession are as follows: that in spiritual and divine things the intellect, heart, and will of the unregenerate man are utterly unable, by their own natural powers, to understand, believe, accept, think, will, begin, effect, do, work, or concur in working anything, but they are entirely dead to what is good and corrupt; so that in man's nature since the Fall, before regeneration, there is not the least spark of spiritual power remaining by which of himself he can prepare himself for God's grace or accept the offered grace; but he is the servant of sin (John 8:34) and a captive of the devil (Eph. 2:2; 2 Tim. 2:26). Although man's reason has still a dim spark of the knowledge that there is a God and of the Law (Rom. 1:19ff), it is so blind and perverted that when the most learned men hear the Gospel they cannot from their own powers understand or believe it. For the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him (1 Cor. 2:14). Just as a man physically dead cannot of his own powers prepare himself to obtain temporal life again, so the man spiritually dead in sins cannot of his own strength apply himself to the acquisition of spiritual righteousness and life, unless he is quickened by the Son of God. The carnal mind is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the Law of God, neither indeed can be (Rom. 8:7); and Christ says: Without Me ye can do nothing (John 15:5).

Before man is enlightened, converted, regenerated, and drawn by the Holy Ghost, he can of his own natural powers begin or concur in working in spiritual things and in his own conversion just as little as a stone, a block, or clay. For although he can control the outward members, hear the Gospel, and to a certain extent meditate upon it, nevertheless he regards it as foolishness and cannot believe it; and in this respect he acts even worse than a block, inasmuch as he is rebellious and hostile to God's will, unless the Holy Ghost is efficacious in him. The Holy Scriptures ascribe conversion, faith in Christ, regeneration, and renewal not to the human powers of the natural free will, neither entirely nor half nor in any least part, but in solidum, that is, entirely and solely to the divine working and the Holy Ghost. Reason and free will are able to a certain extent to live an outwardly decent life; but to be born anew and to obtain inwardly another heart, mind, and disposition, this only the Holy Ghost effects. He works in us both to will and to do of His good pleasure (Phil. 2:13); He gives repentance (Acts 5:31); He works faith (Phil. 1:29); for no one can come to Christ unless the Father draw him (John 6:44). Therefore it is teaching incorrectly to assert that unregenerate man has still so much power as to desire to receive the Gospel and that the natural human will cooperates somewhat in conversion. Such an erroneous opinion is contrary to Scripture, the Augsburg Confession, its Apology, the Smalcald Articles, and the Catechisms of Luther.

This doctrine concerning the inability of our natural free will and concerning our conversion, namely that it is a work of God alone and not of our powers, is abused in an unchristian manner by enthusiasts and Epicureans, who become idle and indolent in prayer, reading, and meditation, saying that since they cannot of their own powers convert themselves they will wait until God converts them by force, or will neither hear nor read the Word nor use the Sacrament but wait until God instils His gifts from heaven. Against this we relate from God's Word how man is converted to God and through what means the Holy Ghost works in us. It is not God's will that any should perish, but that all should be converted and saved eternally (Ezek. 33:11; John 3:16). Therefore God has the saving Gospel of His Son publicly preached, and by this preaching gathers an eternal Church and works true repentance, knowledge of sins, and true faith. By this means, and in no other way, namely through His holy Word when heard or read, and the holy Sacraments when used according to His Word, God desires to call men to salvation, draw them to Himself, and convert, regenerate, and sanctify them (1 Cor. 1:21; Rom. 10:17). All who wish to be saved ought to hear this preaching; for the preaching and hearing of God's Word are instruments of the Holy Ghost, by, with, and through which He desires to work efficaciously and to convert men to God.

The third controversy among some theologians of the Augsburg Confession concerns the righteousness of Christ or of faith, which God imputes by grace, through faith, to poor sinners for righteousness. One side contended that the righteousness of faith, which the apostle calls the righteousness of God, is God's essential righteousness, which is Christ Himself as the true, natural, and essential Son of God, who dwells in the elect by faith and impels them to do right. Others held that Christ is our righteousness according to His human nature alone. In opposition to both, the other teachers of the Augsburg Confession have taught that Christ is our righteousness not according to His divine nature alone, nor His human nature alone, but according to both natures; for as God and man, through His complete obedience, He has redeemed, justified, and saved us; that therefore the righteousness of faith is the forgiveness of sins, reconciliation with God, and our adoption as God's children, only on account of the obedience of Christ, which through faith alone, out of pure grace, is imputed for righteousness to all true believers. This article concerning justification by faith is the chief article in the entire Christian doctrine, without which no poor conscience can have any firm consolation or truly know the riches of the grace of Christ. As Luther wrote: If this only article remains pure on the battlefield, the Christian Church also remains pure; but if it does not remain pure, it is not possible that any error or fanatical spirit can be resisted.

Concerning the righteousness of faith before God we believe, teach, and confess unanimously that poor sinful man is justified before God, that is, absolved and declared free and exempt from all his sins and from the sentence of well-deserved condemnation, and adopted into sonship and heirship of eternal life, without any merit or worth of our own, also without any preceding, present, or subsequent works, out of pure grace, because of the sole merit, complete obedience, bitter suffering, death, and resurrection of our Lord Christ alone, whose obedience is reckoned to us for righteousness. These treasures are offered us by the Holy Ghost in the promise of the holy Gospel; and faith alone is the only means by which we lay hold upon, accept, apply, and appropriate them. This faith is a gift of God, by which we truly learn to know Christ our Redeemer in the Word of the Gospel and trust in Him, that for the sake of His obedience alone we have the forgiveness of sins by grace. For faith justifies, not because it is so good a work or so fair a virtue, but because it lays hold of and accepts the merit of Christ in the promise of the Gospel. Therefore the righteousness which is imputed to faith out of pure grace is the obedience, suffering, and resurrection of Christ, since He has made satisfaction for us to the Law and expiated our sins. Accordingly, the word justify here means to declare righteous and free from sins, and to absolve one from eternal punishment for the sake of Christ's righteousness, which is imputed by God to faith (Phil. 3:9; Rom. 8:33).

When we teach that through the operation of the Holy Ghost we are born anew and justified, the sense is not that after regeneration no unrighteousness clings to the justified, but that Christ covers all their sins with His complete obedience; nevertheless they are declared and regarded righteous by faith and for the sake of Christ's obedience, although on account of their corrupt nature they remain sinners to the grave. Nor is this the meaning, that without repentance and renewal we might remain in sins. For true contrition must precede; and to those who out of pure grace, for the sake of the only Mediator Christ, without any works, are righteous before God, the Holy Ghost is also given, who renews and sanctifies them and works in them love to God and neighbor. But because the incipient renewal is imperfect in this life, the righteousness of faith before God consists in the gracious imputation of the righteousness of Christ, without the addition of our works. Therefore special diligence must be given lest that which precedes faith and that which follows it be mingled into the article of justification. Love is a fruit which surely follows true faith; but when Paul says we are justified by faith without works (Rom. 3:28), he indicates that neither the contrition that precedes nor the works that follow belong to the article of justification. For good works do not precede justification, but follow it; the person must first be justified before he can do good works. As Luther says: Faith and good works well agree and are inseparably connected; but it is faith alone, without works, which lays hold of the blessing, and yet it is never alone.

We reject and condemn the following errors as contrary to God's Word: that our love or good works are a merit or cause of justification before God, either entirely or in part; that by good works man must render himself worthy that the merit of Christ may be imparted to him; that our real righteousness before God is the love or renewal which the Holy Ghost works in us; that two parts belong to the righteousness of faith, namely the gracious forgiveness of sins and also renewal; that faith justifies only initially or partially, and that our renewal or love justifies before God either completively or secondarily; that believers are justified before God partly by the imputation of Christ's righteousness and partly by the beginning of new obedience. Likewise it is incorrect to teach that man is saved in some other way than as he is justified, as though we are justified by faith alone without works but cannot be saved without works; for this is directly opposed to Rom. 4:6. Further we reject: that Christ is our righteousness according to His divine nature alone; that Christ is our righteousness according to His human nature alone; that the words justify and to be justified signify to be made actually righteous by love infused by the Holy Ghost rather than to be declared free from sins; that faith is such a trust as can remain in a person who has no genuine repentance and persists in sins against his conscience; that not God dwells in believers, but only the gifts of God. These and like errors we unanimously reject, abiding firmly in the doctrine of the righteousness of faith before God as embodied in the Augsburg Confession and its Apology.

