XII. Other Factions and Sects
That Never Confessed the Augsburg Confession
[Introduction]
[1] The sects and factions that have never confessed the Augsburg Confession, and that have not been directly mentioned in our explanation, are groups such as the Anabaptists, Schwenckfeldians, New Arians, and Anti-Trinitarians. [2] Their errors have been unanimously condemned by all churches of the Augsburg Confession. We have not wanted to make particular and special mention of them in this explanation because at the present time this explanation has been our only aim.
[3] Our opponents have shameless mouths that have shouted allegations throughout the whole world against our churches and teachers. They claimed that you cannot find two preachers who agree about each and every article of the Augsburg Confession, but that they are torn apart and separated from one another to such an extent that they themselves no longer know what the Augsburg Confession is and what its proper meaning is. [4] Therefore, we did not present this common Confession briefly or merely by signing our names, but we wanted to make a pure, clear, distinct declaration about all the disputed articles that have been discussed and argued among the theologians of the Augsburg Confession. [5] We did this so that everyone may see we do not want to hide or cover up all this in a cunning way, or to come to an agreement only in appearance. [6] We want to remedy the matter thoroughly, and wanted to set forth our opinion on these matters in such a way that even our adversaries themselves must confess that in all this we abide by the true, simple, natural, and proper sense of the Augsburg Confession. We desire, by God’s grace, to persevere constantly in this confession until our end. And as long as it depends on our ministry, we will not overlook error or be silent, lest anything contrary to the ‹genuine sense of the Augsburg Confession› is introduced into our churches and schools, in which the almighty God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ has appointed us teachers ‹doctors› and pastors.
[7] However, we do not want the condemned errors of the factions and sects we just mentioned to be silently ascribed to us. [8] For the most part these groups, as is the nature of such spirits, secretly stole in at certain places. They did this especially at a time when no place or room was given to the pure Word of the Holy Gospel, when all its sincere teachers and confessors were persecuted, and the deep darkness of the papacy still prevailed. Poor, simple people, in their simplicity (who could not help but feel the clear idolatry and false faith of the papacy), embraced whatever was called the Gospel and was not papistic. We cannot avoid testifying against these groups publicly, before all Christendom. We have no part or fellowship with their errors, be they many or few. We reject and condemn them one and all. They are wrong and heretical, and are contrary to the Scriptures of the prophets and apostles and to our Christian Augsburg Confession, which is well grounded in God’s Word.
Erroneous Articles of the Anabaptists
[9] For instance, the erroneous, heretical doctrines of the Anabaptists are not to be tolerated and allowed in the Church or in the commonwealth or in domestic life. For they teach the following:
[10] 1. Our righteousness before God includes not only Christ’s sole obedience and merit, but also our renewal and our own piety in which we walk before God. For the most part, they base this on their own peculiar ordinances and self-chosen spirituality, as a new sort of monasticism.
[11] 2. Children who are not baptized are not sinners before God, but are righteous and innocent, and are saved by their innocence without Baptism. They do not need Baptism. So they deny and reject the entire teaching about original sin and what belongs to it.
[12] 3. Children are not to be baptized until they have gained the use of reason and can confess their faith themselves.
[13] 4. The children of Christians, since they have been born of Christian and believing parents, are holy and God’s children even before and without Baptism. For this reason they do not consider the Baptism of children to be important or encourage it. They do this contrary to the clear words of the promise [Acts 2:38–39], which extends only to those who keep God’s covenant and do not despise it (Genesis 17:9 [; Colossians 2:11–15]).
[14] 5. A congregation in which sinners are still found is no true Christian assembly.
[15] 6. No sermon should be heard or attended in those church buildings in which the papal Masses have previously been said.
[16] 7. No one should have anything to do with those ministers of the Church who preach the Holy Gospel according to the Augsburg Confession and rebuke the errors of Anabaptists. Also, they say that no one should serve or work for them in any way, but should run away from them and shun them as perverters of God’s Word.
[17] 8. Under the New Testament a governmental office is not a godly estate.
[18] 9. A Christian cannot with a good, inviolate conscience hold a governmental office.
