ASSERTIONS ON DOCTRINAL THEOLOGY.

REV. ENRIQUE IVALDI, LUTHERAN PASTOR.

ON THE PRINCIPAL ARTICLES OF THE CHRISTIAN FAITH

COMMENCED BY THE AUTHOR MAINLY FOR THE PURPOSE OF FORMING A SYSTEM OF DIVINITY

AND AS DEVELOPMENT AND EXPLANATION OF DIVERS ARTICLES OF THE «CHRIST OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS» CONGREGATION

CONFESSION OF FAITH NAMED «AUGUSTINUS» ‡

BOOK I.

INDEX. PROLEGOMENA. Theological Systems. The Holy Scriptures. Assertion 1. Perfection; Perspicuity; Asserts. 2 & 3. Efficacy; Assert. 4. § A. The Rule of Faith: Confessional Principle of the Lutheran Reformation. Asserts. 5 & 6. God and Creation. The Creation of Man. Assert. 7. Original Sin; Asserts. 8 & 9. Assertion 10, God’s Purpose for sending His Son into the World. Universal Grace and Its Application, Assert. 11. Assert. 12, On the Covenants. Assert. 13, The Saving Work of Christ. APPENDIXES. I: God entered in Covenant with Adam. II: Some Remarks on Faith. III: On Justification by Faith Alone. IV: Mysticism (Early Church to Our Days.)

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PROLEGOMENA.

For the design of this book we need define what theology is. Thus, we characterize Doctrinal Theology as the habitus practicus, a practical habitude given for God to the church by His Word, encompassing the knowledge and acceptance of the divine truth, together with the aptitude to teach others towards such knowledge and acceptance, and to defend such truth, the Scriptural doctrine, against his adversaries. We may also characterize Doctrinal Theology as the sum of doctrines included in the Holy Writ, that should be known, confessed, properly applied and strenuously defended by a theologian. Generally Doctrinal Theology comprises or is outlined in these Departments: The Doctrine of the Word of God; The Doctrine of Creation; Christology; Soteriology, & Eschatology.

§ In a strict sense, Doctrinal Theology is the Doctrine of the Holy Scripture concerning the true God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.

Comments:

1. By the word theology we do not understand a conception or a discourse of God himself; but we understand by it, a discourse about God and things divine, according to its common use.

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2. Theology may be defined, also, as the doctrine or science of the truth which is according to godliness, and which God has revealed to man that he may know God and divine things, may believe on Him and may through faith come to Him with, love, fear, honour, worship & obedience, and obtain blessedness from Him through union with Him, to the divine glory.

§ A. Theological System. Every discipline has its own system, determined by its own nature. This is a matter of so much importance that it has been raised into a distinct department. The two great comprehensive systems are the a priori and the a posteriori. The one makes a case from cause to effect, the other from effect to cause. According to this method, we begin with collecting well-established facts, and from them infer the general laws, which determine their occurrence. From the fact that bodies fall toward the centre of the earth, has been inferred the general law of gravitation, which we are endorsed to apply far beyond the limits of actual experience. This inductive method is founded upon two principles: First, That there are laws of nature (forces) which are the proximate causes of natural phenomena. Secondly, That those laws are unvarying; so that we are certain that the same causes, under the same circumstances, will produce the same effects. There may be diversity of opinion as to the nature of these laws. They may be assumed to be forces inherent in matter; or, they may be regarded as uniform modes of divine operation; but in any event there must be some cause for the phenomena, which we perceive around us, and that cause must be homogeneous and permanent. On these principles all the inductive sciences are founded. The methods, which have been applied to the study of theology, are too numerous to be separately considered. They may, perhaps, be reduced to three general classes: First, The Speculative; Second, The Mystical; Third, The Inductive. These terms are, indeed, far from being precise. They are used for the want of better to designate the three general methods of theological investigation, which have prevailed in the Church.

§ 1. The Speculative Method. Speculation assumes, in an a priori manner, certain principles, and from them undertakes to conclude what is and what must be. It decides on all truth, or determines on what is true from the laws of the mind, or from axioms involved in the constitution of the thinking principle within us. To this head must be referred all those systems which are founded on any a priori philosophical assumptions. There are three general forms in which this speculative method has been applied to theology.

a. Deistic and Rationalistic Form. The first is that which rejects any other source of understanding of divine things than what is found in nature and the constitution of the human mind. It assumes certain metaphysical and moral axioms, and from them develops all the truths, which it is willing to admit. To this class belong the Deistical and strictly Rationalistical writers of the past and present generations.

b. Dogmatic Form. The second is the method adopted by those who admit a supernatural divine revelation, and allow that such a revelation is contained in the Christian Holy Scriptures, but who reduce all the doctrines thus revealed to the forms of some philosophical system. This was done by many of the fathers who endeavoured to ‘boost’ the faith of the common people into philosophy for the well-read. This was also to a greater or less degree the method of

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the schoolmen, and finds an illustration even in the ‘Cur Deus Homo’ of Anselm, the father of scholastic theology. This method is still in vogue. Men lay down certain principles, called axioms, or first truths of reason, and from them deduce the doctrines of religion by a course of argument as rigid and merciless as that of Euclid. This is sometimes done to the entire defeat of the doctrines of the Bible, and of the dearest moral convictions not only of Christians but also of the mass of mankind. Principles are not allowed to whisper in the presence of the lordly understanding. It is in the spirit of the same method that the old scholastic doctrine is made the basis of the Scriptural doctrines of original sin and redemption. To this method the somewhat ambiguous term Dogmatism has been applied, because it attempts to reconcile the doctrines of Scripture with reason, and to rest their authority on rational evidence. The result of this method has always been to transform, as far as it succeeded, faith into knowledge, and to attain this end the teachings of the Bible have been ad infinitum modified. Men are expected to believe, not on the authority of God, but on that of reason.

c. Transcendentalists. Thirdly, and basically, Transcendentalists are addicted to the speculative method. In the wide sense of the word they are Rationalists, as they admit of no higher source of truth other Reason. But as they make reason to be something very different from what it is regarded as being by ordinary Rationalists, the two classes are practically very far apart. The Transcendentalists also differ essentially from the Dogmatists. The latter admit an external, supernatural, and authoritative revelation. They acknowledge that truths not discoverable by human reason are by this means made known. But they maintain that those doctrines when known may be shown to be true on the principles of reason. They undertake to give a demonstration independent of Scripture of the doctrines of the Trinity, the Incarnation, Redemption, as well as of the resurrection among dead and a future state of glory & retribution. Transcendentalists admit of no authoritative revelation other than that which is found in man and in the historical development of the race. All truth is to be discovered and established by a process of thought. If it were conceded that the Bible contains truth, it is only so far as it coincides with the teachings of philosophy. The same concession is freely made concerning the writings of the heathen sages. Some find Hegelianism in the Bible, and they therefore admit that so far the Bible teaches truth. Others, say Christianity is the absolute religion, because its fundamental principle, namely, ‘the oneness of God and man,’ is the fundamental principle of his philosophy. Their theology is therefore anthropology, and their anthropology is theology.

§ 2. The Mystical Method. Few words have been used with greater latitude of meaning than mysticism. It is here to be taken in a sense antithetical to speculation. Speculation is a process of thought; mysticism is matter of feeling. The one assumes that the thinking faculty is that by which we attain the knowledge of truth. The other, distrusting reason, teaches that the feelings alone are to be relied upon, at least in the sphere of religion. Although this method has been unduly pressed, and systems of theology have been constructed under its guidance, which are either entirely independent of the Scriptures, or in which the doctrines of the Bible have been modified and perverted, it is not to be denied that great authority is due to our moral nature in matters of religion. It has ever been a great evil in the Church that men have allowed the logical understanding, or what they call their reason, to lead them to conclusions which are not only contrary to Scripture, but which do violence to our moral nature. It is to be admitted that conscience is much less liable to err than reason; and when they come into conflict, real or apparent, our moral nature is the stronger, and will assert its authority in spite of all we can do. It is rightfully supreme in the soul, although, with the reason and the will, it is in absolute subjection to God, who is infinite reason and infinite moral excellence.

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d. Mysticism as applied to Theology. Mysticism, in its application to theology, has assumed two principal forms, the supernatural and the natural. According to the former, God, or the Spirit of God, holds direct communion with the soul; and by the enthusiasm of its religious feelings gives it intuitions of truth, and enables it to attain a kind, a degree, and an extent of knowledge, inaccessible in any other way. This has been the common theory of Christian mystics in ancient & modern times. If by this were meant merely that the Spirit of God, by His illuminating influence, gives believers knowledge of the truths objectively revealed in the Scriptures, which is proper, confident, and saving, it would be admitted by all Christians. It is because such Christians do hold to this inward teaching of the Spirit, that Luther and the Lutheran divines often call them Mystics or Enthusiasts. The mystical method, in its supernatural form, assumes that God by His immediate intercourse with the soul reveals through the Feelings and by means, or in the way of intuitions, divine truth independently of the outward teaching of His Word; and that it is this inward light, and not the Scriptures, which we are to follow. This has been the doctrine of the early Anabaptists and, in fact, is also the position of the Reformed Church position, since all Calvinists reject that God uses Means of Grace for work faith in men. According to the other, or natural form of the mystical method, it is not God, but the natural religious consciousness of men, as energized and influenced by the conditions of the individual, which becomes the source of religious knowledge. The deeper and purer the religious feelings, the clearer the insight into truth. This illumination or spiritual intuition is a matter of degree. But as all men have a religious nature, they all have more or less clearly the apprehension of religious truth. The religious consciousness of men in different ages and nations, has been historically developed under diverse influences, and hence we have diverse forms of religion, -- the Pagan, the Islamic, and the Christian. These do not stand related as true and false, but as more or less pure. The appearance of Christ, His life, His work, His words, His death, had a wonderful effect on the minds of men. Their religious beliefs were more deeply enthused, were more purified and elevated than ever before. Hence the men of his generation, who gave themselves up to his influence, had intuitions of religious truth of a far higher order than mankind had before attained. This influence continues to the present time. All Christians are its subjects. All, therefore, in proportion to the purity and elevation of their religious feelings, have intuitions of divine things, such as the Apostles and other Christians enjoyed. Perfect holiness would secure perfect knowledge.

e. Consequences of the Mystical Method. It follows from this theory, ~ (1.) That there are no such things as revelation and inspiration, in the established theological meaning of those terms. Revelation is the supernatural objective presentation or communication of truth to the mind, by the Spirit of God. But according to this theory there is, and can be, no such communication of truth. The religious feelings are providentially excited, and by reason of that excitement the mind perceives truth more or less clearly, or more or less imperfectly. Inspiration, in the Scriptural sense, is the supernatural guidance of the Spirit, which renders its subjects infallible in the communicating truth to others by means of the Word. Now, according to this theory, no man is infallible as a teacher. Revelation and inspiration are in divers degrees common to all men. And there is no reason why they should not be as perfect in some believers now as in the days of the Apostles. (2.) The Bible has no infallible authority in matters of doctrine. The doctrinal statements therein contained are not revelations by the Holy Ghost. They are only the forms under which men of Jewish culture gave expression to their beliefs and intuitions. Men of different culture, and under other circumstances, would have used other forms or adopted other doctrinal assertions. (3.) Christianity,

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therefore, neither consists in a system of doctrines, nor does it contain any such system. It is a life, an influence, a subjective state; or by whatsoever term it may be expressed or explained, it is a power within each individual Christian determining his judgments and his views of divine things. (4.) Consequently the duty of a theologian is not to interpret Scripture, but to interpret his own Christian awareness; to establish and demonstrate what truths concerning God are implied in his opinions toward God; what truths concerning Christ are involved in his beliefs toward Christ; what these beliefs teach concerning sin, redemption, eternal life, etc. This method was initially supported by Schleiermacher, whose ‘Glaubenslehre’ is constructed on this principle. Many heterodox scholars have followed him. As of his days to our time almost all Lutheran thinkers build their philosophy on this ground.

§ 3. The Inductive Method. It is so called because it agrees in everything essential with the inductive method as applied to the natural sciences. First, The man of science comes to the study of nature with certain assumptions. (1.) He assumes the trustworthiness of his sense perceptions. The facts of nature reveal themselves to our faculties of sense, and can be known in no other way. (2.) He must also assume the trustworthiness of his mental operations. (3.) He must also rely on the certainty of those truths which are not learned from experience, but which are given in the constitution of our nature. That every effect must have a cause; that the same cause under like circumstances, will produce like effects; that a cause is not a mere uniform antecedent, but that which contains within itself the reason why the effect occurs. Second, The student of nature having this ground on which to stand, and these tools wherewith to work, proceeds to perceive, gather, and combine his facts. These he does not pretend to invent, nor presume to modify. He must take them as they are. He is only careful to be sure that they are real, and that he has them all, or, at least all that are necessary to validate any inference, which he may draw from them, or any theory, which he may build upon them. Third, From facts thus ascertained and classified, he deduces the laws by which they are determined. That a heavy body falls to the ground is a familiar fact. Observation shows that it is not an isolated fact. As this is found to be universally and constantly the case within the field of observation, he mind is forced to conclude that there is some reason for it; in other words, that it is a law of nature which may be relied upon beyond the limits of actual observation. As this law has always operated in the past, the man of science is sure that it will operate in the future. It is in this way the vast body of modern science has been built up, and the laws which determine the motions of the heavenly bodies; the chemical changes constantly going on around us; the structure, growth, and propagation of plants and animals, have, to a greater or less extent, been ascertained and established. It is to be observed that these laws or general principles are not derived from the mind, and attributed to external objects, but derived or deduced from the objects and impressed upon the mind.