A disagreement has also occurred among the theologians of the Augsburg Confession concerning good works, one part employing the manner of speaking that good works are necessary for salvation, that it is impossible to be saved without good works, and that no one has been saved without good works, because good works are required of true believers as fruits of faith, and faith without love is dead, although such love is no cause of salvation. The other part contended, on the contrary, that good works are indeed necessary, but not for salvation; and that the aforecited propositions are not to be tolerated in the Church, in order that the merit of Christ be not diminished and the promise of salvation remain firm and certain to believers. In this controversy the proposition that good works are injurious to salvation was also employed; and it was argued by some that good works are not necessary but voluntary, because they are not extorted by fear and the penalty of the Law, but are to be done from a voluntary spirit and a joyful heart; against which the other side contended that good works are necessary. This controversy was occasioned by the words necessitas and libertas, that is, necessary and free, because the word necessitas signifies not only the eternal, immutable order according to which all men are obliged to obey God, but sometimes also a coercion, by which the Law forces men to good works. To explain this disagreement according to the guidance of God's Word, our doctrine, faith, and confession are as follows. First, there is no controversy among our theologians that it is God's will, order, and command that believers should walk in good works; that truly good works are not those which one contrives himself or which are done according to traditions of men, but those which God Himself has prescribed in His Word; and that truly good works are done not from our own natural powers, but when the person by faith is reconciled with God and renewed by the Holy Ghost, created anew in Christ Jesus to good works (Eph. 2:10). Nor is there controversy how and why the good works of believers, although in this flesh impure and incomplete, are pleasing to God, namely, for the sake of the Lord Christ, by faith, because the person is acceptable to God; for works done by the unbelieving and unconverted, although commendable before the world, are in God's sight sins because they do not proceed from true faith, for a corrupt tree cannot bring forth good fruit (Matt. 7:18; Rom. 14:23). Therefore faith must be the mother and source of works truly good, and they are called by St. Paul true fruits of faith and of the Spirit. As Dr. Luther writes in the Preface to Romans, faith is a divine work in us that changes and regenerates us of God, puts to death the old Adam, and confers the Holy Ghost; it is a living, busy, active, powerful thing, so that it is impossible for it not to do good without ceasing, and it is as impossible to separate works from faith as for heat and light to be separated from fire. Concerning the necessity or voluntariness of good works: in the Augsburg Confession and its Apology the expressions that good works are necessary are often used, as also in Holy Scripture the words necessity, ought, and must are used concerning what we are bound to do because of God's ordinance (Rom. 13:5; 1 Cor. 9:9; Acts 5:29; John 15:12; 1 John 4:21). Therefore these propositions in this Christian and proper sense are unjustly censured, for they rebuke the secure, Epicurean delusion of a dead faith without repentance and good works; but the meaning must be a necessity of Christ's ordinance, command, and will and of our obligation (necessitas ordinis, mandati et voluntatis Christi ac debiti nostri), not a necessity of coercion (necessitas coactionis). For the people of the New Testament are to be a willing people (Ps. 110:3), serving freely and not grudgingly, for God loveth a cheerful giver (2 Cor. 9:7). It is false and must be censured that good works were free to believers in the sense that it were optional to do or omit them, or to act contrary to the Law of God and yet retain faith and grace. Secondly, when good works are said to be necessary, it must be explained for what reasons; and here we must guard lest works be drawn into the article of justification. Therefore the propositions that to believers good works are necessary for salvation, so that it is impossible to be saved without good works, are justly rejected, for they conflict with the exclusive particles in the article of justification and salvation (de particulis exclusivis in articulo iustificationis et salvationis), by which St. Paul has excluded our works and merits from justification and ascribed everything to the grace of God and the merit of Christ alone (Rom. 4:6). In the Sixth Article of the Augsburg Confession it is written that we are saved without works, by faith alone; and Dr. Luther rejected these propositions in the false prophets among the Galatians, in the Papists, in the Anabaptists, and in some of his own followers. Thirdly, concerning whether good works preserve salvation or are necessary for preserving faith, righteousness, and salvation: the false Epicurean delusion is earnestly to be rejected, that faith and salvation can be lost through no sins, not even wilful ones; and against this the divine threats are to be impressed (1 Cor. 6:9; Gal. 5:21; Eph. 5:5; Rom. 8:13; Col. 3:6). The Apology, on 2 Pet. 1:10, shows how exhortations to good works may be urged without darkening the doctrine of faith: good works are to be done that we may make our calling sure and not fall away and lose the Spirit; but faith does not remain in those who lead a sinful life, lose the Holy Ghost, and reject repentance. Yet the sense is not that faith only at the beginning lays hold of salvation and then resigns its office to works; rather St. Paul ascribes the beginning, middle, and end to faith alone (Rom. 5:2; 11:20; Col. 1:22; 1 Pet. 1:5,9). Therefore the decree of the Council of Trent, that our good works preserve salvation or that the righteousness of faith is kept by our works, is justly to be rejected; and it is safest to hold fast to the form of sound words (2 Tim. 1:13). Fourthly, concerning the proposition that good works are injurious to salvation: if anyone should drag good works into the article of justification or rest his trust for salvation upon them, then with St. Paul (Phil. 3:7ff.) his works are not only useless but injurious; yet this is the fault not of the works themselves but of the false confidence placed in them. It by no means follows that we should say simpliciter that good works are injurious to believers as regards their salvation; for in believers good works are indications of salvation when done from true causes and for true ends (propter veras causas et ad veros fines), since it is God's will and command that believers should do good works which the Holy Ghost works in them. Therefore this bare proposition is censured and rejected in our churches as false and offensive; for Christians should not be deterred from good works, but admonished and urged thereto most diligently.

As the distinction between the Law and the Gospel is a special brilliant light, which serves to the end that God's Word may be rightly divided and the Scriptures of the holy prophets and apostles properly explained, we must guard it with especial care, lest these two doctrines be mingled with one another, or a law be made out of the Gospel, whereby the merit of Christ is obscured and troubled consciences are robbed of their comfort. Here a dissent has occurred among some theologians of the Augsburg Confession: the one side asserted that the Gospel is properly not only a preaching of grace but at the same time a preaching of repentance, which rebukes the greatest sin, namely, unbelief; the other side held that the Gospel is properly not a preaching of repentance or reproof, as that belongs to God's Law which reproves all sins including unbelief, but that the Gospel is properly a preaching of the grace and favor of God for Christ's sake, through which the unbelief of the converted is forgiven. This dissent has been caused chiefly because the term Gospel is not always employed in one and the same sense, but in two ways. Sometimes it is understood as the entire doctrine of Christ which He proclaimed in His ministry and commanded to be proclaimed, comprising the explanation of the Law and the proclamation of the grace of God (Mark 1:1; Luke 24:46-47; Acts 20:21); and in this wide sense, without the proper distinction, it is correct to say that the Gospel is a preaching of repentance and the remission of sins, for John, Christ, and the apostles began their preaching with repentance and urged also the Law of God. But the term Gospel is also employed in its proper sense, by which it comprises not the preaching of repentance but only the preaching of the grace of God (Mark 1:15: Repent, and believe the Gospel). Likewise the term repentance is not employed in one sense: in some passages it is taken for the entire conversion of man (Luke 13:5; 15:7); but where repentance and faith in Christ, or repentance and remission of sins, are mentioned as distinct, to repent means nothing else than truly to acknowledge sins, to be heartily sorry for them, and to desist from them. This knowledge comes from the Law, but is not sufficient for saving conversion if faith in Christ be not added, whose merits the Gospel offers to all penitent sinners terrified by the Law; for the Gospel proclaims forgiveness not to secure hearts but to the penitent (Luke 4:18), lest the terrors of the Law turn into despair (2 Cor. 7:10). For the mere preaching of the Law, without Christ, either makes presumptuous men or forces them to despair; therefore Christ takes the Law into His hands and explains it spiritually (Matt. 5:21ff.; Rom. 7:14; 1:18) and reveals His wrath from heaven upon all sinners. Therefore the Spirit of Christ must not only comfort but also through the office of the Law reprove the world of sin (John 16:8), doing the alien work (opus alienum) that He may do His proper work (opus proprium), which is to comfort and preach grace (Is. 28:21); for this reason He is called the Comforter, as Dr. Luther explains: anything that preaches concerning our sins and God's wrath is a preaching of the Law, while the Gospel is such a preaching as shows and gives nothing else than grace and forgiveness in Christ. The Smalcald Articles say that the New Testament retains and urges the office of the Law, which reveals sins and God's wrath, but to this office immediately adds the promise of grace through the Gospel; and the Apology says that to a true repentance the preaching of the Law alone is not sufficient, but the Gospel should be added. Therefore the two doctrines belong together and should be urged side by side, but in a definite order and with a proper distinction; and the Antinomians, who abolish the preaching of the Law from the Church and wish repentance to be taught not from the Law but from the Gospel, are justly condemned. We unanimously believe, teach, and confess that the Law is properly a divine doctrine in which the righteous, immutable will of God is revealed as to what man should be in his nature, thoughts, words, and works, and which threatens its transgressors with God's wrath and temporal and eternal punishments; for everything that reproves sin belongs to the Law (Rom. 3:20; 7:7), and since unbelief is the root of all sins, the Law reproves unbelief also. However, the Law is illustrated and explained by the Gospel, yet it remains the peculiar office of the Law to reprove sins and teach concerning good works. Now that man has not kept the Law but transgressed it, and is under God's wrath, death, and the punishment of hell-fire, the Gospel is properly a doctrine which teaches what man should believe that he may obtain forgiveness of sins, namely, that the Son of God, our Lord Christ, has taken upon Himself and borne the curse of the Law, has expiated and paid for all our sins, through whom alone we again enter into favor with God, obtain forgiveness by faith, are delivered from death, and eternally saved. Everything that comforts and offers the grace of God to transgressors of the Law is properly called the Gospel, a joyful message that God will forgive sins for Christ's sake. Therefore every penitent sinner ought to place his confidence in the Lord Christ alone, who was delivered for our offenses and raised again for our justification (Rom. 4:25), who was made sin for us (2 Cor. 5:21) and is made unto us Wisdom, Righteousness, Sanctification, and Redemption (1 Cor. 1:30), whose obedience is counted to us for righteousness; so that the Law is a ministration that kills through the letter and preaches condemnation (2 Cor. 3:7), but the Gospel is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth (Rom. 1:16). From the beginning of the world these two proclamations have been inculcated alongside each other in the Church of God with a proper distinction, the patriarchs comforting themselves by the preaching concerning the Seed of the Woman (Gen. 3:15), the Seed of Abraham (Gen. 22:18), and David's Son (Ps. 110:1; Is. 49:6; 53:5; Luke 2:32). These two doctrines should ever be diligently inculcated to the end of the world, so that through the preaching of the Law the hearts of impenitent men may be terrified and brought to repentance, yet not so as to despair, since the Law is a schoolmaster unto Christ (Gal. 3:24) who is the end of the Law (Rom. 10:4); and that they be comforted again by the preaching of the Gospel, that God forgives all their sins through Christ and out of pure grace justifies and saves them, yet not in such a way that they abuse grace and sin hoping for grace (2 Cor. 3:7ff.). Therefore the true distinction between the Law and the Gospel must with all diligence be preserved, and it is dangerous and wrong to convert the Gospel, properly so called, into a preaching of repentance or reproof; for otherwise the merit and benefits of Christ are obscured, the Gospel is turned into a doctrine of the Law as occurred in the Papacy, and Christians are deprived of the true comfort which they have in the Gospel against the terrors of the Law.

