Sparks of the Reformation had caught fire elsewhere in Europe developing
into Reformed, Mennonite, Anabaptist, and other denominations. A major
purpose of the diet called by Emperor Charles at Augsburg in 1530 was to
harmonize these various groups and attempt a final reconciliation with
Rome. To this end each body was to define its teaching in a statement or
confession, but not all were represented at the diet and only three were
actually submitted.
As usual the papists were laying for the Lutherans. They had prejudiced
the emperor against a fair hearing and were reserving their best
ammunition for the Saxon “heretics,” fully confident that a Lutheran
defeat would speedily bring the downfall of the others.
Still under imperial ban, Luther could not attend the diet but stayed at
a castle in Coburg from which he advised Melanchthon and others
appearing before the emperor. The confession, a series of twenty-eight
articles setting forth the Lutheran position, was read on June 25. The
first twenty-one present fundamental doctrines of the Scriptures
regarding God, Original Sin, the Son of God, Justification, the Church,
the Sacraments, Civil Affairs, the Freedom of Will, the Cause of Sin,
Good Works, and the Worship of Saints; while the last seven treat of
Roman abuses which contradict the Word of God.
The emperor commissioned the Roman theologians to prepare a refutation.
On the basis of it he rejected the Lutheran confession, ordered church
property restored to Roman bishops, and forbade witnessing and the
printing or sale of Lutheran writings.
Dejected by their failure to reform the church, the Lutherans went home
in the fall of 1530 unaware that their confession would become a basic
creed of the largest Protestant body in the world.
Threatened with coercion by the Romanists in Germany, they joined with
other Protestants in 1531 to form the League of Schmalkalden. War was
averted when the emperor enlisted both groups to meet the Turkish
invasion of Austria, and armed conflict over religious principles was
delayed until the summer of 1546. Luther didn’t see it. A few months
earlier he went to stand before the Judge he had learned to love instead
of fear.