[19] 10. A Christian cannot without injury to conscience use a government office against the wicked in matters that may occur; neither can the government’s subjects appeal to its power.
[20] 11. A Christian cannot with a good conscience take an oath before a court or do homage to his prince or hereditary sovereign with an oath.
[21] 12. Officials cannot without injury to conscience take the life of evildoers.
[22] 13. A Christian cannot with a good conscience hold or possess any property, but is duty bound to devote it to the common treasury.
[23] 14. A Christian cannot with a good conscience be an innkeeper, merchant, or a weapon maker.
[24] 15. Married persons may be divorced because of differences in faith. The one may abandon the other and be married to another of his own faith.
[25] 16. Christ did not receive His flesh and blood from the Virgin Mary, but brought them with Him from heaven.
[26] 17. Christ is not true, essential God either, but only has more and higher gifts and glory than other men.
[27] And still more articles of this kind, for they are divided among themselves into many sects. One has more and another fewer errors, and so their entire sect is in reality nothing but a new kind of monasticism.
Erroneous Articles of the Schwenckfeldians
[28] In a similar way, the Schwenckfeldians assert the following:
[29] 1. First, all people have no knowledge of heaven’s reigning King, Christ, if they regard Christ according to the flesh, or His received humanity, as a created being. Christ’s flesh has by exaltation so assumed all divine properties that in might, power, majesty, and glory He is in every respect, in degree and position of essence, equal to the Father and the eternal Word. So they say there is the same essence, properties, will, and glory of both natures in Christ, and that Christ’s flesh belongs to the essence of the Holy Trinity.
[30] 2. The ministry of the Church—the Word preached and heard—is not a means by which God the Holy Spirit teaches people and works in them saving knowledge of Christ, conversion, repentance, faith, and new obedience.
[31] 3. The water of Baptism is not a means by which God the Lord seals adoption and works regeneration.
[32] 4. Bread and wine in the Holy Supper are not means by which Christ distributes His body and blood.
[33] 5. A Christian who is truly regenerated by God’s Spirit can in this life keep and fulfill God’s Law perfectly.
[34] 6. A congregation in which no public excommunication or regular process of the ban is observed is not a true Christian congregation.
[35] 7. The Church minister who is not truly renewed, righteous, and godly cannot teach other people with profit or administer real, true Sacraments.
Erroneous Articles of the New Arians
[36] The New Arians teach that Christ is not true, essential, natural God, of one eternal divine essence with God the Father. They say He is only adorned with divine majesty inferior to, and beside, God the Father.
Erroneous Articles of the New Anti-Trinitarians
[37] 1. Some Anti-Trinitarians reject and condemn the ancient, approved Nicene and Athanasian Creeds. They condemn both their sense and words. These people teach that there is not just one eternal divine essence of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. They teach that, just as there are three distinct persons (God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit), so each person has also its essence distinct and separate from the other persons. They say that all three are either like three men—distinct and separate in their essence, of the same power, wisdom, majesty, and glory ‹as some imagine›—or are unequal in essence and properties ‹as some think›.
[38] 2. The Father alone is true God.
[Conclusion]
[39] These and similar articles, one and all, with what belongs to them and follows from them, we reject and condemn as wrong, false, heretical, and contrary to God’s Word, the three Creeds, the Augsburg Confession and Apology, the Smalcald Articles, and Luther’s Catechisms. All godly Christians should beware of these articles to the extent that the welfare and salvation of their souls is dear to them.
[40] In the sight of God and of all Christendom ‹the entire Church of Christ›, we want to testify to those now living and those who will come after us. This declaration presented here about all the controverted articles mentioned and explained above—and no other—is our faith, doctrine, and confession. By God’s grace, with intrepid hearts, we are willing to appear before the judgment seat of Christ with this Confession and give an account of it [1 Peter 4:5]. We will not speak or write anything contrary to this Confession, either publicly or privately. By the strength of God’s grace we intend to abide by it. Therefore, after mature deliberation, we have, in the fear of God and by calling on His name, attached our signatures with our own hands.