§ 4. The Inductive Method as applied to Theology.

The Bible is to the theologian what nature is to the man of science. It is his storehouse of facts; and his method of ascertaining what the Bible teaches, is the same as that which the natural philosopher adopts to ascertain what nature teaches. In the first place, he comes to his task with all the assumptions above-mentioned. He must assume the validity of those

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laws of belief, which God has impressed upon our nature. In these laws are included some which have no direct application to the natural sciences. Such, for example, as the essential distinction between right and wrong; that nothing contrary to virtue can be enjoined by God; that it cannot be right to do evil that good may come; that sin deserves punishment, and other similar first truths, which God has implanted in the constitution of all moral beings, and which no objective revelation can possibly contradict. These first principles, however, are not to be arbitrarily assumed. No man has a right to lay down his own opinions, however firmly held, and call them ‘first truths of reason,’ and make them the source or test of Christian doctrines. Nothing can rightfully be included under the category of first truths, or laws of belief, which cannot stand the tests of universality and necessity, to which many add self-evidence. But self-evidence is included in universality and necessity, in so far, that nothing, which is not self-evident, can be universally believed, and what is self-evident forces itself on the mind of every intelligent creature. Therefore, the duty of the Christian theologian is to ascertain, assemble, and join all the facts which God has revealed concerning Himself and our relation to Him. These facts are all in the Bible. This is true, because everything revealed in nature, and in the constitution of man concerning God and our relation to Him, is contained and authenticated in Scripture. It is in this sense that ‘the Bible, and the Bible alone, is the religion of Lutherans.’ It may be admitted that the truths which the theologian has to condense to a science, or, to speak more humbly, which he has to arrange and harmonize, are revealed partly in the external works of God; yet lest we should err in our inferences from the works of God, we have a clearer revelation of all that nature reveals, in His Word; and lest we should misinterpret our own consciousness and the laws of our nature, everything that can be lawfully learned from that source will be found recognized and legitimated in the Scriptures; and lest we should attribute to the teaching of the Spirit the operations of our own natural affections, we find in the Bible the norm and standard of all genuine Christian life. The Scriptures teach not only the truth, but also what are the effects of the truth on the heart and conscience, when applied with saving power by the Holy Ghost. In theology as in natural science, principles are derived from facts, and not impressed upon them. The laws of motion, of energy, of light. Etc. is not framed by the mind. They are not laws of thought. They are deductions from facts. The investigator sees, or ascertains by observation, what are the laws which determine material phenomena; he does not invent those laws. His speculations on matters of science unless sustained by facts, are worthless. It is no less unscientific for the theologian to assume a theory as to the nature of virtue, of sin, of liberty, of moral obligation, and then explain the facts of Scripture in accordance with his theories. His only proper course is to derive his theory of virtue, of sin, of liberty, of obligation, from the facts of the Bible. He should remember that his dealing is not to set forth his system of truth (that is of no account), but to determine and exhibit what is God's system, which is a matter of the greatest substance. If he cannot believe what the facts of the Bible assume to be true, let him say so. Let the sacred writers have their doctrine, while he has his own. To this ground a large class of modern exegetes and theologians, after a long struggle, have actually come. They give what they consider as the doctrines of the Old Testament; then those of the Evangelists: then those of the Apostles; and then their own. If a man hold that sinfulness can be predicated only of intelligent, voluntary action in contravention of law, he must deny that men are born in sin, let the Bible teach what it may. If he believes that ability limits obligation, he must believe independently of the Scriptures, or in opposition to them, it matters not which, that men are able to repent, believe, love God perfectly, to live without sin, at any, and all times, without the least assistance from the Lord. If he denies that the innocent may justly suffer penal evil for the guilty, he must deny that Christ bore our sins. If he denies that the merit of one man can be the judicial ground of the

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pardon and salvation of other men, he must reject the Scriptural doctrine of justification. It is plain that complete havoc must be made of the whole system of revealed truth, unless we consent to derive our doctrine from the Bible, instead of explaining the Bible by our philosophy. If the Scriptures teach that sin is hereditary, we must adopt a theory of sin suited to that fact. If they teach that men cannot repent, believe, or do anything spiritually good, without the supernatural aid of the Holy Ghost in the Word and Sacraments, we must make our teaching on Soteriology accord with that fact. If the Bible teaches that we bear the guilt of Adam's first sin, that Christ bore our guilt, and endured the penalty of the law in our stead, these are facts with which we must make our principles agree. It would be easy to show that in every department of theology, -- in regard to the nature of God, His relation to the world, the plan of salvation, the person and work of Christ, the nature of sin, the operations of divine grace, men, instead of taking the facts of the Bible, have adopted their philosophy independently of the Bible, to which the facts of the Bible are made to bend. This is utterly false. It is the fundamental principle of all sciences, and of Divinities over the rest, that doctrine is to be determined by facts, and not facts by theory. As natural science was a chaos until the principle of induction was admitted and faithfully carried out, so Theology is a muddle of human speculations, not worth a straw, when men refuse to apply the same principle to the study of the Word of God.

§ 5. The Scriptures contain all the Facts of Theology. This is perfectly consistent, on the one hand, with the admission of insightful truths, both intellectual and moral, due to our constitution as rational and moral beings; and, on the other hand, with the controlling power over our beliefs exercised by the inward teachings of the Holy Ghost by the Word on us. And that for two reasons: First, All truth must be consistent. God cannot contradict himself. He cannot force us by the constitution of the nature, which He has given us to believe one thing, and in his Word command us to believe the opposite. And second, All the truths taught by the constitution of our nature or by spiritual experience, are recognized and authenticated in the Holy Scriptures. This is a safeguard and a boundary. We cannot assume this or that principle to be spontaneously true, or this or that conclusion to be demonstrably certain, and make them a standard to which the Bible must conform. What is self-evidently true, must be proved to be so, and is always recognized in the Bible as true. Whole systems of theologies are founded upon intuitions, so called, and if every man is at liberty to exalt his own intuitions, as men are accustomed to call their strong convictions, we should have as many theologies in the world as there are thinkers. The same remark is applicable to religious experience. There is no form of conviction more close and exact than that which arises from the teaching of the Word. The Bible conveys to the understanding of men the truth & precepts of the Holy Writ, to convert the unregenerate (Psalm 19.8; 2 Tim. 3.15-16,) to rear them in holiness of life (Psalm 19.7; John 17.17,) to afford they consolation in their afflictions (Psalm 130.5; Rom. 15.4,) to provide weapons of offence and defence, wherewith to combat error and falsehood conflicting with God’s true (2 Tim. 3.16; Acts 18.24-18,) and all this for the glory of God and man’s everlasting salvation (John 20.31; 5.39; Psalm 138.4; 119.171.) This teaching from God’s Word produces a conviction, which no sophistries can obscure, and no arguments can shake. Two things, however, are still to be borne in mind. First, All teaching of the Spirit is confined to truths objectively revealed in the Scriptures. It is given, says the Apostle, in order that we may know things gratuitously given, i. e., revealed to us by God in His Word (1 Cor. 2. 10-16). It is not, therefore, a revelation of new truths, but an illumination of the soul, so that it apprehends the truth, excellence, and glory of things already revealed. And second, This experience is illustrated in the Word of God. The Bible gives us not only the facts concerning God, and Christ, ourselves, and our relations to our Maker and Redeemer, but also records the legitimate results of those truths on the souls of believers. So that we cannot appeal to our own feelings or inward experience, as a ground or guide,

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unless we can show that it fully agrees with the doctrine of God as recorded in the Holy Scriptures. Them we can now proceed to our Assertions on the Holy Scriptures.

ASSERTION 1. The Holy Scriptures.

The Holy Scriptures are the Word of God, verbally inspired and inerrant, perspicuous and infallible, given by the Holy Ghost to the saint men of God, only norm of faith, doctrine and Christian life; and, in a same manner, we teach that these same Holy Scriptures have been divinely preserved in the original texts, the Textus Receptus and the Masoretic Text of Ben Chayim, as in the legitimate and faithful translations rendered on them (Psalm 12, 6-7; 1 Peter 1. 23-25; Matthew 24.35. Isaiah 40. 8). Sola Scriptura. Comments:

1 -- Therefore, are rejected and condemned all spurious translations of the Holy Scriptures that are reproduced and spread among Christians with the purpose of pervert and tear down the Word of God.

2 -- This Word of God was not sent, nor delivered by the will of man, but those holy men of God spake as the Holy Ghost, as the apostle Peter says, moved them. And that afterwards God, from a special care, which He has for us and our salvation, commanded His servants, the prophets and apostles, to commit His revealed Word to writing; and He himself wrote with His own finger, the two tables of the Law. Therefore we call such writings holy and divine Scriptures. (2 Pet.1.21; Psalm 102.18; Ex.17.14; 34.27; Deut.5.22; Ex.31.18.)

3 -- The Holy Scriptures are contained in two books, namely, the Old and New Testament, which are canonical, against which nothing can be alleged. These are thus named in the Church of God. The books of the Old Testament are, the five books of Moses, namely, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy; the books of Joshua, Ruth, Judges, the two books of Samuel, the two of the Kings, two books of the Chronicles, also known as the Paralipomenon, the first of Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Job, the Psalms of David, the three books of Solomon, namely, the Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs; the four great prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel; and the twelve lesser prophets, namely, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi.

4 -- Those of the New Testament are the four evangelists, namely: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; the Acts of the Apostles; the fourteen Epistles of the Apostle Paul, namely: one to the Romans, two to the Corinthians, one to the Galatians, one to the Ephesians, one to the Philippians, one to the Colossians, two to the Thessalonians, two to Timothy, one to Titus, one to Philemon, and one to the Hebrews; the seven Epistles of the other apostles, namely, one of James, two of Peter, three of John, one of Jude; and the Revelation of the Apostle John.

5 -- These books, and these only, must be received as holy and canonical, for the regulation, foundation, and confirmation of our faith; believing without any doubt, all things contained in them, since they are from God, whereof they carry the evidence in themselves. For the very blind are able to perceive that the things foretold in them are fulfilling.

6 -- Those sacred books are distinguished from the deutero-canonical, also called apocrypha, namely, the third book of Esdras, the books of Tobias, Judith, Wisdom, Jesus Sirach, Baruch, the appendix to the book of Esther, the Song of the three Children in the Furnace, the history of Susannah, of Bell and the Dragon, the prayer of Manasses, and the two books of the Maccabees. All of which the Church may read and take instruction from, so far as they agree with the canonical books; but they are far from having such power and efficacy,

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as that we may from their testimony confirm any point of faith, or of the Christian religion; much less detract from the authority of the other sacred books.

7 – Those canonical Holy Scriptures fully contain the will of God, and that whatsoever man ought to believe, unto salvation, is sufficiently taught therein. For, since the whole manner of worship, which God requires of us, is written in them at large, it is unlawful for any one, though an apostle, to teach otherwise than we are now taught in the Holy Scriptures, nay, though it were an angel from heaven, as the apostle Paul says. For, since it is forbidden, to add unto or take away anything from the Word of God, it does thereby evidently appear, that the doctrine thereof is most perfect and complete in all respects. Neither is to be considered of equal value any writing of men, however holy these men may have been, with those divine Scriptures, nor ought we to consider custom, or the great multitude, or antiquity, or succession of times and persons, or councils, decrees or ecclesiastical writings, as of equal value with the truth of God, for the truth is above all; for all men are of themselves liars, and more vain than vanity itself. Therefore, is to be strenuously rejected whatsoever doth not agree with this infallible rule, which the Apostles have taught us, saying, ‘Try the spirits whether they are of God.’ Likewise, ‘if there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house.’

(1 Tim.3.16-17; 1 Pet.1.10-12; Prov.30.6; Gal.3.15; Rev.22.18-19; 1 Tim.1.3; Gal. 1.8,11; 1 Cor.15.2; Acts.26.22; Rom.15.4; Acts.18; 28; Deut.4.2; 12.32; 1 Pet. 4.1-11; Lk.11.13; Acts 20.27; John 4.25; 15.15; 1 Tim.1.13; Col.2.8; Acts 4.19; John 3.13-31; 1 John 2.19; Hbr.8.9; 2 Pet.2.17-19; Matt.15.3; Mark 7.7; Is.1.12; Psalm 62.9. 2 Tim. 2.14; Matt.17.5; Is.8.20; 1Cor.2.4; 3.11; Psalm12.6; Deut.4.5-6; Eph.4.5; 1 John4.1. 2 John 10.)

