believers. Parsimonius, too, maintained that Christ did not in any way
suffer after His death, but denied emphatically that "hell" was a
definite physical locality or place in space, and that the descent
involved a local motion of the body. Brenz assented to the views of
Parsimonius, and the preachers of Augsburg also assented to them. In
order to check his zeal against his opponents, Matsperger was deposed
and imprisoned. (Frank, 450 f.)

Such being the situation within the Lutheran Church concerning the
questions involved in the Hamburg Controversy, which by the way, had
been mentioned also in the Imperial Instruction for the Diet at
Augsburg, 1555, the _Formula of Concord_ considered it advisable to pass
also on this matter. It did so, in Article IX, by simply reproducing
what Luther had taught in the sermon referred to above. Here we read:
"We simply believe that the entire person, God and man after the burial,
descended into hell, conquered the devil, destroyed the power of hell
and took from the devil all his might." (1051, 3.) "But how this
occurred we should [not curiously investigate, but] reserve until the
other world, where not only this point [this mystery], but also still
others will be revealed, which we here simply believe, and cannot
comprehend with our blind reason." (827, 4.) Tschackert remarks: "Ever
since [the adoption of the Ninth Article of the _Formula of Concord_]
Lutheran theology has regarded the Descent of Christ as the beginning of
the state of exaltation of the human nature of the God-man." (559.)

XX. The Eleventh Article of the Formula of Concord: On Predestination.

222. Why Article XI was Embodied in the Formula.

The reason why Article XI was embodied in the _Formula of Concord_ is
stated in the opening paragraph of this article: "Although among the
theologians of the _Augsburg Confession_ there has not occurred as yet
any public dissension whatever concerning the eternal election of the
children of God that has caused offense, and has become wide-spread, yet
since this article has been brought into very painful controversy in
other places, and even among our theologians there has been some
agitation concerning it; moreover, since the same expressions were not
always employed concerning it by the theologians: therefore in order, by
the aid of divine grace, to prevent disagreement and separation on its
account in the future among our successors, we, as much as in us lies,
have desi