Ad omnes Germaniae ecclesias reformatas, piorum, qui sub Zvingliani et Calviniani nominis invidia, vim & iniuriam patiuntur, apologia

We, however, by the grace of God, have not been convicted of any error thus far, nor have we been condemned in any legitimate Synod. Indeed, we have never yet been able to obtain a hearing where this controversy is examined in a public assembly and judged by the Word of God. Yet this effort has not succeeded for our adversaries entirely as they wished. For the Spirit of God breathes where He wills and easily finds fissures through which He penetrates the hearts of the elect. And it is clear that many, offended by this iniquity of prejudice and inflamed with a greater desire for our books, have read those they otherwise would have neglected. Thus, they undertook the matter in another way. When, not long ago, the minds of all were raised to a good hope—partly because of the exceptional zeal of certain Most Illustrious Princes for the doctrine of Truth, and partly because of the piety of some theologians whose minds the Spirit of Christ had illuminated so that, leaving behind all the prejudices of commonly accepted opinions, they might look to what the Apostolic Church once held rather than to what is approved by this or that person today—that a desired end would finally be imposed upon these hateful contentions, a few men, in order to prop up their own crumbling reputation and that of their teachers, and so they would not appear to have sinned in defending the most absurd errors, crafted from previously conceived opinions a new Formula of Concord.

New Formula of Concord.