ASSERTION 2. On the Perfection of the Scriptures.

We denominate that which comprehends all things necessary for the church to know, to believe, to do and to hope, in order to salvation, ‘the perfection of the sacred Scriptures.’

Comments:

1 -- As we are about to engage in the defence of this perfection, against inspirations, visions, dreams and other novel enthusiastic things, we assert, that, since the time when Christ and His Apostles sojourned on earth, no inspiration of any thing necessary for the salvation of any individual man, or of the church, has been given to any single person or to any congregation of men whatsoever, which thing is not in a full and most perfect manner comprised in the sacred Scriptures.

2 -- We likewise affirm, that in the latter ages no doctrine necessary to salvation has been deduced from these Scriptures, which was not explicitly known and believed from the very commencement of the Christian church. For, from the time of Christ’s ascent into heaven, the church of God was in an adult state, being capable indeed of increasing in the knowledge and belief of things necessary to salvation, but not capable of receiving accessions of new articles; that is, she was capable of increase in that faith by which the articles of religion are believed, but not in that faith which is the subject of belief.

3 -- Whatever additions have since been made, they obtain only the rank of interpretations and proofs, which ought themselves not to be at variance with the Scriptures, but to be deduced from them; otherwise, no authority is due to them, but they should rather be considered as allied to error; for the perfection, not only of the propositions, but likewise of the explanations and proofs which are comprised in the Scriptures, is complete.

4 -- But the most compendious way of forming a judgment about any enunciation or proposition, is, to discern whether its subject and predicate be either expressly or with equal force contained in them, that proposition may be rejected at least as not necessary to salvation, without any detriment to one’s salvation. But the predicate may be of such a

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kind, that, when ascribed to this subject, it cannot be received without detriment to the salvation.

ASSERTION 3. On the Perspicuity of the Scriptures.

The perspicuity of the Scripture is that clearness which renders all the doctrines & precepts contained in the Word of God freely accessible to every reader of hearer, teaching the way to salvation in such a manner that all can fully understand it, Psalm 119.105; 130; 2 Peter 1.19; John 8.31-32.

Comments:

1 -- The perspicuity of the Scriptures is a quality agreeing with them as with a sign, according to which quality they are adapted clearly to reveal the conceptions, whose signs are the words comprised in the Scriptures, to those persons to whom the Scriptures are administered according to the benevolent providence of God.

2 -- That perspicuity is a quality which agrees with the Scriptures, is proved from its cause and its end.

(a.) In cause, we consider the wisdom and goodness of the Author, who, according to His wisdom knew, and according to his goodness willed, clearly and well to enunciate or declare the meanings of His own mind.

(b.) In the end is the response of those to whom the Scriptures are directed, who, cannot attain to salvation without this knowledge.

3 -- This perspicuity comes distinctly to be considered both with regard to its object and its subject. For all things in the Scriptures are not equally perspicuous, nor is every thing alike perspicuous to all persons; but in the epistle of St. Paul, some things occur which ‘are hard to be understood;’ and ‘the gospel is hid, or concealed, to them who are lost, in whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them who believe not,’ John 8.43-45, 47; 2 Peter 3.15-16.

4 -- But those senses or meanings, the knowledge and belief of which are simply necessary to salvation, are revealed in the Scriptures with such plainness, that they can be perceived even by the most simple of mankind, provided they be able duly to peruse on it, don’t resisting the Spirit.

5 -- Thus, they are perspicuous to those alone that, being illuminated by the light of the Holy Ghost, have now eyes to see, and a mind to understand and discern. For any colour whatever, though sufficiently illuminated by the light, is not seen except by the eye that is endued with the power of seeing, as with an inward light.

6 -- But even in those things which are necessary to be known and believed in order to salvation, the Law must be distinguished from the Gospel, especially in that part which relates to Jesus Christ crucified and raised up again. For even the gentiles, who are aliens from Christ, have ‘the work of the law written in their hearts,’ though this is not saving, except by the addition of the internal illumination and inspiration of God; but ‘the doctrine of the cross, which is foolishness and a stumbling block to the natural man,’ is not perceived without the revelation of the Spirit in the Word.

7 -- In the Scriptures, some things may be found so difficult to be understood, that men of the quickest and most perspicacious genius may, in attaining to an understanding of those things, have a subject on which to bestow their labours during the whole course of their lives. But God has so finely attempered the Scripture, that they can neither be read without profit, nor, after having been perused and re-perused innumerable times, can they be put aside through aversion or disgust.

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ASSERTION 4. On the Efficacy of the Scriptures.

The efficacy of the Bible is that property by which it has indissoluble united with the true & genuine sense expressed in its words the power of the Holy Ghost, who has made it for all times the ordinary means by which He operates on and in the hearts & minds of those who properly hear and read it. Rom. 1.16; Acts 8.30-31, 34; 1 Thess. 1.5; Psalm 19.8; 2 Peter 1.9; Rev. 1.3; Eph. 3.3-4.

Comments:

1 -- When we treat on the force and efficacy of the Word of God, whether spoken or written, we always append to it the principal and inseparable, concurrent efficacy of the Holy Ghost.

2 -- The object of this efficacy is man, but he must be considered either as the subject in whom the efficacy operates, or as the object about whom this efficacy exercises itself.

3 -- The subject of this efficacy in whom it operates, is man according to his understanding and his passions.

(a.) According to his understanding, by which he is made able to understand the meanings of the Word, and to apprehend them as true and good for himself:

(b.) According to his passions, by which he is made gifted of being carried by his desires to something true and good which is pointed out, to embrace it, and to repose in it.

4 -- This efficacy is not only preparatory, by which the understanding and the passions are persuaded to apprehend that which is true and good; but it is likewise perfective, working faith and giving to heart divine light, by which the human understanding and affections are awakened & lead to life and holiness. Therefore, we reject the doctrine of those who affirm that the Scriptures are a dead letter, and serve only to prepare a man, and to render him capable of receiving another inward word.

5 -- The object of this efficacy, about which it exercises itself, is the same man, placed before the tribunal of divine righteousness, that, according to this Word, he may bear away from it a sentence either of justification or of condemnation. § A. THE CONFESSIONAL PRINCIPLE OF THE LUTHERAN REFORMATION.

1 -- In the assertion of fundamental and unchangeable principles of Faith, it is declared: I. There must be and abide through all time, one holy Christian Church, which is the assembly of all believers, among whom the Gospel is purely preached, and the Holy Sacraments are administered, as the Gospel demands. To the true unity of the Church, it is sufficient that there be agreement touching the doctrine of the Gospel, that it be preached in one accord, in its pure sense, and that the Sacraments be administered conformably to God's Word. II. The true unity of a particular Church, in virtue of which men are truly members of one and the same Church, and by which any Church abides in real identity, and is entitled to a continuation of her name, is unity in the doctrine of the Word and faith in the Sacraments, to wit: That she continues to teach and to set forth, and that her true members embrace from the heart, and use, the Articles of faith and the Sacraments as they were held and administered when the Church came into distinctive being and received a distinctive name. III. The Unity of the Church is witnessed to, and made manifest in, the solemn, public, and official Confessions which are set forth, to wit: The generic Unity of the Christian Church in the general Creeds, and the specific Unity of pure parts of the Christian Church in their specific Creeds; one chief object of both classes of which Creeds is, that Christians who are in the Unity of faith, may know each other as such, and may have a visible bond of fellowship. IV. That Confessions may be such a testimony of Unity and bond

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of Union; they must be accepted in every statement of doctrine, in their own true, native, original and only sense. Those who set them forth and subscribe them, must not only agree to use the same words, but must use and understand those words in one and the same sense. V. The Unity of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, as a portion of the holy Christian Church, depends upon her abiding in one and the same faith, in confessing which she obtained her distinctive being and name, and her history. VI. The Unaltered Augsburg Confession is by pre-eminence the Confession of that faith. The acceptance of its doctrines and the avowal of them without equivocation or mental reservation, make, mark, and identify that Church, which alone in the true, original, historical, and honest sense of the term is the Evangelical Lutheran Church. VII. The only Churches, therefore, of any land, which are properly in the Unity of that Communion, and by consequence entitled to its name, Evangelical Lutheran, are those which sincerely hold and truthfully confess the doctrines of the Unaltered Augsburg Confession. VIII. We accept and acknowledge the doctrines of the Unaltered Augsburg Confession in its original sense as throughout in conformity with the pure truth of which God's Word is the only rule. We accept its statements of truth as in perfect accordance with the Canonical Scriptures: We reject the errors it condemns, and we believe that all, which it commits to the liberty of the Church, of right, belongs to that liberty. IX. In thus formally accepting and acknowledging the Unaltered Augsburg Confession, we declare our conviction, that the other Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, inasmuch as they set forth none other than its system of doctrine, and articles of faith, are of necessity pure and Scriptural. Pre-eminent among such accordant, pure, and Scriptural statements of doctrine, by their intrinsic excellence, by the great and necessary ends for which they were prepared, by their historical position, and by the general judgment of the Church, are these: The Apology of the Augsburg Confession, the Smalcald Articles, the Catechisms of Luther, and the Formula of Concord, all of which are, with the Unaltered Augsburg Confession, in the perfect harmony of one and the same Scriptural faith. In accordance with these principles every Minister or Teacher in our fellowship, in the act of investiture and before entering on the performance of the duties of his Office, makes the following affirmation: 'I believe that the Canonical Books of the Old and New Testaments are given by inspiration of God, and, since they are the infallible and divinely preserved Word of God as it was accepted by the church with the Textus Receptus, and the authentic Masoretic Text, they are the perfect and only Rule of Faith; and I believe that the three General Creeds, the Apostles', the Nicene, and the Athanasian, exhibit the faith of the Church universal, in accordance with this Rule. I believe that the Unaltered Augsburg Confession is, in all its parts, in harmony with the Rule of Faith, and is a correct exhibition of doctrine; and I believe that the Apology, the two Catechisms of Luther, the Smalcald Articles, and the Formula of Concord, are a faithful development and defence of the doctrines of the Word of God, and the Augsburg Confession. I solemnly promise before Almighty God that all my teachings shall be in conformity with His Word, and with the aforementioned Confessions.' These statements and the declaration that follows, exhibit, as we believe, the relation of the Rule of Faith and the Confessions, in accordance with the principles of the Lutheran Reformation. Accepting those principles, we stand upon the everlasting foundation, believing that the Canonical Books of the Old and New Testament are in their original tongues, and in a pure text, the perfect and only Rule of Faith. All these books are in harmony, each with itself, and all with each other, and yield to the honest searcher, under the ordinary guidance of the Holy Ghost, a clear statement of doctrine, and produce a firm assurance of faith. Not any word of man, no creed, commentary, theological system, nor decision of Fathers or of councils, no doctrine of Churches, or of the whole Church, no results or judgments of reason, however strong, matured, and well informed, no one of these, and not all of these together, but God's Word alone is the Rule of Faith. No apocryphal or deuteron-canonical books, but the canonical books alone, are the rule of faith. No translations, as such, but the original Hebrew and Chaldee of the Old Testament, and the Greek of the New, are the letter of the rule of faith. No vitiation of the designing, nor error of the careless, but the incorrupt text as it came from the hands of the men of God,

