# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1847 12 08_S65
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

"God's Word and Luther's teaching shall not pass away, now or ever."

Edited by C. F. W. Walther.

Published by the German Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and Other States.

Volume 4.

St. Louis, Mo., December 28, 1847.

No. 9.

Terms: Der Lutheraner appears once every two weeks, at the annual subscription price of one dollar for out-of-town subscribers, who must pay in advance and bear the postage. — In St. Louis each individual number is sold for 5 cents.

Only letters containing contributions for the paper are to be sent to the editor; all others, containing business matters, orders, cancellations, money, etc., are to be sent under the address: Mr. F. W. Barthel, care of C. F. W. Walther, St. Louis, Mo.

(Submitted by Rev. P. Schieferdecker.)
The Submission of the Augsburg Confession.

In the year 1530 the cause of the church, purified anew through the chosen instrument Dr. M. Luther, had progressed so far that it could lay before the eyes of all Christendom, at the Diet at Augsburg, its common confession of the pure doctrine, and could thereby clearly and plainly prove that it had not fallen away in any point from the doctrine and faith of the ancient Christian church. It was here the whole church that publicly and solemnly confessed the very same thing that had previously been written and taught only by the man of God, Luther, and his fellow witnesses, against the Antichristian papacy. And although, compared with the numerous and powerful papal faction, it was but a small flock, they nevertheless had Christ and His Word on their side, before whose victorious power even the powers of darkness had to yield. To be sure, the papists had already triumphed in advance, expecting that at the aforementioned Diet things would be settled once and for all against the Lutherans. But God had decreed otherwise in His counsel. It was precisely here that the truth of the Gospel and the just cause of the Protestants — and, on the other hand, the wickedness and lies of the adversaries — were to become truly manifest. Therefore this Diet is memorable for all time, and the submission of the Augsburg Confession is one of the greatest events in the church. Now although a close acquaintance with the Confession itself is to be presupposed in every true Lutheran, the history of its submission, especially in its particulars, may well be less familiar to many. The following account is therefore presented to the kind reader with the heartfelt wish that he too may be strengthened by it in the conviction that our church is the true one, and may praise God, the Almighty, who has made His name so great and glorious in this church.

The German emperor of that time, Charles the Fifth, had summoned an imperial assembly to Augsburg for April 8, 1530. This was a free imperial city, that is, one having no authority over it other than the emperor himself.

In the summons he promised to hear the evangelical princes and estates concerning religion in love and kindness. This command moved them to draw up their confession of faith, without which they could not have been heard. But they also wished thereby to refute the false accusations laid upon them by their adversaries, as though they were to blame for the disorders that Münzer, the head of the Anabaptist faction, and likewise Carlstadt, Zwingli, and other fanatics, had caused.

Indeed, the papists had even spread the rumor that Luther denied the foremost doctrines of Christianity and harbored errors worse than the Turks'. And these slanders were believed not only by the ignorant common people but also by persons of high rank, and were the reason that here and there the harshest orders were issued against the Lutherans.

The first foundation of the Augsburg Confession was seventeen articles which Luther, together with Jonas, Bugenhagen, and Melanchthon, drew up by order of Elector John shortly before his departure for Augsburg, and which received the name of the Torgau Articles. The elector's departure took place on April 3, after he had first ordered a general church prayer throughout his land on account of the approaching Diet. On May 2 he arrived in Augsburg and was the first of all the princes to appear there. With him came Jonas, Spalatin, and Melanchthon; Luther himself, however, the elector had taken only as far as Coburg, and had left him there in the fortress, because on account of the imperial ban and the papal excommunication it was not advisable to take him along to Augsburg. At Coburg, meanwhile, Luther was no idle spectator, but through frequent correspondence took the most active part in the proceedings at Augsburg. Although himself often and grievously assailed by Satan, and besides suffering bodily — being much troubled with pains in head and heart, so much so that he had already picked out for himself a little spot at Coburg for his burial — he nevertheless wrote to others who were troubled and assailed letters full of the strength and comfort of faith, and was always active in preaching and writing. Especially did he serve the cause of the Gospel at Coburg through his earnest and unceasing prayer. Veit Dietrich, Luther's famulus at the time, wrote of this to Melanchthon: "Not a day passes on which he does not spend at least three hours — the hours most convenient for study — in prayer. It happened to me once that I heard him pray. Help, God, what a spirit, what a faith is in his words! He prays as devoutly as one who speaks with God, with such hope and faith as one who speaks with his own father." The time at Coburg, moreover, grew very long for him, and he waited longingly for the end of the Diet and the return of his friends. "I am sick with longing for your return," he wrote to Melanchthon on September 11 — "Ah, that you would return, even if cursed by pope and emperor. For there is Another who is higher than pope and emperor, higher even than their god." The emperor delayed longer than he had promised. This aroused anxiety, and people feared, not without cause. For a year before the Diet, the pope and the emperor had made an alliance at Barcelona and resolved: Charles and Ferdinand (the emperor's brother and King of Bohemia) were to bring the Lutherans back to the former religion, and if they were unwilling, to compel them by force of arms. Clement, the pope, was likewise to employ every means to this end and to move the other princes to carry out so godly a work. It was a sign of ill omen that the emperor, even before his arrival in Augsburg, demanded through an embassy to the Elector of Saxony