Since the Law of God is useful not only that external discipline and decency are maintained by it against wild, disobedient men, and that through it men are brought to a knowledge of their sins, but also that, when they have been born anew by the Spirit of God and converted to the Lord, they live and walk in the Law, a dissension has occurred among some few theologians concerning this third and last use of the Law. For the one side taught that the regenerate do not learn the new obedience, or in what good works they ought to walk, from the Law, because they have been made free by the Son of God and do freely of themselves what God requires of them by the prompting of the Holy Ghost, just as the sun completes its course without impulse. Over against this the other side taught that, although the truly believing are moved by God's Spirit and do God's will from a free spirit according to the inner man, yet it is the Holy Ghost who uses the written Law for instruction with them, by which they learn to serve God according to His written Law and Word, which is a sure rule of a godly life. For the settlement of this dissent we unanimously believe, teach, and confess that, although the truly believing and converted and justified Christians are liberated from the curse of the Law, yet they should daily exercise themselves in the Law of the Lord (Ps. 1:2; 119:1); for the Law is a mirror in which the will of God is exactly portrayed and which should be constantly held up to believers. For although the Law is not made for a righteous man but for the unrighteous (1 Tim. 1:9), this is not to be understood as though the justified are to live without law; for the Law of God has been written in their heart. But St. Paul's meaning is that the Law cannot burden with its curse those who have been reconciled to God through Christ, nor vex the regenerate with its coercion, because they have pleasure in God's Law after the inner man. Indeed, if the believing and elect children of God were completely renewed in this life, so that in their nature and all its powers they were entirely free from sin, they would need no law and no one to drive them, but would do voluntarily what they are bound to do, just as the sun, moon, and stars have their regular course of themselves, and as the holy angels render an entirely voluntary obedience. However, believers are not renewed in this life perfectly or completely; for although their sin is covered by the perfect obedience of Christ so that it is not imputed for condemnation, and the mortification of the old Adam is begun through the Holy Ghost, nevertheless the old Adam clings to them still in their nature and all its powers (Rom. 7:18ff.; Gal. 5:17). Therefore, because of these lusts of the flesh, the regenerate children of God need in this life not only the daily instruction and admonition, warning, and threatening of the Law, but also frequently punishments, that they may be roused and follow the Spirit of God (Ps. 119:71; 1 Cor. 9:27; Heb. 12:8). But we must explain distinctively what the Gospel does towards the new obedience of believers, and what is the office of the Law. For the Law says indeed that it is God's will that we should walk in a new life, but it does not give the power to begin and do it; but the Holy Ghost, who is received not through the Law but through the preaching of the Gospel (Gal. 3:14), renews the heart. Thereafter the Holy Ghost employs the Law so as to teach the regenerate and to point out in the Ten Commandments the acceptable will of God (Rom. 12:2; Eph. 2:10); He exhorts them thereto, and when they are idle, negligent, and rebellious because of the flesh, He reproves them through the Law, so that He carries on both offices together: He slays and makes alive, leads into hell and brings up again; for His office is not only to comfort but also to reprove (John 16:8). To prevent misunderstanding, it is to be noted that when we speak of good works which are in accordance with God's Law, the word Law has only one sense, namely, the immutable will of God according to which men are to conduct themselves. The difference is in the works, because of the difference in the men. For as long as man is not regenerate and conducts himself according to the Law from fear of punishment or desire for reward, he is still under the Law, and his works are called by St. Paul properly works of the Law, for they are extorted as those of slaves, and these are saints after the order of Cain. But when man is born anew by the Spirit of God and led by the Spirit of Christ, he lives according to the immutable will of God comprised in the Law and does everything from a free, cheerful spirit; and these are called not works of the Law but works and fruits of the Spirit, or the law of the mind and the Law of Christ; for such men are no more under the Law but under grace (Rom. 8:2; 7:23; 1 Cor. 9:21). But since believers are not completely renewed in this world, and the old Adam clings to them even to the grave, there remains in them the struggle between the spirit and the flesh; therefore they delight in God's Law according to the inner man, but the law in their members struggles against the law in their mind; hence they are never without the Law, yet are not under but in the Law, and live and walk in the Law of the Lord, doing nothing from constraint of the Law. But as far as the old Adam is concerned, he must be driven not only with the Law but also with punishments, doing everything against his will and under coercion. This doctrine of the Law is needful for believers, lest they hit upon a holiness of their own and under the pretext of the Spirit set up a self-chosen worship without God's Word (Deut. 12:8,28,32); and it is necessary because otherwise man can easily imagine that his work and life are entirely pure and perfect, whereas the Law of God shows as in a mirror that in this life they are still imperfect and impure (1 Cor. 4:4; Rom. 13:9; 7:7ff.; Ps. 119:32; 143:2). But how and why the good works of believers, although imperfect and impure because of sin in the flesh, are nevertheless acceptable to God, is not taught by the Law, which requires perfect obedience, but by the Gospel, which teaches that our spiritual offerings are acceptable through faith for Christ's sake (1 Pet. 2:5; Heb. 11:4ff.). Thus Christians are not under the Law but under grace, because by faith in Christ the persons are freed from the curse and condemnation of the Law, and because their good works, although imperfect, are acceptable through Christ, and because so far as they are born anew they do what is pleasing to God voluntarily by the renewing of the Holy Ghost, yet maintain a constant struggle against the old Adam. For the old Adam, as an intractable, refractory beast, must be coerced to the obedience of Christ not only by the teaching and threatening of the Law but also by the club of punishments, until the body of sin is entirely put off and man is perfectly renewed in the resurrection, when he will need neither the preaching of the Law nor its threatenings, nor even the Gospel any longer, for these belong to this imperfect life; but as they behold God face to face, they will do the will of God with unmingled joy, voluntarily, with entire purity, and rejoice in it eternally. Accordingly, we reject and condemn as a pernicious error the teaching that the Law, in the above-mentioned way and degree, should not be urged upon Christians and true believers, but only upon the unbelieving, unchristian, and impenitent.