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who wrote under the motions of the Holy Spirit, is the rule of faith. To this rule of faith we are to bring our minds; by this rule we are humbly to try to form our faith, and in accordance with it, God helping us, to teach others -teaching them the evidences of its inspiration, the true mode of its interpretation, the ground of its authority, and the mode of settling its text. -- First of all, as the greatest of all, as the groundwork of all, as the end of all else, we are to teach God's pure Word, its faith for faith, its life for life; in its integrity, in its marvellous adaptation, in its divine, its justifying, its sanctifying, and glorifying power. We are to lay, as that without which all else would be laid in vain, the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets - Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone. Standing really upon the everlasting foundation of this Rule of Faith, we stand of necessity on the faith, of which it is the rule. It is not the truth as it lies, silent and unread, in the Word, but the truth as it enters from that Word into the human heart, with the applying presence of the Holy Ghost, which makes men believers. Faith makes men Christians; Confession alone marks them as Christians. The Rule of Faith is God's voice to us; faith is the hearing of that voice, and the Confession, our reply of assent to it. By our faith, we are known to the Lord as his; by our Confession, we are known to each other as His children. Confession of faith, in some form, is imperative. To confess Christ, is to confess what is our faith in Him. -- The ripest, and purest, and most widely use of the old Confessions have been adopted by our Church as her own, not because they are old and widely received, but because they are true. She has added her testimony, as it was needed. Here is the body of her Confession. Is her Confession ours? If it be, we are of her in heart; if it be not, we are only of her in name. It is ours - ours in our deepest conviction, reached through conflicts outward and inward, reached upon our knees, and traced with our tears - ours in our inmost hearts. Therefore, we consecrate ourselves to living, teaching, and defending the faith of God's Word, which is the confessed faith of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. Fidelity to the whole truth of God's word requires this. We dare not be satisfied simply with recognition as Christians over against the Jew, because we confess that the Rule of Faith, of which the New Testament is a part, has taught us faith in Jesus Christ: we dare not be satisfied simply with recognition as holding the Catholic Faith as embodied in the three General Creeds, over against heresies of various forms and shades. Christian believers holding the faith Catholic we are -but we are, besides, Protestant, rejecting the authority of the Papacy; Evangelical, glorying in the grace of the Gospel; and Lutheran, holding the doctrines of that Church, of which the Reformation is the child not only those in which all Christendom or a large part of it coincides with her, but the most distinctive of her distinctive doctrines, though in the maintenance of them she stood alone. As the acceptance of the Word of God as a Rule of Faith separates us from the Muslims, as the reception of the New Testament sunders us from the Jew, as the hearty acquiescence in the Apostles', Nicene, and Athanasian Creeds shows us, in the face of all errorists of the earlier ages, to be in the faith of the Church Catholic, so does our unreserved acceptance of the Augsburg Confession mark us as Lutherans; and the acceptance of the Apology, the Catechisms of Luther, the Smalcald Articles, and the Formula of Concord, continues the work of marking our separation from all errorists of every shade whose doctrines are in conflict with the true sense of the Rule of Faith: that Rule whose teachings are rightly interpreted and faithfully embodied in the Confessions afore-mentioned. Therefore, God helping us, we will teach the whole faith of His Word, which faith our Church sets forth, explains, and defends in her Symbols. We do not interpret God's Word by the Creed, neither do we interpret the Creed by God's Word, but interpreting both independently, by the laws of language, and finding that they teach one and the same truth, we heartily acknowledge the Confession as a true exhibition of the faith of the Rule a true witness to the one, pure, and unchanging faith of the Christian Church, and freely make it our own Confession, as truly as if it had been now first uttered by our lips, or had now first gone forth from our hands. 2 – Sum: Therefore, we teach and confess that the basis of the Evangelical Lutheran Church is the Word of God, as the perfect and absolute Rule of Faith, and because this is

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her basis, she rests of necessity on the faith of which that Word is the Rule, and therefore on the Confessions which purely set forth that faith. She has the right rule; she reaches the right results by the rule, and rightly confesses them. This Confession then is her immediate basis, her essential characteristic, with which she stands or falls. The Unaltered Augsburg Confession and its Apology, the Catechisms and Smalcald Articles, and the Formula of Concord, have been formally declared by an immense majority of the Lutheran Church as their Confession of Faith. The portion of the Church, with few and inconsiderable exceptions, which has not received them formally, has received them virtually. They are closely cohering and internally consistent statements and developments of one and the same system, so that a man, who heartily and intelligently receives any one of the distinctively Lutheran Symbols, has no difficulty in accepting the doctrine of the whole. They fairly represent the Grounds for the faith of the Church, and simply and solely as so presenting it are they named in the statement of the basis of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. The real question, then, is this: Ought the Church to rest unreservedly and unchangeably on this faith as her doctrinal basis? To this question, which is but the first repeated in a new shape, we reply, as we replied to the first, She ought. I. She ought to rest on that basis, because that Faith of our Church, in all and each of its parts, is founded on The Word of God, which she will not permit to be overruled, either by the speculations of corrupt reason, or by the tradition of a corrupted Church, but which Word she interprets under the ordinary, promised guidance of the Holy Spirit, as a Word in itself absolutely perfect for its ends, giving law to reason, and excluding tradition as any part, direct or indirect, of the Rule of Faith. II. The proposition we have just advanced, no Lutheran, in the historical sense of the Word, can deny; for the man who would deny it, would, in virtue of that denial, prove that he is not in the historical sense Lutheran; for he, and he only, is such who believes that the doctrine of the Gospel is rightly taught in the Augsburg Confession. We do not enter into the question, whether, in some sense, or in what sense, a man who denies this may be some kind of a Lutheran. We only affirm that he is not such in the historical sense of the Word; that he is not what was meant by the name when it was first distinctively used-that is, not a Lutheran whom Luther, or the Lutheran Church for five centuries, would have recognized as such, nor such as the vast majority of the uncorrupted portions of our Church would now recognize. On our Confessions we say: The truth is that correct human explanations of Scripture, for they are simply the statement of the same truth in different words. These words are not in themselves as clear and as good as the Scripture terms, but as those who use them can absolutely fix the sense of their own phraseology by a direct and infallible testimony, the human words may more perfectly exclude heresy than the divine words do. III. A Lutheran is a Christian whose rule of faith is the Bible, and whose creed is the Augsburg Confession. To what end then is the poor sophism constantly reiterated, that the Confession is a "human explanation of divine doctrine"? So is the faith of every man --all that he deduces from the Bible. There is no personal Christianity in the world which is not the result of a human explanation of the Bible as really as the Confession of our Church is. It is human because it is in human minds, and human hearts, —it is not a source to which we can finally and absolutely appeal as we can to God's Word. But in exact proportion as the Word of God opened to the soul by the illumination of the Holy Ghost, is truly and correctly apprehended, just in that proportion is the "human explanation" coincident with the divine truth. I explain God's truth, and if I explain it correctly, my explanation is God's truth, and to reject the one in unbelief, is to reject the other.

ASSERTION 5. Of God and Creation. There is only one God in three distinct persons, but of one and the same divine essence, the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. He is the only true God and the Creator of the whole world (in the manner and in the space of time recorded in the Holy Scriptures, specially in Genesis 1 and 2, namely, by His Almighty creative Word, and in six days), and of every human being through the seed of our first fathers, Adam and Eve. We reject all

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evolutionistic theories because are opposed to the Word of God; and they do it not as science, which is not, but as a heathen religion. 1 Cor.8.6; John 5.17-18,32,36-37; Col.1.15-18; 1 Cor.1.24; John 1.14; 1 John 1.1; Rev.19.13; Prov.8.22; Hebr.1.3; Matt.28.19; 3.16-17; John 1.14; Micah 5.2.)

Comments:

1 -- We know Him by two means, first, by the creation, preservation and government of the universe; which is before our eyes as a most graceful book, wherein all creatures, great and small, are as so many characters leading us to contemplate the invisible things of God, namely, His power and divinity, as the Apostle Paul says, Romans 1.20. All which things are sufficient to convince men, and leave them without excuse. Secondly, He makes himself more clearly and fully known to us by His holy and divine Word, that is to say, as far as is necessary for us to know in this life, to His glory and our salvation.

2 -- According to this truth and this Word of God, we believe in one only God, who is the one single essence, in which are three persons, really, truly, and eternally distinct, according to their incommunicable properties; namely, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost. The Father is the cause, origin and beginning of all things visible and invisible; the Son is the Word, wisdom, and image of the Father; the Holy Ghost is the eternal power and might, proceeding from the Father and the Son. Nevertheless God is not by this distinction divided into three, since the Holy Scriptures teach us, that the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, have each his personality, distinguished by their properties; but in such wise that these three persons are but one only God. Hence then, it is evident, that the Father is not the Son, nor the Son the Father, and likewise the Holy Ghost is neither the Father nor the Son. Nevertheless these persons thus distinguished are not divided, nor intermixed. For the Father hath not assumed the flesh, nor hath the Holy Ghost, but the Son only. The Father hath never been without his Son, or without his Holy Ghost. For they are all three co-eternal and co-essential. There is neither first nor last, for they are all three one, in truth, in power, in goodness, and in mercy.

3 -- All this we know, as well from the testimonies of Holy Writ, as from their operations, and chiefly by those that proceed in ourselves. The testimonies of the Holy Scriptures, that teach us to believe this Holy Trinity are written in many places of the Old Testament, which are not so necessary to enumerate, as to choose them out with discretion and judgment. In Genesis, chapter 1.26, 27, God says, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness, etc. So God created man in his own image, male and female created he them. And, Genesis 3.22. Behold the man is become as one of us. From this saying, let us make man in our image, it appears that there are more persons than one in the Godhead; and when he says, God created, he signifies the unity. It is true that he doth not say how many persons there are, but that, which appears to us somewhat obscure in the Old Testament, is very plain in the New. For when our Lord was baptized in Jordan, the voice of the Father was heard, saying, This is my beloved Son, the Son was seen in the water, and the Holy Ghost appeared in the shape of a dove. Christ also institutes this form in the baptism of all believers. Baptize all nations, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. In the Gospel of Luke, the angel Gabriel thus addressed Mary, the mother of our Lord, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee, therefore also that holy thing, which shall be born of thee, shall be called the Son of God. Likewise, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost be with you. And there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one. In all which places we are fully taught, that there are three persons in one only divine essence. And although this doctrine far surpasses all human understanding, nevertheless, we now believe it by means of the Word of God, but expect hereafter to enjoy the perfect knowledge and benefit thereof in Heaven. Moreover, we must observe the particular offices and operations of these three Persons toward us. The Father is called our Creator, by His power;

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the Son is our Saviour and Redeemer, by His blood; the Holy Ghost is our Sanctifier, by His dwelling in our hearts, working faith in those that are of God through the Word.

4 -- This doctrine of the Holy Trinity, hath always been defended and maintained by the true Church, since the time of the apostles, to this very day, against the Jews, Muslims, and some false Christians and heretics, as Marcion, Manes, Praxeas, Sabellius, Samosatenus, Arius, and such like, who have been justly condemned by the orthodox fathers. Therefore, in this point, we do willingly receive the three Creeds, namely, that of the Apostles, of Nice, and of Athanasius: likewise that, which, conformable thereunto, is agreed upon by the ancient fathers.

5 -- Luther insisted on taking the Scriptural facts as they were, without any attempt at explanation. He says: ‘We should, like the little children, stammer out what the Scriptures teach: that Christ is truly God, that the Holy Ghost is truly God, and yet that there are not three Gods, or three Beings, as there are three Men, three Angels, three Suns, or three Windows. No, God is not thus divided in his essence; but there is one only divine Being or substance. Therefore, although there are three persons, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, yet the Being is not divided or distinguished; since there is but one God in one single, undivided, divine substance.’ Die Dritte Predigt a. Tage d. heil. Dreifaltigk, 5; Works, ed. Walch, vol. xiii. p. 1510.

(Gn.1.26-27. Gn.3.22. Matt. 3.16-17. Matt.28.19. Lk.1.35. 2 Cor.13-14. 1 John 5.7. Acts 2.32-33; 1 Pet.1.2; 1 John4.13-14; Gal.4-6; Eph.3.14-16; Tit.3.4-6; Jude 1.20-21; Rom.8.9; Acts10.38; 8.29,37; John 14.16.)

ASSERTION 6. Creation.

God created the world for the glory of His goodness. He does good, not to seek glory, but because He is good. God’s principle end in creation was that He willed to be good in His nature and effects, Gen. 1; Psalm 104.24; Revelation 4.11.

ASSERTION 7. The Creation of Man.

God’s goodness desired His own image to shine in man. The reason being that in God there are two inseparable things--He is good, and Holy, and He lacks nothing for His pleasure and glory. God’s purpose in man: perfection and delight (which are part of God’s image in man). If unfallen, perfection would have become unending; then so would have joy also. But in the fall man lost both. Gen.1.26-27, 31; 2.7, 17; Rom. 5.12; Eph. 2.1; Rom. 8.7; 5.18; 6.23.

ASSERTION 8. God and First Man’s Sin.

God created man for perfection and happiness and in the temptation man saw that it was to his benefit to involve himself in (2 Corinthians 11.3) – Man’s sin came to him by the temptation of the devil and is passed on by generation. God cannot be accused of being the author of man’s sin. Then neither can it be that He is the cause of his perdition. Adam voluntarily transgressed a commandment of God. Doctrines teaching in opposition are blasphemous. (Gen. 3.6; Rom. 5.19; 5.12.)

Comments:

1 -- How a will, whose original condition is holy, can come to a sinful condition, as it involves an ultimate principle, cannot be grasped by man, yet, whatever may furnish the occasion, the cause is the will itself: The cause of sin is the will of the wicked (causa peccati est voluntas malorum). The perverted will worketh sin, which will has turned itself from

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God to evil, Augustana XIX. These words imply that sin the act, is the result of sin the condition. The condition of the will is the cause of the moral act as moral, and the perverted condition of the will the cause of the moral acts being perverted, that is, sinful. We reach the last point to which the mind of man can go, when we assert that in the self-determining power of a finite holy will lies the possibility of its becoming an unholy will.

ASSERTION 9. The Fruits of the Sin of the First Man.

