1911

“I saw now what I had never realized before. The Church of Rome… demanded liberty that it might destroy liberty. It was not simply a religious body; it was primarily a huge political machine, which worked for supremacy.

Endellion lifted him up, and the dying man seized the pen. “I give everything I have here in Australia, and all I possess in Dulverton, Devon, England, or elsewhere, to my good friend Ralph Endellion.

This is a highly readable, modern English version of the classic volume of Protestant Biblical theology. The translation of the Augsburg Confession is that of Charles P. Krauth, the Small Catechism by Charles F.

Theodore Schmauk’s exploration and defense of the Christian faith consists of five parts: Historical Introduction Part 1: Are Confessions Necessary? Part 2: Confessions in the Church Part 3: Lutheran Confessions Part 4: The Church in America “This book is written in the belief that the one ultimate authority among men is truth.

Luther’s Little Instruction Book (Small Catechism) has been translated into many of the languages of the world. Williston Walker in his History of the Christian Church describes it as “one of the noblest monuments of the Reformation”.

“The Apology is more than a mere polemical treatise. It is a thorough discussion, in all its relations, of the cardinal doctrine of Justification by Faith alone, without Works; for whatever be the article treated, the discussion always reverts to this theme.

The Augsburg Confession is the first part of the Book of Concord, the Lutheran Confessions. The Saxon Visitation Articles were used by pastors to instruct their congregants and appeared in Saxon editions of the Book of Concord until the forced union of Lutheran and Reformed in the Nineteenth Century.

“The Formula of Concord is the result of controversies within the Lutheran Church after the breach with the Papacy had become complete… It required more than a single generation for the Evangelical faith in all its power to penetrate the minds and lives of even its staunchest adherents; and when we recall the deplorable condition into which the Church had fallen, and the deep ignorance not only of the people, but also of the ministry, described in the introductions to the Catechisms, we cannot wonder at the subsequent internal struggles, when the controversy with the Papists absorbed less attention…

“The attentive reader… will see that the matters here treated are not antiquated or obsolescent, but enter most deeply into the issues of the hour.” — Henry Eyster Jacobs Clear print, large format quality paperback available on Amazon by the Lutheran Librarian