A controversy has arisen between the theologians of the Augsburg Confession and the Sacramentarians concerning the Holy Supper. Although some Sacramentarians employ words close to the Augsburg Confession and confess that in the Holy Supper the body of Christ is truly received by believers, when pressed they all declare that the true essential body and blood of Christ are absent from the consecrated bread and wine, as far as the highest heaven is from the earth, and that nothing else is received by the mouth than bread and wine. They interpret the words of institution, "Take, eat; this is My body," not properly according to the letter, but figuratively, so that eating the body of Christ means nothing else than believing, and the word "is" is taken sacramentally or significatively, in order that no one may regard the flesh of Christ as present on earth. Against this we confess, with Dr. Luther in the Large Catechism, that the Sacrament of the Altar is the true body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, in and under the bread and wine, which we Christians are commanded by the Word of Christ to eat and to drink. It is the Word which makes and distinguishes this Sacrament, so that it is not mere bread and wine, but is, and is called, the body and blood of Christ. Even though a knave take or distribute the Sacrament, he receives the true body and blood of Christ, just as truly as he who receives it in the most worthy manner; for it is founded not upon the holiness of men, but upon the Word of God. This presence is understood not only of the believing and worthy, but also of the unbelieving and unworthy. The forms "under the bread, with the bread, in the bread" are employed to reject the papistic transubstantiation and to indicate the sacramental union of the unchanged essence of the bread and of the body of Christ; even as the two distinct, unchanged natures in Christ are inseparably united, so in the Holy Supper the two substances, the natural bread and the true natural body of Christ, are present together here upon earth in the appointed administration of the Sacrament. This union, however, is not a personal union as that of the two natures in Christ, but a sacramental union. We are bound not to interpret the words of the eternal, true, and almighty Son of God as allegorical or figurative, but with simple faith and obedience to receive them as they read, in their proper and plain sense. We distinguish a two-fold participation of the body and blood of Christ: a spiritual eating by faith, and an oral eating, which occurs by both the worthy and the unworthy. Not the word or work of any man produces the true presence, neither the merit or recitation of the minister, nor the eating and faith of the communicants, but all this is to be ascribed alone to the power of Almighty God and the word, institution, and ordination of our Lord Jesus Christ. The almighty words which Christ spake at the first institution endure, are valid, and are still efficacious, so that wherever the Supper is celebrated according to the institution of Christ, and His words are used, the body and blood of Christ are truly present, distributed, and received. The words of institution are therefore to be publicly spoken or sung before the congregation distinctly and clearly, and in no way omitted. From the words of institution this useful rule has been derived: Nihil habet rationem sacramenti extra usum a Christo institutum -- nothing has the nature of a sacrament apart from the use instituted by Christ. The "use" here means the entire external, visible action of the Lord's Supper instituted by Christ: the consecration, the distribution, and the oral reception of the consecrated bread and wine. By "spiritually" we understand the spiritual, supernatural, heavenly mode according to which Christ is present in the Holy Supper, working consolation and life in the believing, but also condemnation in the unbelieving; whereby we reject the Capernaitic notions of a gross, carnal presence falsely ascribed to our churches. Our faith in this article rests upon the truth and omnipotence of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Accordingly, with heart and mouth we reject and condemn as false, erroneous, and misleading: the papistic transubstantiation, by which the bread and wine are said to lose their substance; all papistic abuses of this Sacrament, such as the sacrifice of the mass for the living and dead, and the administration of only one form to the laity; and likewise all Sacramentarian opinions, namely, that the words of institution are to be wrested by tropes to a strange sense; that the oral participation of the body and blood of Christ is denied; that the bread and wine are mere tokens or figures of the far-absent body of Christ; that Christ is so enclosed in heaven that He cannot be truly present with us in the Supper; that not the Word and omnipotence of Christ but faith renders His body present; and that believers are directed away from the bread of the Supper to heaven. We reject also the teaching that the unworthy receive only bread and wine and not the body and blood of Christ to their condemnation, and all presumptuous, blasphemous, Capernaitic questions regarding this heavenly mystery.

A controversy has also occurred among the theologians of the Augsburg Confession concerning the Person of Christ, which sprang originally from the Sacramentarians. For when Dr. Luther had maintained the true, essential presence of the body and blood of Christ in the Supper, the objection was urged that if the body of Christ were present at the same time in heaven and on earth, it could be no real, true human body, for such majesty was said to be peculiar to God alone. To explain this controversy in conformity with God's Word, our unanimous doctrine, faith, and confession are as follows. We believe, teach, and confess that the Son of God, although from eternity He has been a distinct, entire divine person, true, essential, perfect God with the Father and the Holy Ghost, nevertheless in the fulness of time assumed also human nature into the unity of His person, not in such a way that there are now two persons or two Christs, but that Christ Jesus is now in one person at the same time true, eternal God, born of the Father from eternity, and a true man, born of the most blessed Virgin Mary, as it is written: "Of whom, as concerning the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, God blessed forever" (Rom. 9:5). We believe, teach, and confess that now, in this one undivided person of Christ, there are two distinct natures, the divine, which is from eternity, and the human, which in time was assumed into the unity of the person of the Son of God; which two natures are never either separated from, or mingled with, one another, or changed the one into the other, but each abides in its nature and essence in the person of Christ to all eternity. As both natures remain unmingled and undestroyed in their nature and essence, each retains also its natural, essential properties, and does not lay them aside to all eternity; neither do the essential properties of the one nature ever become the essential properties of the other. Accordingly, to be almighty, eternal, infinite, to be present everywhere at once according to the property of its nature, and to know all things, are essential attributes of the divine nature, which never to eternity become essential properties of the human nature. On the other hand, to be a corporeal creature, to be flesh and blood, to be finite and circumscribed, to suffer, to die, to ascend and descend, to move from one place to another, to suffer hunger, thirst, cold, and heat, are properties of the human nature, which never become properties of the divine nature. We believe, teach, and confess that now, since the incarnation, each nature in Christ does not so subsist of itself that each is or constitutes a separate person, but that they are so united that they constitute one single person, in which the divine and the assumed human nature subsist at the same time; so that there belongs to the entire person of Christ personally not only His divine, but also His assumed human nature. Hence Christ is not two distinct persons, but one single person, notwithstanding that two distinct natures are found in Him, unconfused in their natural essence and properties. We believe, teach, and confess also that the assumed human nature in Christ not only has and retains its natural, essential properties, but that over and above these, through the personal union with the Deity, and afterwards through glorification, it has been exalted to the right hand of majesty, power, and might, over everything that can be named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come. As regards this majesty to which Christ has been exalted according to His humanity, He did not first receive it when He arose from the dead and ascended into heaven, but when He was conceived in His mother's womb and became man, and the divine and human natures were personally united. This personal union is not to be understood, as some incorrectly explain it, as though the two natures were united as two boards glued together, having no communion whatever with one another; for this was the error and heresy of Nestorius and of Paul of Samosata, which separates the natures and constitutes two Christs.

And since even in the ancient Christian teachers of the Church, as well as in some among our teachers, dissimilar explanations of the article concerning the descent of Christ to hell are found, we abide in like manner by the simplicity of our Christian faith comprised in the Creed, to which Dr. Luther in his sermon, which was delivered in the castle at Torgau in the year 1533, concerning the descent of Christ to hell, has pointed us, where we confess: I believe in the Lord Christ, God's Son, our Lord, dead, buried, and descended into hell. For in this Confession the burial and descent of Christ to hell are distinguished as different articles; and we simply believe that the entire person, God and man, after the burial descended into hell, conquered the devil, destroyed the power of hell, and took from the devil all his might. We should not, however, trouble ourselves with high and acute thoughts as to how this occurred; for with our reason and our five senses this article can be comprehended as little as the preceding one, how Christ is placed at the right hand of the almighty power and majesty of God; but we are simply to believe it and adhere to the Word in such mysteries of faith. Thus we retain the substance and consolation that neither hell nor the devil can take captive or injure us and all who believe in Christ.