Sin had two consequences: 1) Man was not able to lift himself up again, and, 2) He involved the entire race in condemnation. Man is so under sin that he is unable to deliver himself--any more than a slave may disobey his master. Man’s state of sin is likened to a totally incurable sore. This fallen sinful state is transmitted by propagation of corrupted nature & imputation to each generation like leprous fathers to leprous children. Gen, 1.27-28; 2.24; Gen. 5.3; 1 Cor. 15.49. Comments: 1 – ‘Original sin, or sin of nature, sin of person, is the real cardinal sin (Hauptsiinde). Did it not exist, no actual sin would exist. It is not a sin which is done, like all other sins, but it is, it lives, and does all sins, and is the essential (wesentliche) sin which does not sin for an hour or for a certain time, but wherever and as long as the person is, that long is this sin also.’ (Luther, Church-Postill on Lu. 2. 21. Quenstedt; ‘Therefore, Paul, Romans 7, calls it sin fourteen times… The Apostle names it the law of sin warring against the law of the mind, an evil, a sinning sin.’)

2 -- The Scriptural view on Original Sin is: I. That man's will is not in a condition of concreate holiness, but has lost that condition. II. That the positive element, which affects its condition, is, not external, as example, education, or temptation, but internal, corrupt desire, or concupiscence. III. That its condition allows of no self-determining power in the sphere of grace. IV. That this condition is connate, is properly called sin, is really sin, justly liable in its own nature to the penalties of sin; that without the work of grace wrought, it would have brought eternal death to the whole race, and does now bring death to all to whom that work of grace is not, either ordinarily or extraordinarily, applied by the Holy Ghost.

3 -- Faithful to these doctrines, and over against all the tendencies which conflict with them, the Augustana, both in its Thesis and Antithesis, holds forth the truth of the exceeding sinfulness and the utter helplessness of man's nature, the goodness of God, the all-sufficiency of Christ, and the freeness of justification. Looking at original sin as God's Word and our Church teaches us to regard it, we shall see its true character, and deplore the misery it has wrought. We shall go to Christ, the great Physician, to be healed of it, and to the Holy Ghost, who, by His own means, Baptism and the Word, applies for Christ the remedy we need; taking of the things that are Christ's, and making them ours. We shall be led to maintain a continual struggle against it; we shall watch, pray, and strive, knowing that through grace we are already redeemed from its curse; that by the same grace, we shall be more and more redeemed here from its power, and at last be wholly purged from it, and shall form a part of that Congregation, loved & glorious, which shall show no spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing, but shall stand before her Lord holy and without blemish.

ASSERTION 10. God’s Purpose for sending His Son into the World.

Since no fallen creature can provide his own redemption, God ordained to send His Son for two purposes: 1) To satisfy the justice of God by the suffering of the punishments that men had deserved and, 2) To procure the salvation of the human race. 1 Peter 1.20; Acts 2.23; 4.28; John 3.16; Eph. 1.7-10.

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ASSERTION 11. On Universal Grace and its Application.

Our holy God, moved by His love for mankind, had appointed all human beings to salvation provided they repent and believe. He sent His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to die for the sins of all mankind in order to implement this design. However, since human beings would not on their own initiative repent and believe, God then bestowed, in foreseen of their final faith, a special measure of His Spirit to some only, who are the elect, procuring unfailingly for them, in time, the proper means for that saving faith. See below, Asserts. 19 & 20. Grace is universal in the provision for salvation but particular in the application of it. Thus, albeit Christ’s atonement is sufficient for all, because of universal human depravity, in practice it is efficient only for the believers, by Sola Gratia.

ASSERTION 12. On The Covenants.

God ordained three Covenants. The First, that of Nature, made with Adam, as one of Obedience to the Law revealed in the Nature (Gen. 2.8-9; 15-17.) The Second, the Covenant of Law, made with the old Israel, demanding obedience to the Law given in Sinai (Ex. 19; 20.) In this, the Gospel was brought effectively, albeit in shadows, by the Sanctuary’s Leviticus rites. The Third, the Covenant of Grace, that has two parts. The former, based in the conditional universal will of God (voluntas generalis et antecedens,) as it is revealed in the Scriptures, made between God and the humankind in the Person of the Son, was one of universal grace (1 Timothy 2.6; 2 Peter 3.9; Ezek. 33.11) The subsequent, based in the unconditional particular will of God (voluntas specialis et consequens,) was made between God and His elect, chosen in Christ to everlasting life before of the foundation of the world; and it was one of particular grace (Ephesians 1.1-5; 1 Peter 1.2, 20; John 10.23-30). This voluntas consequens includes the damnation of all those that refuse to believe. Assert. 19, parag. 13.

Comments:

1 –‘With reference to the fact that many are converted and finally saved. It must be acknowledged that this is the work of divine grace alone; with reference to the non-conversion & damnation of others, it must be acknowledged that this is due solely to the guilt of those who are lost. With these simple, God-fearing statements, the Christian must rest his mind securely, even if he cannot solve all difficulties which present themselves in regard to individual persons who are to be converted.’ (Johan Gerhard, Loc. De Libero Arbitrio § 57.)

2 � God, by His general benevolence and love to the fallen race of man, wills their salvation by a sincere purpose and intention. ‘Benevolentia Dei universalis,’ says Hollaz, ‘non est inane votum, non sterilis velleitas, non otiosa complacentia, qua quis rem, quae sibi placet, et quam in se amat, non cupit officere aut consequi adeoque mediis ad hunc finem ducentibus non vult uti; sed est voluntas efficax, qua Deus salutem hominum, ardentissime amatam, etiam efficere atque per media sufficientia et efficacia consequi serio intendit.’ (Examen Theologicum Acroamaticum, Leipzig, 1763, p. 599.) To give effect to this general purpose of benevolence and mercy towards men, God determined to send his Son to make a full satisfaction for their sins. To this follows (in the order of thought) the purpose to give to all men the means of salvation and the power to avail themselves of the offered mercy. This is the ‘destinatio mediorum, juibus tum aeterna salus satisfactione Christi parta, turn vires credendi omnibus hominibus offeruntur, ut satisfactionem Christi ad salutem acceptare et sibi applicare queant.’ (Hollaz, Examen, III.; cap. i. qu. 6; ed. Teller, Holmiae et Lipsiae, 1750, p. 589.) -- Besides this, voluntas generalis (as relating to all men) & antecedens, as going before any contemplated action of men, there is a voluntas specialis, as relating to certain individual men, and consequens, as following the foresight of their faith. This voluntas specialis is defined as that ‘quae peccatores oblata salutis media amplectentes aeterna salute donare constituit.’ (Ibid. III. i. 1, 3; p. 586.) So Hutter says, ‘Quia (Deus) praevidit ac praevidit maximam mundi partem mediis salutis locum minime relicturam ac proinde in Christum non credituram, ideo Deus de illis tantum salvandis fecit decretum,

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quos actu in Christum credituros praevidit.’ (Hutter, Loci Communes, Tract. Artic. Proescient Prov. Decr., etc., vii.; Wittenburgh, 1619, p. 793, b.) Hollaz expresses the same view: ‘Electio hominum, peccato corruptorum, ad vitam aeternam a Deo misericordissimo facta est intuitu fidei in Christum ad finem usque vitae perseverantis.’ Again: ‘Simpliciter quippe et categorice decrevit Deus hunc, ilium, istum hominem salvare, quia perseverantem ipsius in Christum fidem certo praevidit.’ (Examen, ed. 1750, ut supra, p. 619.; III. i. 2, 12, prob. c.; ut supra, p. 631)

3 -- Covenant of Grace. Universal Grace (voluntas generalis) Psalm 40.6-8; Isaiah 49.1-6; 53.10-12; Psalm 25.10, 14; 89.3;103.17-18; 111.9; Isaiah 42.6; 49.8-10; 54.10; 55-1-3; Mal. 2.5-7; 3.1. Elects (voluntas specialis) Psalm 89.3-4, 28-36; 50.5; 89.3-4; 111.9-10; Isaiah 59.20-21; Titus 1. 2; Timothy ii.1, 9; and Ephesians i.3-6. See below, Appendix I.

ASSERTION 13. The Saving Work of Christ.

Our Lord Jesus Christ died equally for all in order to provide a basis for the universal element of the Covenant of Grace. This provision was universal, but the application was particular and limited to the elect. The saving work of Christ is intended for all; Isaiah 53.6, Romans 5.18, Romans 8.32, 2 Corinthians 5.14, 1 Timothy 2.6, Titus 2.11. The saving work of Christ is for every one; Hebrews 2.9. The saving work of Christ is for the world. John 3.16, 1 John 2.2.

Comments:

1 - God foreordained a universal salvation through the general sacrifice of Christ offered to all alike, on terms of faith, so that on the part of God's will and desire (voluntas, velleitas, affectus) the grace is universal, but as regards the condition it is particular, or only for those who do not reject it, and thereby make it ineffective. The will for universal redemption precedes the particular election will, and not vice versa. This proceeds from the benevolence of God towards His creatures.

2 – The divine order. 1 Peter 1.2; 20; Eph. 1.5, is: Prescience, Election, Predestination. Election looks to the Prescience, and Predestination looks to destiny. All those that God foreknew are the elect, and the elect are predestined for their faith, wrought by God in them, kindling it in them by a divine objective act; and thus believers cling to the merits of Christ’s blood. In His Prescience God predestined believers at once to faith and for their faith in Christ.

3 – The mystery of our election is to be enquired in the light of the Gospel; in this light we see the true light, Psalm 36.9.

4 – The universal will of God is revealed as all-embracing, since the earth is fulfilled of the goodness of God, Psalm 33.5, greater than all the Creation, as infinite as God is, since God is love, 1 John 4.16. He is called ‘the Father of the Mercies,’ 2 Cor. 1.3, because is of His loving nature be merciful. The merit of Christ is also universal, because He suffered for the sins of the whole world, 1 John 2.2, atoning Adam’s sin, since in him all humankind has sinned; and Christ did it as the Second Adam. On this basis, God says to all men, ‘Here is the Lamb, take Him and offer Him as a ransom.’ The Lord Christ Himself says, ‘Here am I, take Me, crucify Me, and be saved.’ The promises of the Gospel are universal, Matt. 11.28, forgiveness of sins is, then, freely offered to all in the condition of faith, Mark 16.16, John 3.16, Romans 1.16; thus is Scriptural teach, God wills the salvation of believers, but He doesn’t will to save unbelievers (neither He justifies them ‘apart & without faith,’ according to a few opinions, whose value may be mused under the light of the Scriptures,) and denies the blessing of His grace to all those that refuse Christ or deem be unworthy of Him.

5 – The mercy of God ‘always anticipates believers,’ ‘that the may be enabled to live a godly life,’ as Gerhard says, preparing them to the faith, kindling faith in them, sustaining them

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& finally taken then to the heavens. ‘The elect of God are chosen for holiness and a life without blame before Him in love (Eph. 1.4); then, the blessing of election belongs not to those that desires not, and seek not for a holy life.’ Believers are chosen in Christ (Eph. 1.4) Believers are in Christ by faith. When faith is absent there is not election, since Christ also is not present when faith is lacking. The Lord knows those that are His (2 Tim. 2.19.) No one shall ever pluck Christ’s sheep out of His hands, John 10.27. The Lord that gives His believers the will gives them also the power to perform. (ASSERTIONS continue in BOOK II.)

* * * * * * *

APPENDIX I. God entered into Covenant with Adam.

(Covenant of Nature or Works.)

1. The word covenant is not mentioned in Genesis. Nevertheless, the Scripture clearly exposes to us the very fact of this pledge, which we labelled as the covenant or pledge of Nature, and that also may be called as Covenant of Works; it is a pledge of obedience to the Law as it is revealed in the Nature (Gen. 2.8-9; 15-17.) This denotes that God made to Adam a promise suspended upon a condition, and attached to disobedience a certain penalty. This is what in Scriptural language is meant by a covenant, and this is all that is meant by the term as here used. Then, inasmuch as the plan of salvation is constantly represented as a New Covenant, new, not merely in antithesis to that made at Sinai, but new in reference to all legal covenants whatever, it is plain that the Bible does represent the arrangement made with Adam as a truly federal transaction. The Scriptures know nothing of any other than two methods of attaining eternal life: the one that which demands perfect obedience, and the other that which demands faith. If the latter is called a covenant, the former is declared to be of the same nature. It is of great importance that the Scriptural form of presenting truth should be retained. Rationalism was introduced into the Church under the guise of a philosophical statement of the truths of the Bible free from the mere outward form in which the sacred writers, trained in Judaism, had presented them. On this ground the federal system, as it was called, was discarded. On the same ground the Prophetic, Priestly, and Kingly offices of Christ were pronounced an unsatisfactory form under which to set forth His work as our Redeemer. And then the sacrificial character of His death, and all idea of atonement were rejected as mere Jewish drapery. Thus, every distinctive doctrine of the Scriptures was set aside, and Christianity reduced to Deism. It is, therefore, far more than a mere matter of method that is involved in adhering to the Scriptural form of presenting Scriptural truths.

