ssion, the work of Luther and Melancthon themselves,
and _the only one of our Confessions which was universally received as
such, by the whole Lutheran Church in all parts of the world_," p. 4.
This concession is no less honorable to the reverend author, than the
fact itself is important in the discussion of the subject before us. As
the contrary has frequently been asserted in this country, in the face
of history, it seems proper to advert to its details. The facts in the
case are the following:

_The Form of Concord_ was rejected in Denmark, Sweden, Hessia,
Pommerania, Holstein, Anhalt, and the cities of Strasburg, Frankfurt
a. m. Speier, Worms, Nuerenberg, Magdeburg, Bremen, Dantzig, &c. For
particulars see Koellner's Symbolik, Vol. I, pp. 575-77.

_The Smalcald Articles_ were rejected by Sweden and Denmark.

_The Apology_ to the Augsburg Confession, was denied, official
authority, by Sweden and Denmark.

_The Larger Catechism_ of Luther, in Sweden and Denmark.

Even _the Smaller Catechism_ of Luther was not received as symbolic in
Sweden. See Guericke's Symbolik, pp. 67, &c., 113.

Here, then, we perceive, that those ultra Lutherans of our day, who
insist on the whole mass of former symbols as essential to Lutheranism,
must unchurch a very large portion of the Lutheran Church even of the
sixteenth century. But among these we can by no means class the author
of the Plea, who is evidently a Lutheran of the more enlightened and
liberal class.

The author of the Plea represents "the Augsburg Confession, as the
_unexceptionable_ password of the adherents of the Lutheran Church for
three centuries." The idea designed probably is, that the _great mass_
of doctrines taught in this confession has been thus received. For it
is a historical fact, that cannot be contested, that private confession,
which is enjoined in the eleventh, twenty-fifth and twenty-eighth
Articles of the Augsburg Confession, and was retained by Luther,
Melancthon and their churches, was from the begining [sic] rejected by
the _entire Lutheran Church in Sweden and Denmark_, as well as other
places, and a public confession of the whole church, such as is now
employed in Germany and this country, introduced in its stead. See
Siegel's Handbuch, Vol. I., p. 200.

"Of course the accusation against the Augsburg Confession, involves an
exhibition of Luther and Melancthon, those pillars of the Reformation,
as teaching _heretical doctrines_, which are not