The importance attached to the Smalcald Articles over against the
Reformed and Crypto-Calvinists appears from a statement made by the
Elector of Saxony, October 17, 1552 (shortly after his deliverance from
captivity), in which he maintained that the Lutheran Church could have
been spared her internal dissensions if every one had faithfully abided
by the articles of Luther. He told the Wittenberg theologians that
during his captivity he had heard of the dissensions and continued
controversies, "which caused us no little grief. And we have therefore
often desired with all our heart that in the churches of our former
lands and those of others no change, prompted by human wisdom, had been
undertaken nor permitted in the matters [doctrines] as they were held
during the life of the blessed Doctor Martin Luther and during our rule,
and confirmed at Smalcald, in the year 1537, by all pastors and
preachers of the estates of the Augsburg Confession then assembled at
that place. For if this had been done, no doubt, the divisions and
errors prevailing among the teachers of said Confession, together with
the grievous and harmful offenses which resulted therefrom, would, with
the help of God, have been avoided." (_C. R._ 7, 1109.)
In the Prolegomena to his edition of the Lutheran Confessions, Hase
remarks concerning the symbolical authority of Luther's articles: "The
formula of faith, drawn up by such a man, and adorned with such names,
immediately enjoyed the greatest authority. _Fidei formula a tali viro
profecta talibusque nominibus ornata maxima statim auctoritate
floruit._" To rank among the symbolical books, Luther's articles
required a special resolution on the part of the princes and estates as
little as did his two catechisms; contents and the Reformer's name were
quite sufficient. Voluntarily the articles were subscribed at Smalcald.
On their own merits they won their place of honor in our Church. In the
situation then obtaining, they voiced the Lutheran position in a manner
so correct and consistent that every loyal Lutheran spontaneously gave
and declared his assent. In keeping with the changed historical context
of the times, they offered a correct explanation of the Augsburg
Confession, adding thereto a declaration concerning the Papacy, the
absence of which had become increasingly painful. They struck the
timely, logical, Lutheran note also over against the Zwinglian and
Bucerian [Reformed and Unionistic] tendencies. Luther's articles offered
quarters neither for disguised Papists nor for masked Calvinists. In
brief they gave such a clear expression to genuine Lutheranism that
false spirits could not remain in their company. It was the recognition
of these facts which immediately elicited the joyful acclaim of all true
Lutherans. To them it was a recommendation of Luther's articles when
Bucer, Blaurer, and others, though having subscribed the Augsburg
Confession, refused to sign them. Loyal Lutherans everywhere felt that
the Smalcald Articles presented an up-to-date touchstone of the pure
Lutheran truth, and that, in taking their stand on them, their feet were
planted, over against the aberrations of the Romanists as well as the
Zwinglians, on ground immovable.
In the course of time, the esteem in which Luther's articles were held,
rose higher and higher. Especially during and after the controversies on
the Interim, as well as in the subsequent controversies with the
Crypto-Calvinists, the Lutherans became more and more convinced that the
Smalcald Articles and not the Variata, contained the correct exposition
of the Augsburg Confession. At the Diet of Regensburg, in 1541, the
Elector, by his delegates, sent word to Melanchthon "to stand by the
Confession and the Smalcald Agreement [Smalcald Articles] in word and in
sense." The delegates answered that Philip would not yield anything
"which was opposed to the Confession and the Smalcald Agreement," as he
had declared that "he would die rather than yield anything against his
conscience." (_C. R._ 4, 292.) In an opinion of 1544 also the
theologians of Hesse, who at Smalcald had helped to sidetrack Luther's
articles put them on a par with the Augustana. At Naumburg in 1561,
where Elector Frederick of the Palatinate and the Crypto-Calvinists
endeavored to undermine the authority of Luther, Duke John Frederick of
Saxony declared that he would abide by the original Augustana and its
"true declaration and norm," the Smalcald Articles.
Faithful Lutherans everywhere received the Smalcald Articles into their
_corpora doctrinae._ In 1567 the Convention of Coswig declared them to
be "the norm by which controversies are to be decided, _norma decidendi
controversias_." Similarly, the Synod of Moelln, 1559. In 1560 the
ministerium of Luebeck and the Senate of Hamburg confessionally accepted
the Articles. Likewise, the Convention of Lueneburg in 1561, and the
theologians of Schleswig-Holstein in 1570. The Thorough Declaration
could truthfully say that the Smalcald Articles had been embodied in the
confessional writings of the Lutheran Church "for the reason that these
have always and everywhere been regarded as the common, unanimously
accepted meaning of our churches and, moreover, have been subscribed at
that time by the chief and most enlightened theologians, and have held
sway in all evangelical churches and schools." (855, 11.)