2. God then did enter into a pledge with Adam. That pledge that we named as covenant of Nature for reasons of design is sometimes called a covenant of life, because life was promised as the reward of obedience. Sometimes it is called the covenant of works, because works were the condition on which that promise was suspended, and because it is thus distinguished from the New Covenant, or New Testament, which promises life on condition of faith.

3. The Promise. The reward promised to Adam on condition of his obedience, was life. (1.) This is involved in the threatening: ‘In the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die.’ It is plain that this involved the assurance that he should not die, if he did not eat. (2.) This is confirmed by innumerable passages and by the general drift of Scripture, in which it is so plainly and so variously taught, that life was, by the ordinance of God, connected with obedience. ‘This do and thou shalt live.’ ‘The man that doeth them shall live by them.’ This is the uniform mode in which the Bible speaks of that law or pledge under which man by the constitution of his nature and by the ordinance of God, was placed. (3.) As the Scriptures everywhere present God as a judge or moral ruler, it follows of necessity

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from that representation, that His rational creatures will be dealt with according to the principles of justice. If there be no transgression there will be no punishment. And those who continue holy thereby continue in the favour and fellowship of Him whose favour is life, and whose loving kindness is better than life. (4.) And finally, holiness, or as the Apostle expresses it, to be spiritually minded, is life. There can therefore be no doubt, that had Adam continued in holiness, he would have enjoyed that life which flows from the favour of God.

4. The life thus promised included the joyful, holy, and immortal existence of man. This is plain. (1.) Because true life promised was that suited to the being to whom the promise was made. But the life suited to man as a moral and intelligent being, composed of soul and body, includes true joyful, holy, and immortal existence of his whole nature. (2.) The life of which the Scriptures everywhere speak as connected with obedience, is that which, as just stated, flows from the favour and fellowship of God, and includes glory, honour, and immortality, as the Apostle teaches us in Romans 2. 7. (3.) The life secured by Christ for the believers was the life forfeited by sin. But the life which the believer derives from Christ is spiritual and eternal life, the exaltation and complete blessedness of his whole nature, both soul and body.

5. Condition of the Covenant. The condition of the pledge made with Adam is said to be perfect obedience. That this statement is correct may be inferred (1.) From the nature of the case and from the general principles clearly revealed in the Word of God. Such, is the nature of God, and such the relation which He sustains to His moral creatures, that sin, the transgression of the divine law, must involve the destruction of the fellowship between man and His Creator, and the manifestation of the divine displeasure. The Apostle therefore says, that he who offends in one point, who breaks one precept of the law of God, is guilty of the whole. (2.) It is everywhere assumed in the Bible, that the condition of acceptance under the law is perfect obedience. ‘Cursed is every one who continueth not in all things written in the book of the law to do them.’ This is not a peculiarity of the Mosaic economy, but a declaration of a principle which applies to all divine laws. (3.) The whole argument of the Apostle in his epistles to the Romans and to the Galatians, is founded on the assumption that the law demands perfect obedience. If that be not granted, his whole argument falls to the ground.

6. The specific command to Adam not to eat of a certain tree, was therefore not the only command he was required to obey. It was given simply to be the outward and visible test to determine whether he was willing to obey God in all things. Created holy, with all his affections pure, there was the more reason that the test of his obedience should be an outward and positive command; something wrong simply because it was forbidden, and not evil in its own nature. It would thus be seen that Adam obeyed for the sake of obeying. His obedience was more directly to God, and not to his own reason.

7. The question whether perpetual, as well as perfect obedience was the condition of the covenant made with Adam, is probably to be answered in the negative. It seems to be reasonable in itself and plainly implied in the Scriptures that all rational creatures have a definite period of probation. If faithful during that period they are confirmed in their integrity, and no longer exposed to the danger of apostasy. Thus we read of the angels who kept not their first estate, and of those who did. Those who remained faithful have continued in holiness and in the favour of God. It is therefore to be inferred that had Adam continued obedient during the period allotted to his probation, neither he nor any of his posterity would have been ever exposed to the danger of sinning.

8. The Penalty. The penalty attached to the covenant is expressed by the comprehensive term death. ‘In the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die.’ That this does not refer to the mere dissolution of the body, is plain. (1.) Because the word death, as used in Scripture in reference to the consequences of transgression, includes all penal evil. The wages of sin is death. The soul that sinneth, it shall die. Any and every form of evil,

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therefore, which is inflicted as the punishment of sin, is comprehended under the word death (2.) The death threatened was the opposite of the life promised. But the life promised, as we have seen, includes all that is involved in the happy, holy, and immortal existence of the soul and body; and therefore death must include not only all the miseries of this life and the dissolution of the body, but also all that is meant by spiritual and eternal death. (3.) God is the life of the soul. His favour and fellowship with him, are essential to its holiness and happiness. If his favour be forfeited, the inevitable consequences are the death of the soul, i. e., its loss of spiritual life, and unending sinfulness and misery. (4.) The nature of the penalty threatened is earned from its infliction. The consequences of Adam's sin were the loss of the image and favour of God and all the evils, which flowed from that loss. (5.) Finally, the death which was incurred by the sin of our first parents, is that from which we are redeemed by Christ. Christ, however, does not merely deliver the body from the grave, he saves the soul from spiritual and eternal death; and therefore spiritual and eternal death, together with the dissolution of the body and all the miseries of this life, were included in the penalty originally attached to the covenant of works. In the day in which Adam ate the forbidden fruit he did die. The penalty threatened was not a momentary infliction but permanent subjection to all the evils which flow from the righteous displeasure of God.

9. The Parties to the Covenant of Nature. It lies in the nature of a covenant that there must be two or more parties. A covenant is not of one. The parties to the original covenant were God and Adam. Adam, however, acted not in his individual capacity but as the head and representative of his whole race. This is plain. (1.) Because everything said to him had as much reference to his posterity as to Adam himself. Everything granted to him was granted to them. Everything promised to him was promised to them. And everything threatened against him, in case of transgression, was threatened against them. God did not give the earth to Adam for him alone, but as the heritage of his race. The dominion over the lower animals with which he was invested belonged equally to his descendants. The promise of life embraced them as well as him; and the threatening of death concerned them as well as him. (2.) In the second place, it is an outstanding undeniable fact that the penalty, which Adam incurred, has fallen upon his whole race. The earth is cursed to them as it was to him. They must earn their bread by the sweat of their brows. The pains of childbirth are the common heritage of all the daughters of Eve. All men are subject to disease and death. All are born in sin, destitute of the moral image of God. There is not an evil consequent on the sin of Adam, which does not affect his race as much as it affected him. (3.) Not only did the ancient Jews infer the representative character of Adam from the record given in Genesis, but also the inspired writers of the New Testament give this doctrine the sanction of divine authority. In Adam, says the Apostle, all died. The sentence of condemnation, he teaches us, passed on all men for one offence. By the offence of one all were made sinners. (4.) This great fact is made the ground on which the whole plan of redemption is founded. As we fell in Adam, we are saved in Christ. To deny the principle in the one case, is to deny it in the other; for the two are inseparably united in the representations of Scripture. (5.) The principle involved in the headship of Adam underlies all the religious institutions ever ordained by God for men; all His providential dealings with our race; and even the distributions of the saving influences of His Spirit. (6.) What is thus clearly revealed in the Word and providence of God, finds a response in the very constitution of our nature. All men are led, as it were instinctively to recognize the validity of this principle of representation. Rulers represent their people; parents their children, guardians their wards. Those who recognize the authority of the Scriptures can hardly question the Headship of Adam.

10. Perpetuity of this Covenant of Works. The Scriptures, therefore, teach that we come into the world under condemnation. We are by nature, i. e., as we were born, the children of wrath. This fact is assumed in all the provisions of the Gospel. Children are to be baptized for the remission of sin. But while the Pelagian doctrine is to be rejected, which

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teaches that each man comes into the world free from sin and free from condemnation, and stands his probation in his own person, it is nevertheless true that where there is no sin there is no condemnation. Hence our Lord said to the young man, ‘This do and thou shalt live.’ And hence the Apostle in the second chapter of his Epistle to the Romans, says that God will reward every man according to his works. To those who are good, He will give eternal life; to those who are evil, indignation and wrath. This is only saying that the eternal principles of justice are still in force. If any man can present himself before the bar of God and prove that he is free from sin, either imputed or personal, either original or actual, he will not be condemned. But the fact is that the whole world lies in wickedness. Man is an apostate race. Men are all involved in the penal and natural consequences of Adam's transgression. They stood their probation in him, and do not stand each man for himself.

APPENDIX II. Some Remarks On Faith.

1. The bringer of the sacrifice into the tabernacle was to lay his hand upon the head of the sheep or the bullock, otherwise the offering would not have been accepted for him. But the laying on of his hand was not the same as the victim on which it was laid. The serpent-bitten Israelite was to look at the uplifted serpent of brass in order to be healed. But his looking was not the brazen serpent. We may say it was his looking that healed him, just as the Lord said, ‘lily faith hath saved thee;’ but this is metaphoric language. It was not his act of looking that healed him, but the object to which he locked. So faith is not our righteousness: it merely joins us to the righteous One, and makes us partakers of His righteousness. By a natural figure of speech, faith is often magnified into something great; whereas it is really nothing but our consenting to be saved by another ~ its supposed magnitude is derived from the greatness of the object which it grasps, the excellence of the righteousness which it accepts. Its preciousness is not its own, but the preciousness of Him to whom it links us.

2. Faith is not our physician; it only brings us to the Physician. It is not even our medicine; it only administers the medicine, divinely prepared by Him who ‘healeth all our diseases.’ In all our believing, let us remember God’s word to Israel: ‘I am Jehovah, that healeth thee’ (Exodus 14.26) Our faith is but our touching Jesus; and what is even this, in reality, but His touching us?

3. Faith is not our Saviour. It was not faith that was born at Bethlehem and died on Golgotha for us. It was not faith that loved us, and gave itself for us; that bore our sins in its own body on the tree; that died and rose again for our sins. Faith is one thing, the Saviour is another. Faith is one thing, and the cross is another. Let us not confound them, nor ascribe to a poor, imperfect act of man, that which belongs exclusively to the Son of the Living God.

4. Faith is not perfection. Yet only by perfection can we be saved; either our own or another’s. That which is imperfect cannot justify, and an imperfect faith could not in any sense be righteousness. If it is to justify, it must be perfect. It must be like ‘the Lamb, without blemish and without spot.’ An imperfect faith may connect us with the perfection of another; but it cannot of itself do aught for us, either in protecting us from wrath or securing the divine acquittal. All faith here is imperfect; and our security is this, that it matters not how poor or weak our faith maybe: if it touches the perfect One, all is well. The touch draws out the virtue that is in Him, and we are saved. The slightest imperfection in our faith, if faith were our righteousness, would be fatal to every hope. But the imperfection of our faith, however great, if faith were but the approximation or contact between us and the fullness of the Substitute, is no hindrance to our participation of His righteousness. God has asked and provided a perfect righteousness; He nowhere asks nor expects a perfect faith. An earthenware pitcher can convey water to a traveller’s thirsty lips as well as one of gold; nay, a broken vessel, even if there be but ‘a sherd to take water from the pit’ (Is 30.14), will suffice. So a feeble, very feeble faith, will connect us with the righteousness of the Son of God; the faith, perhaps, that can only cry, ‘Lord, I believe; help mine unbelief.’

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5. Faith is not satisfaction to God. In no sense and in no aspect can faith be said to satisfy God, or to satisfy the law. Yet if it is to be our righteousness, it must satisfy. Being imperfect, it cannot satisfy; being human, it cannot satisfy, even though it were perfect That which satisfies must be capable of bearing our guilt; and that which bears our guilt must be not only perfect, but divine. It is a sin-bearer that we need, and our faith cannot be a sin-bearer. Faith can expiate no guilt; can accomplish no propitiation; can pay no penalty; can wash away no stain; can provide no righteousness. It brings us to the cross, where there is Expiation, and Propitiation, and Payment, and Cleansing, and Righteousness; but in itself it has no merit and no virtue.

6. Faith is not Christ, nor the cross of Christ. Faith is not the blood, nor the sacrifice; it is not the altar, nor the laver, nor the Mercy Seat, nor the incense. It does not work, but accepts a work done ages ago; it does not wash, but leads us to the fountain opened for sin and uncleanness. It does not create; it merely links us to that new thing which was created when the ‘everlasting righteousness’ was brought in (Dan 9.24.)

7. «These treasures are offered us by the Holy Ghost in the promise of the holy Gospel; and faith alone is the only means by which we lay hold upon, accept, and apply, and appropriate them to ourselves. This faith is a gift of God, by which we truly learn to know Christ, our Redeemer, in the Word of the Gospel, and trust in Him, that for the sake of His obedience alone we have the forgiveness of sins by grace, are regarded as godly and righteous by God the Father, and are eternally saved.» Formula of Concord, SD, III 10, Righteous of Faith before God, Concordia Triglotta, St. Louis: CPH, 1921, p. 919.

