concerning which he
declared in the _Smalcald Articles_: "Of this article nothing can be
yielded or surrendered, even though heaven and earth, and whatever will
not abide, should sink to ruin.... And upon this article all things
depend which we teach and practise in opposition to the Pope, the devil,
and the world. Therefore we must be sure concerning this doctrine, and
not doubt, for otherwise all is lost, and the Pope and devil and all
things gain the victory and suit over us." (461, 5.) Martin Chemnitz
remarks: "I frequently shudder, because Luther--I do not know by what
kind of presentiment--in his commentaries on the Letter to the Galatians
and on the First Book of Moses so often repeats the statement: 'This
doctrine [of justification] will be obscured again after my death.'"
(Walther, _Kern und Stern_, 26.)

Andrew Osiander was the first to fulfil Luther's prophecy. In 1549 he
began publicly to propound a doctrine in which he abandoned the forensic
conception of justification by imputation of the merits of Christ, and
returned to the Roman view of justification by infusion _i.e._, by
infusion of the eternal essential righteousness of the divine nature of
Christ. According to his own statement, he had harbored these views ever
since about 1522. He is said also to have presented them in a sermon
delivered at the convention in Smalcald, 1537. (Planck 4, 257.) Yet he
made no special effort to develop and publicly to disseminate his ideas
during the life of Luther. After the death of the Reformer, however,
Osiander is reported to have said: "Now that the lion is dead, I shall
easily dispose of the foxes and hares"--_i.e._, Melanchthon and the
other Lutheran theologians. (257.) Osiander was the originator of the
controversy "Concerning the Righteousness of Faith before God," which
was finally settled in Article III of the _Formula of Concord_.

Osiander, lauded by modern historians as the only real "systematizer"
among the Lutherans of the first generation, was a man as proud,
overbearing, and passionate as he was gifted, keen, sagacious, learned,
eloquent, and energetic. He was born December 19, 1498, at Gunzenhausen,
Franconia, and died October 17, 1552, at Koenigsberg, where he was also
buried with high honors in the Old City Church. In 1522 he was appointed
priest at St. Lawrence's Church in the Free City of Nuernberg. Here he
immediately acted the part of a determined champion of the Reformation.
Subsequently he a