AUGSBURG, a celebrated city of Germany, capital of the circle of Swabia and Neuburg in Bavaria, the principal seat of the commerce of South Germany, and of commercial transactions with the south of Europe. It derives its name from the Roman Emperor Augustus, who, on the conquest of Rhaetia by Drusus, established a Roman colony named Augιιsta Vindelicorum (about 14 B.C.) In the 5th century it was sacked by the Huns, and afterwards came under the power of the Frankish kings. It was almost entirely destroyed in the war of Charlemagne against Thassilon, duke of Bavaria; and after the dissolution and division of that empire, it fell into the hands of the dukes of Swabia. After this it rose rapidly into importance as a manufacturing and commercial town, and its merchant princes, the Fuggers and Weisers, rivalled the Medici of Florence; but the alterations produced in the currents of trade by the discoveries of the 15th and 16th centuries occasioned a great decline. In 1276 it was raised to the rank of a free imperial city, which it retained, with many changes in its internal constitution, till 1806, when it was annexed to the kingdom of Bavaria. Meanwhile, it was the scene of numerous events of historical importance. It was besieged and taken by Gustavus Adolphus in 1632, and in 1635 it surrendered to the imperial forces; in 1703 it was bombarded by the electoral prince of Bavaria, and forced to pay a contribution of 400,000 dollars; and in the war of IS03 it suffered severely. Of its conventions the most memorable are those which gave birth to the Augsburg confession (1530) and to the Augsburg alliance (1686)....

AUGSBURG CONFESSION. See Creeds.

or AUGUSTAN CONFESSION. In 1530, a diet of the German princes was convened by the emperor Charles V, to meet at Augsburgh, for the express purpose of composing the religious troubles which then distracted Germany. On this occasion Melancthon was employed to draw up this famous confession of faith which may be considered as the creed of the German reformers, especially of the more temperate among them. It consisted of twenty-one articles, including the following points:--The Trinity, original sin, the incarnation, justification by faith, the word and sacraments, necessity of good works, the perpetuity of the church, infant baptism, the Lord’s Supper, repentance and confession, the proper use of the sacraments, church order, rites and ceremonies, the magistracy, a future judgment, free will, the worship of saints, &c. It then proceeds to state the abuses of which the reformers chiefly complained, as the denial of the sacramental cup to the laity, the celibacy of the clergy, the mass, auricular confession, forced abstinence from meats, monastic vows, and the enormous power of the church of Rome. The confession was read at a full meeting of the diet, and signed by the elector of Saxony, and three other princes of the German empire. John Faber, afterward archbishop of Vienna, and two other Catholic divines, were employed to draw up an answer to this confession, which was replied to by Melancthon in his “Apology for the Augsburgh Confession” in 1531. This confession and defence; the articles of Smalcald, drawn up by Luther; his catechisms, &c, form the symbolical books of the Lutheran church; and it must be owned that they contain concessions in favour of some parts of popery, particularly the real presence, that few Protestants in this country would admit.