8. «Moreover, neither contrition nor love or any other virtue, but faith alone is the sole means and instrument by which and through which we can receive and accept the grace of God, the merit of Christ, and the forgiveness of sins, which are offered us in the promise of the Gospel.» Formula of Concord, SD, III 31, Righteous of Faith before God, Concordia Triglotta, St. Louis: CPH, 1921, p. 925.

9. «For good works do not precede faith, neither does sanctification precede justification. But the Holy Ghost from the hearing of the Gospel kindles first faith in us in conversion. This lays hold of God's grace in Christ, by which the person is justified. Then, when the person is justified, he is also renewed and sanctified by the Holy Ghost, from which renewal and sanctification the fruits of good works then follow.» Formula of Concord, SD, III 41, Righteous of Faith before God, Concordia Triglotta, St. Louis: CPH, 1921, p. 929.

10. «Scripture therefore uses these words, 'We are justified by faith,' to teach both: 1) What the reason (or merit) for justification is, or what the blessings of Christ are; to wit, that through and for the sake of Christ alone we are granted forgiveness of sins, righteousness and eternal life; and, 2. How these should be applied or transferred to us; namely, by embracing the promise and relying on Christ by faith alone.» David Chytraeus, A Summary of the Christian Faith (1568), RP, 1994. p. 107.

11. ‘That we may obtain this faith, the Ministry of Teaching the Gospel and administering the Sacraments was instituted. For through the Word and Sacraments, as through instruments, the Holy Ghost is given, who works faith, where and when it pleases God, in them that hear the Gospel, to wit, that God, not for our own merits, but for Christ's sake, justifies those who believe that they are received into grace for Christ's sake. They condemn the Anabaptists and others who think that the Holy Ghost comes to men without the external Word, through their own preparation and works.’ Augsburg Confession, Article V, The Office of the Ministry, Concordia Triglotta, St. Louis: CPH, 1921, p.45.

APPENDIX III. On Justification by Faith Alone.

1. We definitively reject the so-called ‘Universal Objective Justification’ tenet. In divers debates and writings we have spent scores of time & efforts portraying the final inconsistency and falsehood of this teaching. Possibly we ourselves plunged down in some

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excess or inaccurate statements in former bold discussions as regards this theologumen, and thus we apologize for those possible extreme statements or unwillingly errors, committed for the debate’s passionate treatment. We don’t wish add here further arguments to those already uttered; but yes we will resume some precise comments, with the hope of continue remarking the holy landmarks of our Lutheran Confession on Justification by Faith Alone. Too many theologians have committed a serious doctrinal error; they have confused the first part of the Covenant of Grace, namely, universal reconciliation, & universal Gospel of universal Redemption, complete forgiveness of sins for all men won in the Golgotha, with, a) A metaphysical Justification without faith nor Means of Grace b) Reconciliation. This is a main point. God was in Christ reconciling men to Himself; viz., sinners thorough the history of redemption are called to life through the free, gracious gift of a instrumental faith (the beggar’s hand that grasps the gift,) and in this their conversion they repent and believe the Gospel, being so declared righteous by faith alone. Additional arguments have been offered in our Augustinus. Is not God Himself who changes; God is always love and forgiveness; reconciliation in the Word is always used for St. Paul thinking in men reconciling themselves with our Divine Lord through the gift of faith --they are the Elects! In the Word we learn that Election of Grace is the chief cause of our justification. c) The proper and consistent teaching on Election of Grace makes it clear Justification by Faith alone and overthrows this crypto-Universalist view.

2. The Lord Jesus-Christ, our Substitute and Surety, endured the whole sins of the world and paid for them in the Cross; and thus was risen up and declared Righteous in the sight of God, in our stead; and He is preaching us He won for us a complete redemption & the forgiveness of sins (absolution) offered by God to the world in His Word of Reconciliation, through the Holy Ministry of the Means of Grace. The death of Christ our Saviour for our Justification by faith alone, this is the Gospel (the Last Judgment will find out you in Adam or in Christ.) ‘Each of you were declared judicially righteous (imputation or conferring of Christ’s righteousness) prior, apart and without faith when Christ was risen’, well, this is not the Gospel, but only bad theology.

3. In our previous Assertions we have thoroughly exposed how Scripture plainly teaches God’s universal Will of Grace, namely, that God desires the salvation of all people, Ezek. 33. 11; 2 Pet. 3. 9; 1 Tim. 2.4, on the condition of faith, Mark 16.16, John 3.16, Romans 1.16. God revealed His earnest desire to save all people by sending His Only Begotten Son to keep the Law perfectly for all people -just that that nobody can do because all us are sinners (Eccl. 7.20). In harmony, therefore, with God’s Universal Will of Grace the Bible also teaches the universal reconciliation of Christ, namely, that Christ Jesus has paid for all people, having taking away Adam’s guilt, common to all since all sinned in Adam, by His Active Obedience (Rom. 5.19), and having suffered punishment for the sins of the race by His Passive Obedience (Gal. 3. 13), He also was sacrifice and blood offering for all sins, being as of His ascension the Substitute and Mediator of His people, the believers, before the throne of God in the heavenly sanctuary, Rom. 8.34, Heb. 7.25, 9.24, 1 John 2.1. The believers were crucified with Christ; all died with Christ and all were buried with him too; & with Christ they were risen, and with Him they are now sat down in heavenly places.

4. Apart of faith what? The forensic act of Justification is, in accord with the Scriptures, one that cannot preclude faith in the benefits and merits of Christ. All believer says, ‘since Christ bore & paid for the sin of the world, taking away it, the Word says to me that my sins were expiated by the Lamb of God and that God gives to me the gift of His complete forgiveness, life and salvation: and joined with it He gives to me the free gift of faith, that He kindles in me through the Holy Ghost in Word and Sacraments, by which, with the hand of a beggar I can confidently cling to the infinite gift of Christ my Saviour, the white robe of His Righteousness. My complete salvation is completely, and exclusively, work of God.’

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5. The Word of Reconciliation (2 Cor. 5.18-19), the Gospel, by the Means of Grace, the efficacious Word and Sacraments, hence, tell to men convicted of sin by the Law that Christ has taken upon Him all of their sins. The men whose sins are forgiven love God Who first loved them. ‘The Reconciliation is true for all times, whether anyone believes in the atoning death of Christ or not. The conversion of an unbeliever unto a new creation who is declared forgiven –that is Justification by Faith’.

6. Reconciliation, Resurrection & Expiation is that work that God first has accomplished in Christ for us; Justification by Faith is that work that God accomplishes in us (and this is in all the cases an objective divine act) through Word and Sacrament. This is the scheme:

Christ → Reconciliation → Resurrection→ Mediation →Means of Grace → Justification by Faith.

7. Reconciliation, Resurrection, Forgiveness: God has made this for the whole world. Justification is the declaration of forgiveness received in faith, grasping the Gospel, the Word of Reconciliation. ‘Christ is speaking here not of the word of the law, but of the Gospel, which is a discourse about Christ, who died for our sins, etc. For God did not wish to impart Christ to the world in any other way; He had to embody Him in the Word and thus distributed Him, and present Him to everybody; otherwise Christ would have existed for Himself alone and remained unknown to us; He would have thus died for himself. But since the Word places before us Christ, it thus places us before Him who has triumphed over death, sin, and Satan. Therefore, he who grasps and retains Christ, has thus also eternal deliverance from death. Consequently it is a Word of life, and it is true, that whoever keeps the Word shall never see death.’ Sermons of Martin Luther, Baker Book House, 1983, II, p. 177. John 8.46-59.

8. ‘But when we are speaking of the subject itself, it is certain that the doctrine of gracious reconciliation, of the remission of sins, of righteousness, salvation, and eternal life through faith for the sake of the Mediator is one and the same in the Old and in the New Testament. This is a useful rule which we must retain at all costs: The doctrine, wherever we read it, in either the Old or New Testament, which deals with the gracious reconciliation and the remission of sins through faith for the sake of God’s mercy in Christ, is the Gospel.’

Martin Chemnitz, Loci Theologici, 2 vols, CPH, 1989, II, p. 459. [Emphasis added].

9. ‘Therefore God, ‘who is rich in mercy’ [Ephesians 2:4], has had mercy upon us and has set forth a propitiation through faith in the blood of Christ, and those who flee as suppliants to this throne of grace He absolves from the comprehensive sentence of condemnation, and by the imputation of the righteousness of His Son, which they grasp in faith, He pronounces them righteous, receives them into grace, and adjudges them to be heirs of eternal life. This is certainly the judicial meaning of the word ‘justification,’ in almost the same way that a guilty man who has been sentenced before the bar of justice is acquitted.’

Martin Chemnitz, Loci Theologici, 2 vols. St. Louis: CPH, 1989, II, p. 482. Ephesians 2:4

10. ‘Concerning the article on the justification of the poor sinner in God’s sight, we believe, teach, and confess on the basis of God’s Word and the position of our Christian Augsburg Confession that the poor, sinful person is justified in God’s sight—that is, he is pronounced free and absolved of his sins and receives forgiveness for them—only through faith, because of the innocent, complete, and unique obedience and the bitter sufferings and death of our Lord Jesus Christ, not because of the indwelling, essential righteousness of God or because of his own good works, which either precede or result from faith. We reject all doctrines contrary to this belief and confession.’ Jacob Andreae, Confession and Brief Explanation of Certain Disputed Articles. Cited in Robert Kolb, Andreae and the Formula of Concord, St. Louis: CPH, 1977, p. 58. [Emphasis added].

11. ‘Indeed, it has been proved more than sufficiently from the Scriptures of the prophets and apostles in the Old and New Testaments that the righteousness which avails in God’s

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sight, which poor sinners have for comfort in their worst temptations, cannot and should not be sought in our own virtues or good works; nor will it be found there, as was proved above against the papists. Instead, it should be sought only in Christ the Lord, whom God has made our righteousness and who saves all believing Christians and makes them righteous through knowledge of Him.’ Jacob Andreae, The First Sermon, On the Righteousness of Faith in God’s Sight. Op.cit, p. 67.

12. ‘That is enough on the first article concerning which the theologians of the Augsburg Confession have quarrelled with each other. Although it was a very scandalous controversy, nonetheless God, who lets nothing evil happen if He cannot make something good out of it, has produced this benefit for His church through the controversy: The chief article of our Christian faith, on which our salvation depends, has been made clear, so that there is not a passage in the Old or New Testament which has not been considered and discussed.’ Jacob Andreae, op.cit. p. 76.

13. ‘The entire Scripture testifies that the merits of Christ are received in no other way than through faith, not to mention that it is impossible to please God without faith, Hebrews 11.6, not in the least to be received into eternal life. In general, St. Paul concludes concerning this [matter] in Romans 3.28: Thus we hold then that a man becomes righteous without the works of the Law—only through faith.’ Johann Gerhard, A Comprehensive Explanation of Holy Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, 1610, Repristination Press, 2000, p. 165.

14. ‘Therefore, the fulfilment of this promise to Abraham is in no way to be interpreted to mean that Abraham’s seed became righteous and saved without individual faith.’ Johan Gerhard, op.cit. p. 167.

15. ‘Although Christ has acquired for us the remission of sins, justification, and sonship, God just the same does not justify us prior to our faith. Nor do we become God’s children in Christ in such a way that justification in the mind of God takes place before we believe.’ Abraham Calov [Apodixis Articulorum Fide, Lueneburg, 1684; emphasis added.]

16.Considering now the Old Testament types, I wish call the readers’ attention to the Ceremonial Rites of the Sanctuary of the old Israel, which was a figure of the doing and dying of Christ as the Lamb of God that took on Him the sin of the world, as all theologians and students of the Bible should know. The Levitical ritual, the daily sacrifice, and the Great Day of Atonement are clear figures of the redeeming work of Christ and Justification by faith Alone. Old Testament Gospel was the Tabernacle. Sinners had the daily sacrifice, and the atonement ritual. The sinner brought with him an animal, and he was only declared forgiven by the application of the Atonement (a type of Christ atonement.) Without this application of the Atonement, there was nor justification « before of, apart of or without faith» as some dreamed.

