# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_October 1856_S302
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Lutheran-Theological Pastor's Library.                    302

an extensive work, to set forth historically and critically the whole
course of all the controversies that had taken place between the Lutherans
and the Reformed, and on this occasion to repel the attacks not
only of Beckmann, but also of Lavater, Hospinian, Gottfried Arnold, and
other adversaries. Thus arose the work of ours mentioned above. The
first part comprises two books, of which the first sets forth the controversies
from their origin up to the presentation of the Augsburg Confession,
and in seven chapters treats the Carlstadtian, Zwinglian, Oecolampadian,
Upper-German (Bucer, etc.), and Silesian (Schwenckfeld, etc.)
sacramental controversies, the Marburg Colloquy, and the Diet of
Augsburg. The other book contains the history of the controversy up
to Luther's death, namely the history of the Wittenberg Concord and
the renewal of the controversy after it. The second part contains the
third and fourth books. In the third is found the account of the relevant
events from Luther's death up to the appearance of Johannes a Lasco
in Germany, in the course of which the origin of Calvinism in the
narrower sense (Calvin and Peter Martyr), the position of Bucer and
Melanchthon in the matter, the alteration of the Augsburg Confession,
the inroads of Calvinism into France and England, and finally
Westphal's struggle against Calvin, are recounted and examined. The
fourth book gives an account of the disturbances arising from the
instigation of Johannes a Lasco, of the transplanting of Calvinism into
Italy, of its gaining a foothold in Heidelberg and generally in the
Palatinate, of the Bremen controversy (Hardenberg), and of other
matters falling within the period up to 1567. The third part, finally,
contains, in the fifth and sixth books, the history of the Lutheranism
persecuted under the name of Flacianism, of Philippism, and of the
Crypto-Calvinism developing out of it, and of the composition and
introduction of the Formula of Concord. The whole concludes with a
"peaceable address and admonition to the Reformed congregations in
Germany," in which, among other things, proposals are made for a
union in the truth. We regret that, for want of space, we cannot make
still more vivid the wealth of the relevant historical material which
Löscher's work contains. We remark only this further, that in it is
communicated an enormous store of documents to be found nowhere
else, which had been placed at Löscher's disposal partly by his own
library*), partly by other libraries and archives opened to him.
According to our firm conviction, this "Historia" is the best work that
Löscher wrote, just as a reviewer in the "Unschuldige Nachrichten"
likewise expresses the conviction that Löscher, in this writing, "outdid
himself." Here Löscher was wholly in his element; here he could show
his true strength, and here he has shown it. We have, with the reviewer
just mentioned, no wish with regard to

*) Löscher's library was one of the largest ever possessed by a private person; it
contained close to 50,000 books.