The Thorough Declaration of the Formula of Concord makes the further
statement that the Smalcald Articles were to be delivered in the Council
at Mantua "in the name of the Estates, Electors, and Princes." (853, 7.)
Evidently this is based on Luther's Preface to the Smalcald Articles
written 1538, in which he says concerning his Articles: "They have also
been accepted and unanimously confessed by our side, and it has been
resolved that, in case the Pope with his adherents should ever be so
bold as seriously and in good faith, without lying and cheating to hold
a truly free Christian Council (as, indeed, he would be in duty bound to
do), they be publicly delivered in order to set forth the Confession of
our Faith." (455.)
Kolde and others surmise that Luther wrote as he did because, owing to
his illness, he was not acquainted with the true situation at Smalcald.
Tschackert, too, takes it for granted that Luther, not being
sufficiently informed, was under the erroneous impression that the
princes and estates as well as the theologians had adopted, and
subscribed to, his articles. (300. 302.) Nor has a better theory of
solving the difficulty hitherto been advanced. Yet it appears very
improbable. If adopted, one must assume that Luther's attention was
never drawn to this error of his. For Luther does not merely permit his
assertion to stand in the following editions of the Smalcald Articles,
but repeats it elsewhere as well. In an opinion written 1541 he writes:
"In the second place, I leave the matter as it is found in the articles
adopted at Smalcald; I shall not be able to improve on them; nor do I
know how to yield anything further." (St. L. 17, 666.)
The Elector, too, shared Luther's opinion. In a letter of October 27,
1543, he urged him to publish in Latin and German (octavo), under the
title, Booklet of the Smalcald Agreement--_Buechlein der geschehenen
Schmalkaldischen Vergleichung,_ the "Articles of Agreement,
Vergleichungsartikel," on which he and Melanchthon had come to an
agreement in 1537, at Smalcald, with the other allied estates, scholars,
and theologians. (St. L. 21b, 2913.) October 17, 1552, immediately after
he had obtained his liberty, the Elector made a similar statement. (_C.
R._ 7, 1109.) Nor did Spalatin possess a knowledge in this matter
differing from that of Luther and the Elector. He, too, believed that
not only the theologians, but the princes and estates as well, with the
exception of Hesse, Wuerttemberg, Strassburg, etc., had subscribed to
Luther's articles. (Kolde, 51.)
Evidently, then, Luther's statement was generally regarded as being
substantially and approximately correct and for all practical purposes
in keeping, if not with the exact letter and form at least with the real
spirit of what transpired at Smalcald and before as well as after this
convention. It was not a mere delusion of Luther's, but was generally
regarded as agreeing with the facts, that at Smalcald his articles were
not only subscribed by the theologians, but adopted also by the Lutheran
princes and estates, though, in deference to the Landgrave and the South
German cities, not officially and by the Smalcald League as such.