Archive for August 20th, 2014
Leipzig Colloquy (1631)
Thereafter, the theologians of both sides did most carefully, with a good heart, go through each of the articles of the Augsburg Confession one by one, thereby making known their respective opinions. Being called to examine the first article concerning God carefully and word by word, the electoral Brandenburg and Hessian theologians clearly stated: they firmly believe along with the electoral Saxons that God is one in being and three in persons; also that the doctrine of the unity of the divine being and the mystery of the three distinct persons in the Godhead are powerfully and irrefutably grounded in the Old and the New Testaments, regardless of some pronouncements of contrary interpretations that have appeared in the writings of certain teachers. They believe from the heart, as did the electoral Saxons, that God is a simple and an eternal, incorporeal, and indivisible being, without end and without any limits, and so is all powerful; that He can do all things which He wills to do, and that nothing at all is impossible to Him, except only that which is declared by His Word to be contrary to His nature and counsel. In all the remaining points which are comprehended in the first article as also in those which are thereby refuted, they were completely of one mind and voice. . . .
On the fourth article,1 the theologians of both sides are of one accord (and the electoral Brandenburg and Hessian theologians declare) that the fourth article is likewise loved by them and taught on every occasion. That Christ the Lord and Savior died for all men and with His death had acted for the sins of the whole world completely, perfectly, and, in His death in and of itself, powerfully and sufficiently. That it is also not mere appearance, but that it is His actual, earnest will and command that all men should believe on Him, and be saved through faith; thus that no one is shut out from the power and benefit of the sufficiency of Christ but he who shuts himself out through unbelief.
“The Leipzig Colloquy” in, Reformed Confessions of the 16th and 17th Centuries in English Translation, ed., James T. Dennison, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Reformation Heritage Books, 2010), 4:168 and 174. [Underlining Mine and footnotes mine.]