The Truth of the Christian Religion (Volume 1 ) (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1894 Excerpt: ... CHAPTER III. ORTHODOX DOGMATICS. The authority of Scripture--The groundwork of Orthodox doctrine: a modified reproduction of Scholastic doctrine--The Mediaeval Catholic basis of that doctrinal groundwork. Protestantism is a restoration of original Christianity as determined by the standard of Divine Revelation. Now that restoration was effected on the ground of Western Latin Christianity as it received its crowning form in the Middle Ages. For that reason Protestantism is still implicated in many ways in the past of Catholicism, especially in Catholic dogma. The old Protestantism and its Dogmatics are not correctly understood, unless the two sides are kept in view from the commencement. The essence of this historical result consists simply in its being a union of them both; the one corresponding to its specific intentions, the other to the historical situation in which it arose. The groundwork of the doctrine appearing in orthodox Protestant Dogmatics itself supplies evidence of this. Or at least it must be understood in the light of the fact that such is the case with regard to Protestantism. The great renovation in the groundwork of doctrine consists in the fact that Holy Scripture is declared to be the sole and specific authority in theology. That law proceeds directly from the Reformation. It is true that the maxim that the religion of Revelation must be guided by the standard of Revelation, or that the faith which has to be accepted and confessed in that religion must have its object and therefore its authority in Revelation, belongs to Christianity in general, and appears as a matter of course in the Christian system. The Catholic Church also recognises it. "With no less emphasis it makes Holy Scripture stand for a source of Revelation. The new elemen...