counsellors [sic] had allowed it.”  And so much greater was his dissatisfaction at the still more important concessions, [Note 16] which Melancthon and his associates were willing to make, in their negotiations after the Confession had been delivered, that, in a letter of Sept. 20, to Justus Jonas, one of the principal Protestant theologians at the Diet, he gives vent to his feelings in the following remarkable language:  “I almost burst with anger and displeasure, (Ich boerste schier fuer Zorn und Widerwillen,) and I beg you only to cut short the matter, cease to negotiate with them (the Papists,) any longer, and come home.  They have the Confession.  They have the gospel.  If they are willing to yield to it, then it is well.  If they are unwilling, they may go.  If war comes out of it, let it come.  We have entreated and done enough.  The Lord has prepared them as victims for the slaughter, that he may reward them according to their works.  But us, his people, he will deliver, even if we were sitting in the fiery furnace at Babylon.” [Note 17] Thus have we heard abundant evidence from the lips of Melancthon and Luther themselves, that the circumstances under which the Augsburg Confession was composed, in eight days, before its submission for Luther’s sanction, and the increasing pressure under which Melancthon afterwards made numerous changes in it, during five weeks before its presentation to the Diet, were far from being favorable to a full and free exhibition of the deliberate views of the Reformers even at that date, and fully account for some of the remnants of Romanism still found in that confession, whose import we are now to examine.  The declaration of that elaborate historian Arnold, is therefore only too true; “Melancthon had prepared the Confession amid great fear and trembling, and in many things accommodated himself to the Papists.” (Nun hatte dieselbe Melancthon zuvor in grossen Zittern und Angsten aufgesetzet, und sich in vielen nach den Papisten bequemet.” [Note 18]

Of similar import is the judgment of Dr. Hazelius.” [sic on quotation mark] [Note 19] In reference to the article of Baptism, says he, we have first to remind the reader of the sentiments expressed by the Confessors, in the preface to this (the Augsburg) Confession, declaring there, and in various passages of their other writings, that it was their object_, not only to couch the sentiments and doctrines they professed, in language the least offensive to their opponents, but also to GIVE WAY AS FAR AS CONSCIENCE WOULD PERMIT.  This being premised, we shall endeavor to discover the meaning of the Reformers in regard to the article of baptism from some of those portions of their writings, where they had not cause to be so circumspect and careful of not giving offence to the Roman party, as they had in the delivery of the Augsburg Confession.”