Concerning ceremonies and church rites which are neither commanded nor forbidden in God's Word, but are introduced into the Church with a good intention, for the sake of good order and propriety, or otherwise to maintain Christian discipline, a dissension has likewise arisen among some theologians of the Augsburg Confession: the one side holding that also in time of persecution and in case of confession, even though the enemies of the Gospel do not come to an agreement with us in doctrine, yet some ceremonies, abrogated long since, which in themselves are adiaphora, and neither commanded nor forbidden by God, may, without violence to conscience, be reestablished in compliance with the pressure and demand of the adversaries, and thus in such adiaphora, or matters of indifference, we may indeed come to an agreement with them. But the other side contended that in time of persecution, in case of confession, especially when it is the design of the adversaries, either through force and compulsion, or in an insidious manner, to suppress the pure doctrine, and gradually to introduce again into our churches their false doctrine, this, also in adiaphora, can in no way be done without violence to conscience and prejudice to the divine truth. To explain this controversy, and by God's grace finally to settle it, we present this simple statement: Namely, when under the title and pretext of external adiaphora such things are proposed as are in principle contrary to God's Word, these are not to be regarded as adiaphora, in which one is free to act as he will, but must be avoided as things prohibited by God. In like manner, too, such ceremonies should not be reckoned among the genuine free adiaphora as make a show or feign the appearance, as though our religion and that of the Papists were not far apart, thus to avoid persecution; or when such ceremonies are designed for the purpose, and required and received in this sense, as though by and through them both contrary religions were reconciled and became one body; or when a reentering into the Papacy and a departure from the pure doctrine of the Gospel should occur or gradually follow therefrom. For in this case what Paul writes, 2 Cor. 6:14-17, shall and must obtain: Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers; for what communion hath light with darkness? Wherefore come out from among them and be ye separate, saith the Lord. Likewise, when there are useless, foolish displays, that are profitable neither for good order nor Christian discipline, nor evangelical propriety in the Church, these also are not genuine adiaphora. But as regards genuine adiaphora, we believe, teach, and confess that such ceremonies, in and of themselves, are no worship of God, nor any part of it, but must be properly distinguished from such as are, as it is written: In vain they do worship Me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men, Matt. 15:9. Therefore we believe, teach, and confess that the congregation of God of every place and every time has, according to its circumstances, the good right, power, and authority to change, to diminish, and to increase them, without thoughtlessness and offense, in an orderly and becoming way, as at any time it may be regarded most profitable and best for preserving good order, maintaining Christian discipline, and the edification of the Church. Moreover, how we can yield and give way with a good conscience to the weak in faith in such external adiaphora, Paul teaches Rom. 14, and proves it by his example, Acts 16:3; 21:26; 1 Cor. 9:19. We believe, teach, and confess also that at the time of confession, when the enemies of God's Word desire to suppress the pure doctrine of the holy Gospel, the entire congregation of God, yea, every Christian, but especially the ministers of the Word, as the leaders of the congregation of God, are bound by God's Word to confess freely and openly the doctrine, and what belongs to the whole of pure religion, not only in words, but also in works and with deeds; and that then, even in such adiaphora, they must not yield to the adversaries, or permit these to be forced upon them by their enemies, whether by violence or cunning, to the detriment of the true worship of God and the introduction and sanction of idolatry. For it is written, Gal. 5:1: Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not again entangled in the yoke of bondage. Also Gal. 2:4f: And that because of false brethren unawares brought in, who came in privily to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage; to whom we gave place by subjection, no, not for an hour, that the truth of the Gospel might continue with you. Now it is manifest that in that place Paul speaks concerning circumcision, which at that time had become an adiaphoron, and which at other occasions was observed by Paul; but when the false apostles urged circumcision for establishing their false doctrine, that the works of the Law were necessary for righteousness and salvation, and misused it for confirming their error in the minds of men, Paul says that he would not yield even for an hour, in order that the truth of the Gospel might continue unimpaired. Thus Paul yields and gives way to the weak as to food and the observance of times or days, Rom. 14:6. But to the false apostles, who wished to impose these upon the conscience as necessary things, he will yield not even in such things as in themselves are adiaphora, Col. 2:16: Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holy day. And when Peter and Barnabas yielded somewhat in such an emergency, Paul openly reproves them as those who in this matter were not walking aright, according to the truth of the Gospel, Gal. 2:11ff. For here it is no longer a question concerning external matters of indifference; but it is a question, in the first place, concerning the eminent article of our Christian faith, as the apostle testifies, that the truth of the Gospel might continue, which is obscured and perverted by such compulsion or command, because such adiaphora are then either publicly required for the sanction of false doctrine, superstition, and idolatry, and for the suppression of pure doctrine and Christian liberty, or at least are abused for this purpose by the adversaries. Likewise, the article concerning Christian liberty also is here at stake, which the Holy Ghost through the mouth of the holy apostle so earnestly charged His Church to preserve. For as soon as this is weakened and the ordinances of men are forced upon the Church with coercion, as though it were wrong and a sin to omit them, the way is already prepared for idolatry, and by this means ordinances of men are afterwards multiplied and regarded as a divine worship, not only equal to the ordinances of God, but are even placed above them. Moreover, by such yielding and conformity in external things, where there has not been previously Christian union in doctrine, idolaters are confirmed in their idolatry; on the other hand, the true believers are grieved, offended, and weakened in their faith; both of which every Christian for the sake of his soul's welfare and salvation is bound to avoid, as it is written: Woe unto the world because of offenses! Also: Whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in Me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea, Matt. 18:6,7. But it is to be especially remembered what Christ says: Whosoever therefore shall confess Me before men, him will I confess also before My Father which is in heaven, Matt. 10:32. However, that this has always and everywhere been the faith and confession concerning such indifferent matters of the chief teachers of the Augsburg Confession is shown by testimonies drawn from the Smalcald Articles, composed and subscribed in the year 1537. The Smalcald Articles (Of the Church) say: We do not concede to them, the papal bishops, that they are the Church, and indeed they are not; nor will we listen to those things which, under the name of Church, they enjoin and forbid. For a child seven years old knows what the Church is, namely, the saints, believers, and lambs, who hear the voice of their Shepherd. And (Of Ordination and Vocation): If the bishops would be true bishops, and would devote themselves to the Church and the Gospel, it might be granted to them, for the sake of love and unity, but not from necessity, to ordain and confirm us and our preachers; but, because they neither are nor wish to be true bishops, but worldly lords and princes, the Church ought not on their account to remain without ministers. And in the article Of the Papacy, the Smalcald Articles say: Therefore, just as little as we can worship the devil himself as Lord and God, we can endure his apostle, the Pope, or Antichrist, in his rule as head or lord. And in the treatise Concerning the Power and Primacy of the Pope are these words: No one is to burden the Church with his own traditions, but here the rule is to be that nobody's power or authority is to avail more than the Word of God. And shortly afterwards: All Christians ought most diligently to beware of becoming partakers of the godless doctrine, blasphemies, and unjust cruelties of the Pope; but ought to desert and execrate the Pope with his adherents as the kingdom of Antichrist, just as Christ has commanded, Matt. 7:15: Beware of false prophets. It is a grave matter wanting to separate one's self from so many lands and nations, and to profess a separate doctrine; but here stands God's command, that every one should beware and not agree with those who maintain false doctrine. So Dr. Luther, too, has amply instructed the Church of God in a special treatise concerning what should be thought of ceremonies in general, and especially of adiaphora. From this explanation every one can understand what every Christian congregation and every Christian man, especially in time of confession, and most of all preachers, are to do or to leave undone, without injury to conscience, with respect to adiaphora, in order that God may not be angered, love may not be injured, the enemies of God's Word be not strengthened, nor the weak in faith offended. 1. Therefore we reject and condemn as wrong when the ordinances of men in themselves are regarded as a service or part of the service of God. 2. We reject and condemn also as wrong when these ordinances are by coercion forced upon the congregation of God as necessary. 3. We reject and condemn also as wrong the opinion of those who hold that at a time of persecution we may comply with the enemies of the holy Gospel in restoring such adiaphora, or come to an agreement with them. 4. We likewise regard it as a sin that deserves to be rebuked when in time of persecution anything is done either in indifferent matters or in doctrine, and in what otherwise pertains to religion, for the sake of the enemies of the Gospel, contrary and opposed to the Christian confession. 5. We reject and condemn also when these adiaphora are abrogated in such a manner as though it were not free to the congregation of God at any time and place to employ one or more in Christian liberty, according to its circumstances, as may be most useful to the Church. Thus the churches will not condemn one another because of dissimilarity of ceremonies when, in Christian liberty, one has less or more of them, provided they are otherwise agreed with one another in the doctrine and all its articles, also in the right use of the holy Sacraments, according to the well-known saying: Dissonantia ieiunii non dissolvit consonantiam fidei; Disagreement in fasting does not destroy agreement in the faith.

