and teach in
their churches according to the articles of the Confession and Apology."
(529.) John Brenz declares that he had read and reread, time and again,
the Confession, the Apology, etc., and judged "that all these agree with
Holy Scripture, and with the belief of the true and genuine catholic
Church (_haec omnia convenire cum Sacra Scriptura et cum sententia verae
kai gnesies catholicae ecclesiae_)." (529.) Another subscription--to the
Smalcald Articles--reads: "I, Conrad Figenbotz, for the glory of God
subscribe that I have thus believed and am still preaching and firmly
believing as above." (503, 13.) Brixius writes in a similar vein: "I ...
subscribe to the Articles of the reverend Father Martin Luther, and
confess that hitherto I have thus believed and taught, and by the Spirit
of Christ I shall continue thus to believe and teach." (503, 27.)

In the Preface to the Thorough Declaration of the Formula of Concord the
Lutheran confessors declare: "To this Christian Augsburg Confession, so
thoroughly grounded in God's Word, we herewith pledge ourselves again
from our inmost hearts. We abide by its simple, clear, and unadulterated
meaning as the words convey it, and regard the said Confession as a pure
Christian symbol, with which at the present time true Christians ought
to be found next to God's Word.... We intend also, by the grace of the
Almighty, faithfully to abide until our end by this Christian
Confession, mentioned several times, as it was delivered in the year
1530 to the Emperor Charles V; and it is our purpose, neither in this
nor in any other writing, to recede in the least from that oft-cited
Confession, nor to propose another or new confession." (847, 4. 5.)
Again: "We confess also the First, Unaltered Augsburg Confession as our
symbol for this time (not because it was composed by our theologians,
but because it has been taken from God's Word and is founded firmly and
well therein), precisely in the form in which it was committed to
writing in the year 1530, and presented to the Emperor Charles V at
Augsburg." (851, 5.)

In like manner the remaining Lutheran symbols were adopted. (852. 777.)
Other books, the Formula of Concord declares, are accounted useful, "as
far as (_wofern, quatenus_) they are consistent with" the Scriptures and
the symbols. (855, 10.) The symbols, however, are accepted "that we may
have a unanimously received, definite, common form of doctrine, which
all our Evangelical churc