The Book of Religions / Comprising the Views, Creeds, Sentiments, or Opinions, of All the Principal Religious Sects in the World, Particularly of All Christian Denominations in Europe and America, to Which are Added Church and Missionary Statistics, Together With Biographical Sketches

by John Hayward

The first Protestant Confession was that presented, in 1530, to the diet of Augsburg, by the suggestion and under the direction of John, elector of Saxony. This wise and prudent prince, with the view of having the principal grounds on which the Protestants had separated from the Romish communion distinctly submitted to that assembly, intrusted the duty of preparing a summary of them to the divines of Wittemberg. Nor was that task a difficult one; for the Reformed doctrines had already been digested into seventeen articles, which had been proposed at the conferences both at Sultzbach and Smalcald, as the confession of faith to be adopted by the Protestant confederates. These, accordingly, were delivered to the elector by Luther, and served as the basis of the celebrated Augsburg Confession, written “by the elegant and accurate pen of Melancthon”—a work which has been admired by many even of its enemies, for its perspicuity, piety, and erudition. It contains twenty-eight chapters, the leading topics of which are, the true and essential divinity of Christ; his substitution and vicarious sacrifice; original sin; human inability; the necessity, freedom, and efficacy of divine grace; consubstantiation; and particularly justification by faith, to establish the truth and importance of which was one of its chief objects. The last seven articles condemn and confute the Popish tenets of communion in one kind, clerical celibacy, private masses, auricular confession, legendary traditions, [pg 303] monastic vows, and the exorbitant power of the church. This Confession is silent on the doctrine of predestination. This is the universal standard of orthodox doctrine among those who profess to be Lutherans, in which no authoritative alteration has ever been made.

Armenians.

The chief point of separation between the Armenians on the one side, and the Greeks and the Papists on the other, is, that, while the latter believe in two natures and one person of Christ, the former believe that the humanity and divinity of Christ were so united as to form but one nature; and hence they are called Monophysites, signifying single nature.

Another point on which they are charged with heresy by the Papists is, that they adhere to the notion that the Spirit proceeds from the Father only; and in this the Greeks join them, though the Papists say that he proceeds from the Father and the Son. In other respects, the Greeks and Armenians have very nearly the same religious opinions, though they differ somewhat in their forms and modes of worship. For instance, the Greeks make the sign of the cross with three fingers, in token of their belief in the doctrine of the Trinity, while the Armenians use two fingers, and the Jacobites, one.

The Armenians hold to seven sacraments, like the Latins although baptism, confirmation, and extreme unction, are all performed at the same time; and the forms of prayer for confirmation and extreme unction are perfectly intermingled, which leads one to suppose that, in fact, the latter sacrament does not exist among them, except in name, and that this they have borrowed from the Papists.

Infants are baptized both by triple immersion and pouring water three times upon the head; the former being done, [pg 304] as their books assert, in reference to Christ's having been three days in the grave, and probably suggested by the phrase buried with him in baptism.

The latter ceremony they derive from the tradition that, when Christ was baptized, he stood in the midst of Jordan, and John poured water from his hand three times upon his head. In all their pictures of this scene, such is the representation of the mode of our Savior's baptism. Converted Jews, or Mahometans, though adults, are baptized in the same manner.

The Armenians acknowledge sprinkling as a lawful mode of baptism; for they receive from other churches those that have merely been sprinkled, without rebaptizing them.

They believe firmly in transubstantiation, and worship the consecrated elements as God.