Although among the theologians of the Augsburg Confession there has not occurred as yet any public dissension concerning the eternal election of the children of God that has caused offense, yet since this article has been brought into very painful controversy in other places, we have desired to present an explanation of the same here, so that every one may know what is our unanimous doctrine. For the doctrine concerning this article, if taught according to the pattern of the divine Word, neither can nor should be regarded as useless or unnecessary, because the Holy Scriptures in many places thoroughly treat the same. Moreover, we should not reject the doctrine of the divine Word on account of abuse or misunderstanding, but on that account the true meaning should be explained from the foundation of the Scriptures. First, the distinction between the eternal foreknowledge of God and the eternal election of His children to eternal salvation is carefully to be observed. For foreknowledge or prevision, that is, that God sees and knows everything before it happens, extends over all creatures, good and bad; namely, that He foresees and foreknows everything that is or will be, whether it be good or bad, since before God all things, whether past or future, are manifest and present (Matt. 10:29; Ps. 139:16; Is. 37:28). The eternal election of God, however, or predestination, that is, God's ordination to salvation, does not extend at once over the godly and the wicked, but only over the children of God, who were elected and ordained to eternal life before the foundation of the world was laid, as Paul says, Eph. 1:4,5: He hath chosen us in Him, having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ. The foreknowledge of God foresees also that which is evil; however, not in such a manner as though it were God's gracious will that it should happen; but all that the perverse, wicked will of the devil and of men wills and desires to do, God sees and knows before; and His foreknowledge observes its order also in wicked acts, inasmuch as a limit and measure is fixed by God to the evil which God does not will, how far it should go, when and how He will hinder and punish it; for all of this God so overrules that it must redound to the glory of the divine name and to the salvation of His elect. However, the beginning and cause of evil is not God's foreknowledge (for God does not work evil, neither does He help or promote it); but the wicked, perverse will of the devil and of men is the cause of evil, as it is written Hos. 13:9: O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself; but in Me is thy help. The eternal election of God, however, not only foresees and foreknows the salvation of the elect, but is also, from the gracious will and pleasure of God in Christ Jesus, a cause which procures, works, helps, and promotes our salvation; and upon this our salvation is so founded that the gates of hell cannot prevail against it (Matt. 16:18; John 10:28; Acts 13:48). Nor is this eternal election to be considered in God's secret, inscrutable counsel in such a bare manner as though nothing more belonged to it than that God foresaw who and how many were to be saved, who and how many were to be damned, or that He only held a sort of military muster. For from this notion many derive strange, dangerous, and pernicious thoughts, which occasion either security and impenitence or despondency and despair, so that they say: Since God has foreknown His elect to salvation, and God's foreknowledge cannot be hindered or changed, therefore, if I am foreknown to salvation, nothing can injure me even though I practise all sorts of sin without repentance; but I shall be saved nevertheless. If, however, I am not foreknown, it helps me nothing even though I repent and believe. And to godly hearts such thoughts occur: If you are not foreknown from eternity to salvation, your every effort is of no avail. To this false delusion we should oppose the following clear argument: Since all Scripture, given by inspiration of God, is to serve, not for security and impenitence, but for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness (2 Tim. 3:16); and since everything in God's Word has been prescribed not that we should despair but that we might have hope (Rom. 15:4); therefore it is in no way the right use of the doctrine concerning the eternal foreknowledge of God that either impenitence or despair should be strengthened thereby. Accordingly, the Scriptures direct us to the Word, exhort to repentance, urge to godliness, strengthen faith, and assure us of our salvation. Therefore, if we wish to think correctly concerning eternal election, we should not speculate concerning the bare, secret, inscrutable foreknowledge of God, but how the counsel and ordination of God in Christ Jesus, who is the true Book of Life, is revealed to us through the Word, namely, that the entire doctrine concerning the purpose, counsel, will, and ordination of God pertaining to our redemption, call, justification, and salvation should be taken together (Rom. 8:29f; Eph. 1:4f; Matt. 22:1ff), namely, that God in His purpose and counsel ordained: 1. That the human race is truly redeemed and reconciled with God through Christ, who by His obedience, suffering, and death has merited for us the righteousness which avails before God, and eternal life. 2. That such merit and benefits of Christ shall be presented, offered, and distributed to us through His Word and Sacraments. 3. That by His Holy Ghost, through the Word, He will be efficacious and active in us, convert hearts to true repentance, and preserve them in the true faith. 4. That He will justify all those who in true repentance receive Christ by a true faith, and will receive them into grace, the adoption of sons, and the inheritance of eternal life. 5. That He will also sanctify in love those who are thus justified. 6. That He also will protect them in their weakness against the devil, the world, and the flesh, rule and lead them, raise them again when they stumble, comfort them under the cross. 7. That He will also strengthen and support to the end the good work which He has begun in them, if they adhere to God's Word, pray, and faithfully use the gifts received. 8. That finally He will eternally save and glorify those whom He has elected, called, and justified. And in this His counsel God has prepared salvation not only in general, but has in grace chosen each and every person of the elect who are to be saved through Christ. All this is comprised in the doctrine concerning the eternal election of God to adoption and eternal salvation, and is never to be excluded when we speak of God's predestination to salvation. This also belongs to the salutary use of the doctrine: Since only the elect are saved, how we can know who are the elect that can receive this doctrine for comfort. And of this we should not judge according to our reason, nor according to any external appearance, neither should we attempt to investigate the secret abyss of divine predestination, but should give heed to the revealed will of God. For He has made known the mystery of His will through Christ (Eph. 1:9ff; 2 Tim. 1:9f). This is revealed as Paul says, Rom. 8:29f: Whom God predestinated, He also called. Now, God does not call without means, but through the Word, as He has commanded repentance and remission of sins to be preached in His name (Luke 24:47; 2 Cor. 5:20; Matt. 22:2ff). Therefore, if we wish to consider our eternal election to salvation with profit, we must hold firmly that, as the preaching of repentance, so also the promise of the Gospel is universal, that is, it pertains to all men (Luke 24:47; John 3:16; John 1:29; John 6:51; 1 John 2:2; Matt. 11:28; Rom. 11:32; 2 Pet. 3:9; Rom. 10:12; Rom. 3:22; John 6:40). And this call of God we should not regard as jugglery, but know that thereby God reveals His will, that in those whom He thus calls He will work through the Word, that they may be enlightened, converted, and saved. For the Word is a ministration of the Spirit (2 Cor. 3:8) and a power of God unto salvation (Rom. 1:16). For this reason the elect are described thus, John 10:27f: My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me, and I give unto them eternal life. Thus the Spirit of God gives to the elect the testimony that they are children of God, and intercedes for them with groanings that cannot be uttered (Rom. 8:16,26). Holy Scripture testifies that God, who has called us, is so faithful that, when He has begun the good work in us, He also will preserve it to the end, if we ourselves do not turn from Him (1 Cor. 1:9; Phil. 1:6; 2 Pet. 3:9). With this revealed will of God we should concern ourselves, and should not attempt to sound the abyss of God's hidden predestination, as it is written in Luke 13:24. However, that many are called and few chosen is not owing to the fact that the call of God had the meaning as though God said: Outwardly through the Word I call all of you, but in My heart I do not mean this with respect to all, but only with respect to a few; for it is My will that the greatest part of those whom I call shall not be converted, but remain damned. For this would be to assign contradictory wills to God; that is, it would be taught that God, who is Eternal Truth, would be contrary to Himself, while, on the contrary, God punishes also in men this wickedness when a person declares himself to one purpose, and thinks another in the heart (Ps. 5:9; 12:2f). Thereby also the necessary consolatory foundation is rendered uncertain, as we are daily admonished that only from God's Word we are to learn what His will towards us is. There would also be overthrown the foundation that the Holy Ghost wishes certainly to be present with the Word preached, heard, considered, and to be efficacious through it. Therefore the meaning is not that the elect are to be such as despise the Word of God, blaspheme and persecute it, harden their hearts, resist the Holy Ghost, without repentance persevere in sins, do not truly believe in Christ, only make an outward show, or seek other ways to salvation outside of Christ (Matt. 22:6; Acts 13:46; Heb. 4:2,7; Acts 7:51; Luke 14:18; Mark 16:16; Matt. 7:22; Rom. 9:31). Moreover, even as God has ordained that the Holy Ghost should call, enlighten, and convert the elect through the Word, and that He will justify and save all those who by true faith receive Christ, so He also determined in His counsel that He will harden, reprobate, and condemn those who are called through the Word, if they reject the Word and resist the Holy Ghost. And in this manner many are called, but few are chosen. For few receive the Word and follow it; the greatest number despise the Word, and will not come to the wedding (Matt. 22:3ff). The cause for this contempt is not God's foreknowledge, but the perverse will of man, which rejects the means of the Holy Ghost which God offers him through the call, as Christ says: How often would I have gathered you together, and ye would not! Matt. 23:37. Thus many receive the Word with joy, but afterwards fall away again (Luke 8:13). But the cause is not as though God were unwilling to grant grace for perseverance to those in whom He has begun the good work, for that is contrary to St. Paul (Phil. 1:6); but the cause is that they wilfully turn away again from the holy commandment, grieve the Holy Ghost, and garnish again the habitation of the heart for the devil; with them the last state is worse than the first (2 Pet. 2:20; Eph. 4:30; Heb. 10:26; Luke 11:25). Thus far is the mystery of predestination revealed to us in God's Word, and if we abide thereby, it is a very useful, consolatory doctrine; for it establishes the article that we are justified and saved without all works and merits of ours, purely out of grace alone, for Christ's sake (Rom. 9:11; 2 Tim. 1:9). Moreover, all erroneous doctrines concerning the powers of our natural will are thereby overthrown, because God in His counsel decided that He Himself, by the power of His Holy Ghost, would work in us everything that pertains to our conversion. Thus this doctrine affords also the glorious consolation that God was so concerned about the salvation of every Christian, that before the foundation of the world He deliberated concerning it, and ordained how He would call and lead me to salvation, and preserve me therein; and that He placed it for preservation in the almighty hand of our Savior Jesus Christ, from which no one can pluck us (John 10:28). Hence Paul says, Rom. 8:28,39, that since we have been called according to the purpose of God, no one shall separate us from the love of God in Christ. Moreover, this doctrine affords glorious consolation under the cross and amid temptations, that God determined before the time of the world that He would assist us in all distresses, grant patience, give consolation, and produce such an outcome as would contribute to our salvation (Rom. 8:28,29,35,38,39). This article also affords a testimony that the Church of God will exist and abide in opposition to all the gates of hell. From this article also powerful admonitions are derived (Luke 7:30; 14:24; Matt. 20:16; Luke 8:8,18). But a distinction must be observed with especial care between that which is expressly revealed concerning it in God's Word, and what is not revealed. For God has still kept secret much concerning this mystery, and reserved it for His wisdom alone, which we should not investigate, but should adhere to the revealed Word. For our curiosity has always much more pleasure in concerning itself with these hidden matters than with what God has revealed. Thus there is no doubt that God most exactly foresaw before the time of the world which of those that are called will believe or will not believe, which will persevere and which will not. However, since God has reserved this mystery for His wisdom, and has revealed nothing to us concerning it, but has earnestly discouraged us therefrom (Rom. 11:33ff), we should not inquire curiously into these matters, but should adhere to His revealed Word. Thus God also knows the time and hour of every one's call and conversion; but since this has not been revealed, we have the command always to keep urging the Word, but to entrust the time and hour to God (Acts 1:7). Likewise, when we see that God gives His Word at one place but not at another, removes it from one place and allows it to remain at another, and that one is hardened while another in the same guilt is converted, Paul fixes a certain limit how far we should go (Rom. 11:22ff), namely, that in the one part we should recognize God's judgment. For they are well-deserved penalties of sins when God so punishes a nation for despising His Word that the punishment extends also to their posterity, as is to be seen in the Jews. And thereby God exhibits His severity, that we may learn what we all would have deserved, since we act wickedly in opposition to God's Word and often grieve the Holy Ghost, in order that we may live in the fear of God, and acknowledge and praise God's goodness, contrary to our merit. For inasmuch as our nature has been corrupted by sin, and is subject to God's wrath and condemnation, God owes to us neither the Word, the Spirit, nor grace; and when He bestows these gifts, we often thrust them from us, and make ourselves unworthy of everlasting life (Acts 13:46). And this His righteous judgment He displays in some persons, in order that, when we are compared with them, we may learn the more diligently to praise God's unmerited grace in the vessels of mercy. For no injustice is done those who are punished and receive the wages of their sins; but in the rest, to whom God gives and preserves His Word, God commends His pure grace and mercy, without their merit. When we proceed thus far in this article, we remain on the right way, as it is written Hos. 13:9: O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself; but in Me is thy help. However, as regards these things which would soar too high and beyond these limits, we should, with Paul, place the finger upon our lips, and say, Rom. 9:20: O man, who art thou that repliest against God? For the great Apostle Paul, after having argued much concerning this article from the revealed Word, as soon as he comes to the point where God has reserved for His hidden wisdom concerning this mystery, suppresses it with the words, Rom. 11:33f: O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out! Accordingly, this eternal election of God is to be considered in Christ, and not outside of or without Christ. For in Christ, the Apostle Paul testifies, Eph. 1:4f, He hath chosen us before the foundation of the world, as it is written: He hath made us accepted in the Beloved. This election is revealed from heaven through the preaching of His Word, when the Father says, Matt. 17:5: This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye Him. And Christ says, Matt. 11:28: Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. And concerning the Holy Ghost Christ says, John 16:14: He shall glorify Me; for He shall receive of Mine, and shall show it unto you. Thus the entire Holy Trinity, God Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, directs all men to Christ, as to the Book of Life, in whom they should seek the eternal election of the Father. For this has been decided by the Father from eternity, that whom He would save He would save through Christ, as He Himself says, John 14:6: No man cometh unto the Father but by Me. And again, John 10:9: I am the Door; by Me, if any man enter in, he shall be saved. However, Christ, as the only-begotten Son of God, has announced to us the will of the Father, and thus also our eternal election to eternal life, namely, when He says, Mark 1:15: Repent ye, and believe the Gospel. Likewise He says, John 6:40: This is the will of Him that sent Me, that every one which seeth the Son and believeth on Him may have everlasting life. And again, John 3:16: God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. This proclamation the Father wishes all men to hear and desires that they come to Christ; and these Christ does not drive from Him, as it is written John 6:37: Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out. And in order that we may come to Christ, the Holy Ghost works true faith through the hearing of the Word (Rom. 10:17). Therefore, whoever would be saved should not trouble himself with thoughts concerning the secret counsel of God, as to whether he also is elected, with which miserable Satan usually attacks godly hearts. But they should hear Christ, who is the Book of Life and of God's eternal election: He testifies to all men without distinction that it is God's will that all men should come to Him who labor and are heavy laden with sin, in order that He may give them rest and save them (Matt. 11:28). According to this doctrine they should abstain from their sins, repent, believe His promise, and entirely trust in Him; and since we cannot do this by our own powers, the Holy Ghost desires to work repentance and faith in us through the Word and Sacraments. And in order that we may persevere, we should implore God for His grace, which He has promised us in Holy Baptism, and He will impart it according to His promise (Luke 11:11ff). And since the Holy Ghost dwells in the elect as in His temple, and is not idle, but impels the children of God to obedience, believers should not be idle, but should exercise themselves in all Christian virtues, and give all diligence to make their calling and election sure, in order that they may doubt the less concerning it, the more they experience the power of the Spirit within them. For the Spirit bears witness to the elect that they are God's children (Rom. 8:16). And although they sometimes fall into grievous temptation so that they imagine they perceive no more power of the indwelling Spirit, and say with David, Ps. 31:22: I said in my haste, I am cut off from before Thine eyes, yet they should again say with David: Nevertheless Thou heardest the voice of my supplications when I cried unto Thee. And since our election to eternal life is founded not upon our godliness, but alone upon the merit of Christ and the gracious will of His Father, who is unchangeable in will and essence, therefore, when His children depart from obedience and stumble, He has them called again to repentance through the Word, and will always manifest the old paternal heart to all those who tremble at His Word and from their heart turn again to Him, as it is written, Jer. 3:1. Moreover, the declaration, John 6:44, that no one can come to Christ except the Father draw him, is right and true. However, the Father will not do this without means, but has ordained His Word and Sacraments as ordinary means; and it is the will neither of the Father nor of the Son that a man should despise the preaching of His Word, and wait for the drawing of the Father without the Word and Sacraments. For the Father draws by the power of His Holy Ghost, however, according to His usual order, by the hearing of His holy Word, as with a net, by which the elect are plucked from the jaws of the devil. Every poor sinner should therefore repair to holy preaching, hear it attentively, and not doubt the drawing of the Father. But the reason why not all who hear it believe, and some are therefore condemned the more deeply, is not because God had begrudged them their salvation; but it is their own fault, as they have heard the Word in such a manner as not to learn, but only to despise it, and have resisted the Holy Ghost, as was the case with the Pharisees. Hence the apostle distinguishes the work of God, who alone makes vessels of honor, and the work of the devil and of man, who by the instigation of the devil has made himself a vessel of dishonor. For it is written, Rom. 9:22f: God endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction, that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had afore prepared unto glory. Here the apostle clearly says that God endured the vessels of wrath, but does not say that He made them vessels of wrath; for if this had been His will, He would not have required any great long-suffering for it. The fault that they are fitted for destruction belongs to the devil and to men themselves, and not to God. For all preparation for condemnation is by the devil and man, through sin, and in no respect by God, who does not wish that any man be damned; for as God is not a cause of sins, so He is no cause of damnation; but the only cause of damnation is sin (Rom. 6:23). And as God does not will sin, so He does not wish the death of the sinner, nor has He pleasure in his condemnation (Ezek. 33:11; 18:23; 2 Pet. 3:9). And St. Paul testifies that from vessels of dishonor vessels of honor may be made by God's power, 2 Tim. 2:21: If a man purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honor. For he who is to purge himself must first have been unclean, and hence a vessel of dishonor. But concerning the vessels of mercy he says that the Lord Himself has prepared them for glory, which he does not say concerning the damned, who themselves have prepared themselves as vessels of damnation. Moreover, when God punishes sin with sins, that is, when He afterwards punishes with obduracy those who had been converted, because of their subsequent impenitence and wilful sins, this should not be interpreted to mean that it never had been God's good pleasure that such persons should be saved. For both these facts are God's revealed will: First, that God will receive into grace all who repent and believe in Christ. Secondly, that He will punish those who wilfully turn away from the holy commandment, and again entangle themselves in the filth of the world, and do despite unto the Spirit of God, and that they shall be hardened and eternally condemned if they persist therein (2 Pet. 2:20; Luke 11:25; Heb. 10:29). Accordingly, even Pharaoh perished, not because God had begrudged him salvation, or because it had been His good pleasure that he should be lost. For God is not willing that any should perish (2 Pet. 3:9; Ezek. 33:11). But that God hardened Pharaoh's heart was a punishment of his antecedent sin and horrible tyranny, which he practised against the children of Israel. And since God caused His Word to be preached to him, and Pharaoh nevertheless wilfully reared up against all admonitions, God withdrew His hand from him, and thus his heart became hardened, and God executed His judgment upon him. Accordingly, the holy apostle introduces the example of Pharaoh only to prove the justice of God which He exercises towards the impenitent and despisers of His Word; by no means has he intended it to mean that God begrudged salvation to him or any person, or had so ordained him to eternal damnation in His secret counsel that it should not be possible for him to be saved. By this doctrine of the eternal and saving election of the elect children of God His own glory is fully given to God, that in Christ He saves us out of pure mercy, without any merits or good works of ours, according to the purpose of His will (Eph. 1:5f). Therefore it is false and wrong when it is taught that not alone the mercy of God and the merit of Christ, but also in us there is a cause of God's election, on account of which God has chosen us to eternal life. For not only before we had done anything good, but also before we were born, before the foundations of the world were laid, He elected us in Christ; and that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of Him that calleth, it was said: The elder shall serve the younger; as it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated (Rom. 9:11ff; Gen. 25:23; Mal. 1:2f). Moreover, this doctrine gives no one a cause either for despondency or for a dissolute life, when men are taught that they must seek eternal election in Christ and His holy Gospel, as in the Book of Life, which excludes no penitent sinner, but calls all the poor, heavy-laden sinners to repentance and faith in Christ, and promises the Holy Ghost for renewal, and thus gives the most enduring consolation to all troubled men, that they know that their salvation is not placed in their own hands, but in the gracious election of God, out of whose hand no man shall pluck us (John 10:28; 2 Tim. 2:19). Accordingly, if any one presents the doctrine concerning the gracious election of God in such a manner that troubled Christians cannot derive comfort from it, but are thereby incited to despair, or that the impenitent are confirmed in their wantonness, it is sure that such a doctrine is taught, not according to the Word and will of God, but according to the blind judgment of human reason and the instigation of the devil. For, as the apostle testifies, Rom. 15:4: Whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope. But when this consolation and hope are removed by Scripture, it is certain that it is explained contrary to the will of the Holy Ghost. By this simple, correct, useful explanation we abide; we shun all lofty, acute questions and disputations; and reject and condemn whatever is contrary to these simple, useful explanations. So much concerning the controverted articles which have been discussed among the theologians of the Augsburg Confession. From this our explanation every one may infer that we have no intention of yielding aught of the eternal, immutable truth of God for the sake of temporal peace and unity. Still less are we inclined to conceal a corruption of the pure doctrine and manifest, condemned errors. But we entertain heartfelt love for, and are sincerely anxious to advance, that unity by which His glory remains to God uninjured, nothing of the divine truth of the Holy Gospel is surrendered, poor sinners are brought to true repentance, raised up by faith, confirmed in new obedience, and thus justified and eternally saved alone through the sole merit of Christ.

