# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_M rz 1856_S76
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

76             A plea for the Augsburg Confession etc.

At the outset the occasion of the book is identified as the anonymous pamphlet which, under the title of an "Outline," claims to be a revision of the Augsburg Confession. Since the authors of this "Outline" declare the said confession, on the whole, to be scriptural, and charge it with errors only on individual points, Pastor Mann accordingly determines the task of his defense to be that of defending the confession on the points which those men have put forward as erroneous. He remarks, in addition, that with the confession Luther and Melanchthon too were charged with false doctrine, and that the assertion that they had erred in so many points that were themselves of the highest importance to them raises the doubt whether they might not, in the end, have also erred in the remaining doctrines. From their own words, then, it is now to be shown that they, the reformers, and their confession, have not been properly understood by those who charge them with false teachings; that, on the other hand, they have been grossly misrepresented; and that, in general, the errors are not to be found on the side of the Augsburg Confession, but on the side of those who trouble the Lutheran Church with the "Outline."

Before the individual points designated as erroneous by the mutilators come up for discussion, Pastor Mann calls attention to several repugnant peculiarities of the "Outline." For instance, to the provision that the synods of this new church of the "Outline" are to refuse membership to all who do not subscribe to it. If it already appears strange enough that men who had always shown great aversion to being bound to the confessions of the Lutheran Church now wished to exclude from the Lutheran Church everyone who did not agree with their views, it is far more absurd still that these same men, who wished to alter to a certain extent the doctrinal structure of the Lutheran Church, nevertheless presented themselves as though they represented the true doctrine and spirit of the Lutheran Church, and accordingly presumed to pass judgment on matters of doctrine and discipline within that Church. A heavy responsibility, he says, is taken on by those who desire to alter the doctrinal structure of a church, and particularly of the Lutheran Church. For it was from the latter that the stream of life, the Gospel, poured forth fresh and powerful over mankind, and it was led by men whose theological writings — for instance the Apology of the Augsburg Confession — one need only read to see that they could hardly be much improved upon by the theological professors and writers of the present day. Luther and Melanchthon too, like all men, were capable of error, and were, everywhere, only guides to the fountain of truth, the Gospel; but for this work they possessed gifts to a high degree, and made the study of the Gospel the task of their domestic life as well as of their calling. Not lightly did they lay down their confession before God and the mighty of this world; not lightly did they take upon themselves the responsibility of bringing about a division of the universal Church, nor did they seek from men