The Confession is the ripe fruit of a gradual growth. It is based chiefly upon three previous
confessional documents—the fifteen Articles of Marburg, Oct. 4, 1529, the seventeen Articles of
Schwabach (a modification and expansion of the former by Luther, with the insertion of his view
of the real presence), adopted by the Lutheran princes in a convent at Schwabach, near Nürnberg,
Oct. 16, 1529, and several Articles of Torgau against certain abuses of the Roman Church, drawn
up by Luther, Melanchthon, Jonas, and Bugenhagen, by order of the Elector, at his residence in
Torgau, March 20, 1530.^963 The first two documents furnished the material for the first or positive
part of the Augsburg Confession; the last, for its second or polemical part.
Melanchthon used this material in a free way, and made a new and far better work, which
bears the stamp of his scholarship and moderation, his power of condensation, and felicity of
expression. He began the preparation at Coburg, with the aid of Luther, in April, and finished it at
Augsburg, June 24. He labored on it day and night, so that Luther had to warn him against
over-exertion. "I command you," he wrote to him May 12, "and all your company that they compel
you, under pain of excommunication, to take care of your poor body, and not to kill yourself from
imaginary obedience to God. We serve God also by taking holiday and rest."
If we look at the contents, Luther is the primary, Melanchthon the secondary, author; but
the form, the method, style, and temper are altogether Melanchthon’s. Nobody else could produce
such a work. Luther would have made it more aggressive and polemic, but less effective for the
occasion. He himself was conscious of the superior qualification of his friend for the task, and
expressed his entire satisfaction with the execution. "It pleases me very well," he wrote of the
Confession, "and I could not change or improve it; nor would it be becoming to do so, since I cannot
tread so softly and gently."^964 He would have made the tenth article on the real presence still stronger
than it is; would have inserted his sola in the doctrine of justification by faith, as he did in his
German Bible; and rejected purgatory, and the tyranny of popery, among the abuses in the second
part. He would have changed the whole tone, and made the document a trumpet of war.
The Augsburg Confession proper (exclusive of preface and epilogue) consists of two
parts,—one positive and dogmatic, the other negative and mildly polemic or rather apologetic. The
first refers chiefly to doctrines, the second to ceremonies and institutions. The order of subjects is
not strictly systematic, though considerably improved upon the arrangement of the Schwabach and
Torgau Articles. In the manuscript copies and oldest editions, the articles are only numbered; the
titles were subsequently added.
I. The first part presents in twenty-one articles—beginning with the Triune God, and ending
with the worship of saints—a clear, calm, and condensed statement of the doctrines held by the
evangelical Lutherans: (1) in common with the Roman Church; (2) in common with the Augustinian
school in that church; (3) in opposition to Rome; and (4) in distinction from Zwinglians and
Anabaptists.
(1) In theology and Christology, i.e., the doctrines of God’s unity and trinity (Art. I.), and
of Christ’s divine-human personality (III.), the Confession strongly re-affirms the ancient catholic
(^963) The Articuli Torgavienses were formerly confounded with the Articuli Suobacences till Förstemann discovered the former in the
archives at Weimar (1833).
(^964) "Denn ich so sanft und leise nicht treten kann." Letter to Elector John, May 15, 1530. In De Wette, IV. 17. He calls the Augustana
die Leisetreterin, the softly stepping Confession. Letter to Jonas, July 2l, 1530.