paid their dues to the priests, and performed the superstitious
ceremonies of the church.

In the age of the Reformation, Luther had obligated himself to the
entire Romish system, yea, had at the receipt of his Doctorate, taken
an oath to _obey the Church of Rome, and not to teach any doctrines
condemned by her_ [Note 2] But having been enlightened by the study of
the Bible, which providentially fell into his hands, he saw his errors,
and wisely judging that _an oath to do any criminal deed ceases to be
obligatory after the sinfulness of the contemplated act is seen_, he
renounced those errors one after another, as fast as the light of
truth illumined his mind. This work he commenced in 1517, and continued
from year to year till near the close of his life. In 1530, eleven
years after, he began the work of reform, and sixteen before his death,
he approved the Augsburg confession, as drawn up by Melancthon,
although he told him in a letter during the diet, that he had yielded
too much to the papists, as will be seen in the sequel. But Luther
never signed any confession of faith; nor was a pledge to the Augsburg
confession or to any other symbol required of the ministers of the
church during his lifetime; although the Augsburg confession was
regarded as the exponent of the prevalent views of the Protestant
churches in Germany. It was not until a quarter of a century after
Luther had left the church militant, and not until the Lutheran church
had been established in Germany for full half a century, that the
so-called _symbolic system_ was regularly and generally introduced by
the civil authorities of the major portion of Protestant Germany. Now
it is in regard to the import of this Confession of Augsburg,
published before the middle of Luther's labors as a reformer, that
some differences of opinion have been entertained. To ascertain the
true sense of such passages according to the most impartial and just