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.)

291. Formula Attacked and Defended.

Drawing accurately and deeply, as it did, the lines of demarcation
between Lutheranism, on the one hand, and Calvinism, Philippism, etc.,
on the other, and thus also putting an end to the Calvinistic propaganda
successfully carried on for decades within the Lutheran Church, the
_Formula of Concord_ was bound to become a rock of offense and to meet
with opposition on the part of all enemies of genuine Lutheranism within
as well