In the course of time, the esteem in which Luther's articles were held, rose higher and higher. Especially during and after the controversies on the Interim, as well as in the subsequent controversies with the Crypto-Calvinists, the Lutherans became more and more convinced that the Smalcald Articles and not the Variata, contained the correct exposition of the Augsburg Confession. At the Diet of Regensburg, in 1541, the Elector, by his delegates, sent word to Melanchthon "to stand by the Confession and the Smalcald Agreement [Smalcald Articles] in word and in sense." The delegates answered that Philip would not yield anything "which was opposed to the Confession and the Smalcald Agreement," as he had declared that "he would die rather than yield anything against his conscience." (_C. R._ 4, 292.) In an opinion of 1544 also the theologians of Hesse, who at Smalcald had helped to sidetrack Luther's articles put them on a par with the Augustana. At Naumburg in 1561, where Elector Frederick of the Palatinate and the Crypto-Calvinists endeavored to undermine the authority of Luther, Duke John Frederick of Saxony declared that he would abide by the original Augustana and its "true declaration and norm," the Smalcald Articles. Faithful Lutherans everywhere received the Smalcald Articles into their _corpora doctrinae._ In 1567 the Convention of Coswig declared them to be "the norm by which controversies are to be decided, _norma decidendi controversias_." Similarly, the Synod of Moelln, 1559. In 1560 the ministerium of Luebeck and the Senate of Hamburg confessionally accepted the Articles. Likewise, the Convention of Lueneburg in 1561, and the theologians of Schleswig-Holstein in 1570. The Thorough Declaration could truthfully say that the Smalcald Articles had been embodied in the confessional writings of the Lutheran Church "for the reason that these have always and everywhere been regarded as the common, unanimously accepted meaning of our churches and, moreover, have been subscribed at that time by the chief and most enlightened theologians, and have held sway in all evangelical churches and schools." (855, 11.) 77. Editions of Smalcald Articles.