LUTHERANS, the general title given to those Christians who have adopted the principles of Martin Luther in his opposi tion to the Roman Church, to the followers of Calvin, and to the sectaries of the times of the Reformation. Their distinctive name is the Evangelical, as opposed to the Reformed church. Their dogmatic symbols are usually said to include nine separate creeds which together form the Book of Concord (q.v.). Three belong to the Early Christian church—the Apostles' Creed, the Nicene Creed (in its Western form, i.e., with the filioque), and the so called Athanasian Creed; six come from the 16th century—the Augsburg Confession, the Apology for the Augsburg Confession, the Schmalkald Articles, Luther's two Catechisms and the For mula of Concord. But only the three early creeds and the Augs burg Confession are recognized by all Lutherans. Luther's Cate chisms, especially the shorter of the two, have been almost univer sally accepted, but the Formula of Concord was and is expressly rejected by many Lutheran churches. The Augsburg Confession and Luther's Short Catechism may therefore be said to contain the distinctive principles which all Lutherans are bound to maintain, but, as the principal controversies of the Lutheran church all arose after the publication of the Augsburg Confession and among those who had accepted it, it does not contain all that is distinc tively Lutheran. Its universal acceptance is perhaps due to the fact that it exists in two forms (the variata and the invariata) which vary slightly in the way in which they state the doctrine of the sacrament of the Supper. The variata edition was signed by Calvin, in the meaning, he said, of its author Melanchthon. After Luther's death the more rigid Lutherans declared it to be their duty to preserve the status religionis in Germania per Lutherum instauratus, and to watch over the depositum Jests Christi which he had committed to their charge. As Luther was a much greater preacher than a systematic thinker, it was not easy to say exactly what this deposit was, and controversies resulted among the Lutheran theologians of the 16th century. (a) The Antinomian controversy was the earliest (1537-156o).
It arose from differences about the precise meaning of the word "law" in Luther's distinction between law and gospel. Luther limited the meaning of the word to mean a definite command accompanied by threats, which counts on terror to produce obe dience. He declared that Christ was not under the dominion of the law in this sense of the word, and that believers enter the Christian life only when they transcend a rule of life which counts on selfish motives for obedience. But law may mean ethical rule,
and the Antinomians so understood it, and interpreted Luther's declaration to mean that believers are not under the dominion of the moral law. (b) The Arminian controversy in the Reformed church, the Jansenist controversy in the Roman Catholic church, had their parallel in disputes among the Lutherans lasting from 155o to 1580. In the end it was generally agreed that sin had not totally destroyed man's ethical nature, and that grace changed what was morally insensitive into what was morally sensitive, so that there could be a co-operation between God's grace and man's will ("synergism"). (c) The controversy raised by Andrew Osiander was more important. He felt that Luther had omitted to make adequate answer to an important practical question, how Christ's death on the cross could be brought into such actual connection with every individual believer as to be the ground of his actual justification. It was answered that the principal effect of Christ's work on the cross was to change the attitude of God towards the whole human race, and that, in consequence, when men come into being and have faith, they can take advantage of the change of attitude effected by the past historical work of Christ. The Reformed church, on the other hand, constructed their special doctrine of the limited reference in the atonement. (d) The other controversies concerned mainly the doctrine of the sacrament of the Supper, and Luther's theory of Consubstan tiation. This required a doctrine of Ubiquity, or the omnipresence of the body of Christ extended in space, and therefore of its presence in the communion elements. Calvin had taught that the true way to regard substance was to think of its power (vis), and that the presence of a substance was the immediate application of its power. The presence of the body of Christ in the sacra mental elements did not need a presence extended in space. Melanchthon and many Lutherans accepted the theory of Calvin, and alleged that Luther before his death had approved of it. Whereupon the more rigid Lutherans accused their brethren of Crypto-Calvinism, and began controversies which dealt with that charge and with a defence of the idea of ubiquity. The University of Jena, led by Matthias Flacius, was the headquarters of the stricter Lutherans, while Wittenberg and Leipzig were the centres of the Philippists or followers of Melanchthon.