§.II: The Augsburg Confession is Melanchthon's crafted complex of Christian faith, exhibited to Charles V in 1530
§. II. If we give no play to party feeling, we must say this: the Augsburg Confession is a complex of the Christian faith in its chief heads.
Luther sketched it; Melanchthon dressed it and ordered it into the verbal and real form it now enjoys.
It was gathered and signed in the name of the chief estates of the Romano-German Empire in Lower Germany by the leading theologians of that region, then exhibited at Augsburg to Emperor Charles V in 1530 as a stand chiefly against papal heterodoxy.
It was not read in a full assembly of all the estates, but it was read publicly in the Emperor's palace. Charles rejected it by solemn decree; those estates nonetheless defended and confirmed it together; and in 1531 it was first issued into public light at Wittenberg by public authority.
Latin
§. II.
Augustanam Confessionem, nulli affectui quicquam indulturi, necesse habent dicere, Christianae Fidei, quà praecipua hujus capita, Complexum, à Theologis Inferioris Germaniae praecipuis, delineante Lutherô, adornante autem inque Formam, quâ gaudet, tùm verbalem, tùm realem, digerente Melanchthone, Ordinum Imperii Romano-Germanici, in Germania Inferiori praecipuorum nomine, tàm congestum quam subsignatum, sicque Augustae Vindelicorum, Imperatori Carolo V., ceu Pontificiae cumprimis Heterodoxiae oppositum, Anno 1530. exhibitum; non quidem in Statuum omnium Confessu, in Imperatoris tamen Palatio, publicè praelectum, & licèt à dicto Imperatore, solenni Decreto rejectum, communi interim Statuum istorum consensu defensum, confirmatum, tandemque Anno insequente 1531. Wittenbergae primò omnium, publica Auctoritate, in lucem publicam editum.