, with
self-contradiction and misrepresentation. It would indeed have been in
perfect unison with the habit of the best authors of Europe and America,
to change our opinions as we extended our investigations, and freely to
profess such change. Nor should we feel any reluctance in following such
distinguished authorities, if we felt that our case required it. But in
reperusing our former statements, we cannot see that they differ, in any
material point, from the results of our latest investigations above
given.

In the Popular Theology, (page 406 of the seventh edition,) first
published in 1834, speaking of the article of the Augsburg Confession on
the Mass, we find the following:--"On this subject, (the mass,) the
language of the Confession was less condemnatory, than that which they
soon after employed. In the Smalcald Articles, which were published
seven years after this Confession, in 1537, Luther declares the Papal
mass to be a most momentous and abominable corruption; because it
militates directly and powerfully against the fundamental doctrine,
(justification by faith in Jesus Christ.") We then add several extracts
from the Augsburg Confession, showing that the confessors rejected the
_sacrificial_ and _vicarious_ nature of the mass, as well as other
objectionable features of it. Now here we find the same two positions
taken, which the preceding discussions of this chapter have established,
namely, that the Confession is less condemnatory than the later Smalcald
Articles; that it favors the mass more, and speaks of it in milder
language than was employed at a subsequent period. As no one of any note
at that day pretended to urge the adoption of the entire Augsburg
Confession, much less of all the symbolical books, there was no
necessity of dilating on the objectionable features of the Confession,
and we of course abstain from doing so. In this silence we would have
persevered to this day, had not a new generation of European symbolists
since then sought refuge on our shores, and carried on aggressive
operations, incessantly assailing the General Synod and her members, and
charging them with unfaithfulness to Confessions which they never
adopted, except as to fundamentals; thus compelling us to expose these
remnants of Romish error which they certainly do contain.

When, we turn to our _History of the American Lutheran Church_,
published in 1852, we find on pages 240, 241, the following statement:--
"The mass, th