The changes made in the Augsburg Confession brought great distress,
heavy cares, and bitter struggles upon the Lutheran Church both from
within and without. Church history records the manifold and sinister
ways in which they were exploited by the Reformed as well as the
Papists; especially by the latter (the Jesuits) at the religious
colloquies beginning 1540, until far into the time of the Thirty Years'
War, in order to deprive the Lutherans of the blessings guaranteed by
the religious Peace of Augsburg, 1555. (Salig, _Gesch. d. A. K._, 1, 770
ff.; _Lehre und Wehre_ 1919, 218 ff.)
On Melanchthon's alterations of the Augsburg Confession the Romanists,
as the Preface to the Book of Concord explains, based the reproach and
slander that the Lutherans themselves did not know "which is the true
and genuine Augsburg Confession." (15.) Decrying the Lutherans, they
boldly declared "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."
(1095.) In spite of the express declaration of the Lutherans at
Naumburg, 1561, that they were minded to abide by the original Augsburg
Confession as presented to Emperor Charles V at Augsburg, 1530, the
Papists and the Reformed did not cease their calumniations, but
continued to interpret their declarations to mean, "as though we [the
Lutherans] were so uncertain concerning our religion, and so often had
transfused it from one formula to another, that it was no longer clear
to us or our theologians what is the Confession once offered to the
Emperor at Augsburg." (11.)
As a result of the numerous and, in part radical changes made by
Melanchthon in the Augsburg Confession, the Reformed also, in the course
of time more and more, laid claim to the Variata and appealed to it over
against the loyal Lutherans. In particular, they regarded and
interpreted the alteration which Melanchthon had made in Article X, Of
the Lord's Supper, as a correction of the original Augustana in
deference to the views of Calvinism. Calvin declared that he (1539 at
Strassburg) had signed the Augustana "in the sense in which its author
[Melanchthon] explains it (_sicut eam auctor ipse interpretatur_)." And
whenever the Reformed, who were regarded as confessionally related to
the Augsburg Confession (_Confessioni Augustanae addicti_), and as such
shared in the blessings of the Peace of Augsburg (1555) and the Peace of
Westphalia (1648), adopted, and appealed to, the Augustana, they
interpreted it according to the Variata.
Referring to this abuse on the part of the Reformed and
Crypto-Calvinists, the Preface to the Book of Concord remarks: "To these
disadvantages [the slanders of the Romanists] there is also added that,
under the pretext of the Augsburg Confession [Variata of 1540], the
teaching conflicting with the institution of the Holy Supper of the body
and blood of Christ and also other corruptions were introduced here and
there into the churches and schools." (11. 17.)--Thus the changes made
in the Augsburg Confession did much harm to the Lutheran cause.
Melanchthon belongs to the class of men that have greatly benefited our
Church, but have also seriously harmed it. "These fictions" of the
adversaries, says the Preface to the Book of Concord concerning the
slanders based on Melanchthon's changes "have deterred and alienated
many good men from our churches, schools, doctrine, faith, and
confession." (11.)