In view of these indisputable results of a careful investigation of the original sources, it may not be amiss to cast a glance at the representations of this subject in our former publications during the last quarter of a century, as we have frequently been charged, not indeed by the author of the Plea, but by superficial writers, with self-contradiction and misrepresentation.  It would indeed have been in perfect unison with the habit of the best authors of Europe and America, to change our opinions as we extended our investigations, and freely to profess such change.  Nor should we feel any reluctance in following such distinguished authorities, if we felt that our case required it.  But in reperusing our former statements, we cannot see that they differ, in any material point, from the results of our latest investigations above given.

In the Popular Theology, (page 406 of the seventh edition,) first published in 1834, speaking of the article of the Augsburg Confession on the Mass, we find the following:—­“On this subject, (the mass,) the language of the Confession was less condemnatory, than that which they soon after employed.  In the Smalcald Articles, which were published seven years after this Confession, in 1537, Luther declares the Papal mass to be a most momentous and abominable corruption; because it militates directly and powerfully against the fundamental doctrine, (justification by faith in Jesus Christ.”) We then add several extracts from the Augsburg Confession, showing that the confessors rejected the sacrificial and vicarious nature of the mass, as well as other objectionable features of it.  Now here we find the same two positions taken, which the preceding discussions of this chapter have established, namely, that the Confession is less condemnatory than the later Smalcald Articles; that it favors the mass more, and speaks of it in milder language than was employed at a subsequent period.  As no one of any note at that day pretended to urge the adoption of the entire Augsburg Confession, much less of all the symbolical books, there was no necessity of dilating on the objectionable features of the Confession, and we of course abstain from doing so.  In this silence we would have persevered to this day, had not a new generation of European symbolists since then sought refuge on our shores, and carried on aggressive operations, incessantly assailing the General Synod and her members, and charging them with unfaithfulness to Confessions which they never adopted, except as to fundamentals; thus compelling us to expose these remnants of Romish error which they certainly do contain.