However, as regards the sects and factions which never have embraced the Augsburg Confession, and of which express mention has not been made in this our explanation, such as are the Anabaptists, Schwenckfeldians, New Arians, and Anti-Trinitarians, whose errors have been unanimously condemned by all churches of the Augsburg Confession, we have not wished to make particular and especial mention of them in this explanation, for the reason that at the present time this has been our only aim, that we might above all refute the charges of our adversaries, the Papists. Since our opponents alleged with shameless mouths, and decried throughout all the world our churches and their teachers, claiming that not two preachers are found who agree in each and every article of the Augsburg Confession, but that they are rent asunder and separated from one another to such an extent that they themselves no longer know what is the Augsburg Confession and its proper sense; we have not made a joint confession only in brief words or names, but wished to make a pure, clear, distinct declaration concerning all the disputed articles which have been discussed and controverted only among the theologians of the Augsburg Confession, in order that every one may see that we do not wish in a cunning manner to dissemble or cover up all this, or to come to an agreement only in appearance; but to remedy the matter thoroughly, and have wished to set forth our opinion in such a manner that even our adversaries themselves must confess that in all this we abide by the true, simple, natural, and proper sense of the Augsburg Confession, in which we desire, by God's grace, to persevere constantly until our end; and so far as it depends on our service, we will not connive at or be silent, lest anything contrary to the same is introduced into our churches and schools, in which the almighty God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ has appointed us teachers and pastors. However, lest there be silently ascribed to us the condemned errors of the above enumerated factions and sects, which, as is the nature of such spirits, for the most part secretly stole in at localities, especially at a time when no place was given to the pure Word of the holy Gospel, but all its sincere teachers and confessors were persecuted, and the deep darkness of the Papacy still prevailed, and poor simple men who could not help but feel the manifest idolatry and false faith of the Papacy, in their simplicity embraced whatever was called the Gospel, and was not papistic, we could not forbear testifying also against them publicly, before all Christendom, that we have neither part nor fellowship with their errors, be they many or few, but reject and condemn them, one and all, as wrong and heretical, and contrary to the Scriptures of the prophets and apostles, and to our Christian Augsburg Confession, well grounded in God's Word. Namely, for instance, the erroneous, heretical doctrines of the Anabaptists, which are to be tolerated and allowed neither in the Church, nor in the commonwealth, nor in domestic life, when they teach: 1. That our righteousness before God consists not only in the sole obedience and merit of Christ, but in our renewal and our own piety in which we walk before God; which they base upon their own peculiar ordinances and self-chosen spirituality, as upon a new sort of monkery. 2. That children who are not baptized are not sinners before God, but righteous and innocent, and thus are saved in their innocency without Baptism, which they do not need. Accordingly, they deny the entire doctrine concerning original sin. 3. That children are not to be baptized until they have attained the use of reason and can confess their faith themselves. 4. That the children of Christians, since they have been born of believing parents, are holy and the children of God even without and before Baptism; and for this reason they neither attach much importance to the baptism of children nor encourage it, contrary to the express words of the promise, which extends only to those who keep God's covenant and do not despise it, Gen. 17:9. 5. That a congregation in which sinners are still found is no true Christian assembly. 6. That no sermon should be heard or attended in those churches in which the papal masses have previously been said. 7. That no one should have anything to do with those ministers of the Church who preach the holy Gospel according to the Confession, and rebuke the errors of baptists; also, that no one should serve or in any way labor for them, but should flee from and shun them as perverters of God's Word. 8. That under the New Testament the magistracy is not a godly estate. 9. That a Christian cannot with a good, inviolate conscience hold the office of magistrate. 10. That a Christian cannot without injury to conscience use the office of the magistracy against the wicked when the matter so demands, neither can its subjects appeal to its power. 11. That a Christian cannot with a good conscience take an oath before a court, nor with an oath do homage to his prince or hereditary sovereign. 12. That magistrates cannot without injury to conscience inflict capital punishment upon evil-doers. 13. That a Christian cannot with a good conscience hold or possess any property, but is in duty bound to devote it to the common treasury. 14. That a Christian cannot with a good conscience be an inn-keeper, merchant, or cutler. 15. That married persons may be divorced on account of diversity of religion, and that the one may abandon the other, and be married to another of his own faith. 16. That Christ did not assume His flesh and blood of the Virgin Mary, but brought them with Him from heaven. 17. That He is not true, essential God either, but only has more and higher gifts and glory than other men. And still more articles of like kind; for they are divided among themselves into many bands, and one has more and another fewer errors, and thus their entire sect is in reality nothing but a new kind of monkery. Likewise, when the Schwenckfeldians assert: 1. First, that all those have no knowledge of the reigning King of heaven, Christ, who regard Christ according to the flesh, or His assumed humanity, as a creature, and that the flesh of Christ has by exaltation so assumed all divine properties that in might, majesty, and glory He is in every respect equal to the Father and the eternal Word, so that there is the same essence, properties, will, and glory of both natures in Christ, and that the flesh of Christ belongs to the essence of the Holy Trinity. 2. That the ministry of the Church, the Word preached and heard, is not a means whereby God the Holy Ghost teaches men, and works in them saving knowledge of Christ, conversion, repentance, faith, and new obedience. 3. That the water of Baptism is not a means by which God seals adoption and works regeneration. 4. That bread and wine in the Holy Supper are not means by which Christ distributes His body and blood. 5. That a Christian man who is truly regenerated by God's Spirit can in this life keep and fulfil the Law of God perfectly. 6. That a congregation in which no public excommunication or regular process of the ban is observed, is no true Christian congregation. 7. That the minister of the Church who is not on his part truly renewed, righteous, and godly cannot teach other men with profit or administer real, true sacraments. Also, when the New Arians teach that Christ is not a true, essential, natural God, of one eternal divine essence with God the Father, but is only adorned with divine majesty inferior to, and beside, God the Father. Also, when some Anti-Trinitarians reject and condemn the ancient approved symbols, the Nicene and Athanasian creeds, as regards both their sense and words, and teach that there is not only one eternal divine essence of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, but as there are three distinct persons, so each person has also its essence distinct and separate from the other persons; yet that all three are either as otherwise three men, distinct and separate in their essence, of the same power, wisdom, majesty, and glory, or in essence and properties unequal. And that the Father alone is true God. These and like articles, one and all, with what pertains to them and follows from them, we reject and condemn as wrong, false, heretical, and contrary to the Word of God, the three Creeds, the Augsburg Confession and Apology, the Smalcald Articles, and the Catechisms of Luther. Of these articles all godly Christians should beware, as much as the welfare and salvation of their souls is dear to them. Since now, in the sight of God and of all Christendom, we wish to testify to those now living and those who shall come after us that this declaration herewith presented concerning all the controverted articles aforementioned and explained, and no other, is our faith, doctrine, and confession, in which we are also willing, by God's grace, to appear with intrepid hearts before the judgment-seat of Jesus Christ, and give an account of it; and that we will neither privately nor publicly speak or write anything contrary to it, but, by the help of God's grace, intend to abide thereby: therefore, after mature deliberation, we have, in God's fear and with the invocation of His name, attached our signatures with our own hands.