In A Comparison of the Roman and Evangelical Churches also known as A Brief and Careful Description (1629) by Nicolaus Hunnius and A Catholic Answer to the Heretical Question of the Jesuits: Where Was the True Religion and Church before the Time of Luther?" (1627) by Balthasar Meisner, one encounters two examples of a defense of the existence of the Evangelical Lutheran Church against the ongoing polemical assaults of the Papacy, which are written in such a way as to be accessible to a primarily lay audience. Writing in the midst of the time of the Thirty Years' War, both...