The _Formula of Concord_ was just such a confession as the situation
called for. The Preface to the _Apology of the Book of Concord_, signed
by Kirchner, Selneccer, and Chemnitz, remarks that the purpose of the
_Formula_ was "to establish and propagate unity in the Lutheran churches
and schools, and to check the Sacramentarian leaven and other
corruptions and sects." This purpose was fully attained by the
_Formula_. It maintained and vindicated the old Lutheran symbols. It
cleared our Church from all manner of foreign spirits which threatened
to transform its very character. It settled the controversies by
rendering a clear and correct decision on all doctrinal questions
involved. It unified our Church when she was threatened with hopeless
division, anarchy, and utter ruin. It surrounded her with a wall of fire
against all her enemies. It made her a most uncomfortable place for such
opponents of Lutheranism as Crypto-Calvinists, unionists, etc. It
infused her with confidence, self-consciousness, conviction, a clear
knowledge of her own position over against the errors of other churches
and sects, and last, but not least, with a most remarkable vitality.
Wherever and whenever, in the course of time, the _Formula of Concord_
was ignored, despised, or rejected, the Lutheran Church fell an easy
prey to unionism and sectarianism; but wherever and whenever the
_Formula_ was held in high esteem, Lutheranism flourished and its
enemies were confounded. Says Schaff: "Outside of Germany the Lutheran
Church is stunted in its normal growth, or undergoes with the change of
language and nationality, an ecclesiastical transformation. This is the
case with the great majority of Anglicized and Americanized Lutherans,
who adopt Reformed views on the Sacraments, the observance of Sunday,
church discipline, and other points." But the fact is that, since Schaff
wrote the above, the Lutheran Church developed and flourished nowhere as
in America, owing chiefly to the return of American Lutherans to their
confessions, including the _Formula of Concord_. The _Formula of
Concord_ fully supplied the dire need created by the controversies after
Luther's death; and, despite many subsequent controversies, also in
America, down to the present day, no further confessional deliverances
have been necessary, and most likely such will not be needed in the
future either.
The _Formula of Concord_, therefore, must ever be regarded as a great
blessing of God. "But for the _Formula of Concord_," says Krauth, "it
may be questioned whether Protestantism could have been saved to the
world. It staunched the wounds at which Lutheranism was bleeding to
death; and crises were at hand in history in which Lutheranism was
essential to the salvation of the Reformatory interest in Europe. The
Thirty Years' War, the war of martyrs, which saved our modern world, lay
indeed in the future of another century, yet it was fought and settled
in the Cloister of Bergen. But for the pen of the peaceful triumvirate,
the sword of Gustavus had not been drawn. Intestine treachery and
division in the Church of the Reformation would have done what the arts
and arms of Rome failed to do. But the miracle of restoration was
wrought. From being the most distracted Church on earth, the Lutheran
Church had become the most stable. The blossom put forth at Augsburg,
despite the storm, the mildew, and the worm, had ripened into the full
round fruit of the amplest and clearest Confession in which the
Christian Church has ever embodied her faith." (Schmauk, 830.)