17. At this point we meet the doctrine in the Old Testament {we quote of own old Sermon:} ‘The Spirit of God, through St Paul, makes us know that all that was recorded in the Holy Writ at times of the Old Testament, for our teaching was written, so that for the perseverance and the comfort of the Scriptures we have hope (Rom. 15.4.) The whole Sacred Scripture is inspired for God (2 Tim. 3.16,) a kindled lamp amid the darkness, the surest prophetic word (2 Pet 1.19.) The purple thread of Christ’s Blood, which links up with all its books like the pearls of a necklace, crosses the Old Testament. The Ceremonial Law and its sacrifices, everything in it, was a figure of the Great Sacrifice of the Golgotha, and of the Work and the Person of Christ. The services of the Sanctuary revealed to Moses are symbols of Christ and of His Sacrificial & Mediatorial Ministry. So, when in the church we speak of Ministry, we only speak of a Ministry that is the same Christ’s Ministry, by means of which He provides both forgiveness and righteousness for all those called to life and justified only for faith. The Sanctuary of Israel, this way, was pure Gospel: it granted atonement for all those that found themselves guilty, confessing that they were lost sinners and transgressors of the Law: all those to who the Holy Ghost, through the Word, gave contrition and that, then, with saving faith, took to God the only sacrifice that pleased Him: Christ

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Our Righteousness. The Scriptures call these contrite and believing sinners, the elect. It is remarkable the way that the Word discourages here the illusory pretence of those that teach an ‘Universal Justification’, ‘before, apart and without faith’, saying, ‘in the Easter morning Christ’s Righteousness was conferred to all men, whether they ever believe or not.’ When the sinner was aware of the sin he committed (Lev. 4.27-28,) convicted by the Holy Ghost (John 16.7-8,) he should to confess it, taking an offering for this sin to the Sanctuary (Lev. 5.5-6.) After he killed the sacrifice (Lev. 5.8-9.), the priest made ‘atonement for him;’ and then, and never before or otherwise, the sinner was forgiven (v. 10; 13), this is, he was declared righteous. Christ’s Holy Ministry in Word and Sacrament, quickened by the Holy Ghost, is at the same time our Sanctuary in the heavens and in earth, providing abundant forgiveness, which comes from the eternal source of infinite Atonement; namely, of the Eternal Lamb of God on the cross, coming anon with His blood through the veil, starting His mediation ministry for apply atonement to contrite sinners. Everything in the universe depends of the cross; all the Christians, laymen and ministers (Lev. 4.3; 22; 27; Heb. 5.1-3; Lev. 16.3-6) we depend, continually, of the cross and the continuous intercession of Christ for us, facing the heavenly Mercy Seat, Rom. 8.34, Heb. 7.25, 9.24, 1 John 2.1.

18. Here, as in all cases, to be forgiven means that the punishment of God, pronounced on the transgressor of the Law, didn’t fall on the sinner: truly, he had sinned and was guilty before God, and yet he is treated just as if he had been righteous -- as if he had kept the Law of God, that is spiritual, flawlessly. And all this thanks to the provision of forgiveness that God has made available through the Sanctuary: I speak of the Atonement and of Christ’s Righteousness, typified in the symbols of the Ceremonial Law. This way, the Sanctuary functioned as a courthouse where the Lord, in a forensic way, decided if a person would continue or not in the fellowship. If some, being all guilty, availed him, trusting the Promise, of the Atonement that had been provided, then (and only then!) he was declared righteous, grounded in the forgiving Grace of God. The Sacrifice, the Atonement, Faith and Justification are one and a sole thing and they cannot be sundered. It Is Written!’

19. ‘All men born in Adam are guilty through his very own sin, which is quite alien to them and give them what he has. So Christ, through His righteousness makes all righteous and blessed WHO ARE BORN OF HIM,’ namely, the BELIEVERS. (Luther) [Emphasis added]. ‘Just as we are condemned by an alien sin, so we are redeemed through an alien righteousness. Should be observed that the general implications of Romans 5. 18 does not demand that ‘all’ in the second part of the Pauline’s parallel (showing the consequences of Christ obedience) be taken to cover all men but is, in Luther’s exposition, limited to these ‘that are born of Him’ [the BELIEVERS.] This restriction does not, however, affect the universality of Christ’s offer of grace. As such is offered in the Means of Grace, to be believed without any sinful hesitation. Also, says Luther, «For on Christ they (i.e. the sins) might not remain; they are devoured by His resurrection, and you now see no wounds, no sufferings on Him, no hints of sins. So speaks St. Paul that Christ was delivered for our offences and was raised again for our justification; in His sufferings He makes known our sins and thus strangles them, but through His resurrection He makes us righteous and free of all sins, if we believe this.» (Tom Hardt, Justification and Easter, Manuscript.)

20. The universal forgiveness won for Christ being He declared righteous at the sight of the Father as the Promised One, the Second Adam, is offered to the sinful world through Word and Sacraments. Many of the contemporary teachers of an uncertain ‘Objective Justification’ are not really concerned about the Means of Grace, discarding the efficacy of the Word.

21. The righteousness of Christ is equally present on two levels, as acquired and obtained for all mankind and as accepted by faith in the believer. Yet it was not allowed by the old Wittenberg theologians to speak of a ‘double justification.’ In the condemnation of Huberisme they taught, ‘Never does Paul teach Universal Justification. For as far as concerns 2 Corinthians 5, the words ‘not imputing their trespasses unto them,’ they are not to be understood universally about all men regardless of faith. [Emphasis added] (Hardt, op. cit.)

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22. We believe and teach that we are justified by Grace alone, through faith alone, without and apart of the deeds of the Law, but, at the same time, we believe & teach that God kindles and applies faith, in an objective divine act, through Word and Sacraments, declaring righteous the sinner who believes the Gospel (Justification cannot be divided ‘in two ways’) –and that all this work, the same salvation, is a work of God alone, from the beginning to the end –man cannot perform the least cooperation in his salvation, the only thing he does is bring his sin –we reject and condemn every kind of Synergism, Arminianism and Romanism.

23. Let us, to finish, hear our Lutheran Confessions: ‘...God in His purpose and counsel ordained [decreed]:

1. That the human race is truly redeemed and reconciled with God through Christ, who, by His faultless [innocence] obedience, suffering, and death, has merited for us the righteousness which avails before God, and eternal life.

2. That such merit and benefits of Christ shall be presented, offered, and distributed to us through His Word and Sacraments.

3. That by His Holy Ghost, through the Word, when it is preached, heard, and pondered, He will be efficacious and active in us, convert hearts to true repentance, and preserve them in the true faith.

4. That He will justify all those who in true repentance receive Christ by a true faith, and will receive them into grace, the adoption of sons, and the inheritance of eternal life.’

Formula of Concord, Thorough Declaration, XI. #15. Of God’s Eternal Election. Concordia Triglotta, St. Louis: CPH, 1921, p. 1069. 2 Corinthians 5:19ff. [Emphasis added].

‘On this account, as the Augsburg Confession in Article XI says, we also retain private absolution, and teach that it is God's command that we believe such absolution, and should regard it as sure that, when we believe the word of absolution, we are as truly reconciled to God as though we had heard a voice from heaven, as the Apology explains this article. This consolation would be entirely taken from us if we were not to infer the will of God towards us from the call which is made through the Word and through the Sacraments.’

Formula of Concord, SD, XI. #38. Of God's Eternal Election, Concordia Triglotta, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1921, p. 1075.

‘The Third Article the adversaries approve, in which we confess that there are in Christ two natures, namely, a human nature, assumed by the Word into the unity of His person; and that the same Christ suffered and died to reconcile the Father to us; and that He was raised again to reign, and to justify and sanctify believers, etc., according to the Apostles' Creed and the Nicene Creed.’

Apology of the Augsburg Confession, III. #52. Of Christ, Concordia Triglotta, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1921, p. 119. Romans 4:25; 2 Corinthians 5:19ff.

‘Faith is that my whole heart takes to itself this treasure. It is not my doing, not my presenting or giving, not my work or preparation, but that a heart comforts itself, and is perfectly confident with respect to this, namely, that God makes a present and gift to us, and not we to Him, that He sheds upon us every treasure of grace in Christ.’

Apology of the Augsburg Confession, IV. 48, Of Justification Concordia Triglotta, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1921, p. 135.

‘Now we will show that faith [and nothing else] justifies.’

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Apology of the Augsburg Confession, IV. 69, Of Justification Concordia Triglotta, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1921, p. 141.

‘We do not believe thus {that faith is just a beginning of justification} concerning faith, but we maintain this, that properly and truly, by faith itself, we are for Christ's sake accounted righteous, or are acceptable to God. And because 'to be justified' means that out of unjust men just men are made, or born again, it means also that they are pronounced or accounted just. For Scripture speaks in both ways. [The term 'to be justified' is used in two ways: to denote, being converted or regenerated; again, being accounted righteous.] Accordingly we wish first to show this, that faith alone makes of an unjust, a just man, i. e., receives remission of sins.’

Apology of the Augsburg Confession, IV. 71, Of Justification. Concordia Triglotta, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1921, p. 141.

‘It is, therefore, needful to maintain that the promise of Christ is necessary. But this cannot be received except by faith. Therefore, those who deny that faith justifies, teach nothing but the Law, both Christ and the Gospel being set aside.’

Apology of the Augsburg Confession, IV. #70. Of Justification, Concordia Triglotta, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1921, p. 141.

‘In the Epistle to the Romans, Paul discusses this topic especially, and declares that, when we believe that God, for Christ's sake, is reconciled to us, we are justified freely by faith.’

Apology of the Augsburg Confession, IV. 87, Of Justification Concordia Triglotta, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1921, p. 147. 2 Corinthians 5:19ff.

‘But since we receive remission of sins and the Holy Ghost by faith alone, faith alone justifies, because those reconciled are accounted righteous and children of God, not on account of their own purity, but through mercy for Christ's sake, provided only they by faith apprehend this mercy.’ Apology of the Augsburg Confession, IV. #86. Of Justification.

Concordia Triglotta, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1921, p. 147.

‘The Gospel teaches that by faith we receive freely, for Christ's sake, the remission of sins and are reconciled to God.’

Apology of the Augsburg Confession, XV. #5. Human Traditions, Concordia Triglotta, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1921, p. 317.

‘Also they teach that the Word, that is, the Son of God, did assume the human nature in the womb of the blessed Virgin Mary, so that there are two natures, the divine and the human, inseparably conjoined in one Person, one Christ, true God and true man, who was born of the Virgin Mary, truly suffered, was crucified, dead, and buried, that He might reconcile the Father unto us, and be a sacrifice, not only for original guilt, but also for all actual sins of men.’

Augsburg Confession, III. 1. Of the Son of God, Concordia Triglotta, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1921, p. 45.

‘Therefore there is here again great need to call upon God and pray: Dear Father, forgive us our trespasses. Not as though He did not forgive sin without and even before our prayer (for He has given us the Gospel, in which is pure forgiveness before we prayed or ever thought about it). But this is to the intent that we may recognize and accept such forgiveness.’

The Large Catechism, The Lord's Prayer, Fifth Petition, #88, Concordia Triglotta, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1921, p. 723. Matthew 6:12

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‘This article concerning justification by faith (as the Apology says) is the chief article in the entire Christian doctrine, without which no poor conscience can have any firm consolation, or can truly know the riches of the grace of Christ, as Dr. Luther also has written: If this only article remains pure on the battlefield, the Christian Church also remains pure, and in goodly harmony and without any sects; but if it does not remain pure, it is not possible that any error or fanatical spirit can be resisted. (Tom. 5, Jena, p. 159.) And concerning this article especially Paul says that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump.’

Formula of Concord, SD, III. 6, Righteous of Faith before God, Concordia Triglotta, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1921, p. 917.

‘These treasures are offered us by the Holy Ghost in the promise of the holy Gospel; and faith alone is the only means by which we lay hold upon, accept, and apply, and appropriate them to ourselves. This faith is a gift of God, by which we truly learn to know Christ, our Redeemer, in the Word of the Gospel, and trust in Him, that for the sake of His obedience alone we have the forgiveness of sins by grace, are regarded as godly and righteous by God the Father, and are eternally saved.’

Formula of Concord, SD, III 10, Righteous of Faith before God, Concordia Triglotta, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1921, p. 919.

‘Moreover, neither contrition nor love or any other virtue, but faith alone is the sole means and instrument by which and through which we can receive and accept the grace of God, the merit of Christ, and the forgiveness of sins, which are offered us in the promise of the Gospel.’

Formula of Concord, SD, III 31, Righteous of Faith before God, Concordia Triglotta, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1921, p. 925.

‘For good works do not precede faith, neither does sanctification precede justification. But first faith is kindled in us in conversion by the Holy Ghost from the hearing of the Gospel. This lays hold of God's grace in Christ, by which the person is justified. Then, when the person is justified, he is also renewed and sanctified by the Holy Ghost, from which renewal and sanctification the fruits of good works then follow.’

Formula of Concord, SD, III 41, Righteous of Faith before God, Concordia Triglotta, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1921, p. 929.

‘But to believe is to trust in the merits of Christ, that for His sake God certainly wishes to be reconciled with us.’

Apology of the Augsburg Confession, IV. #69. Of Justification, Concordia Triglotta, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1921, p. p. 141.

{#305. Why do you say in this article: I believe in the Forgiveness of Sins? Because I hold with certainty that by my own powers or through my own works I cannot be justified before God, but that the forgiveness of sins is given me out of grace through faith in Jesus Christ. For where there is forgiveness of sins, there is also true justification. Psalm 130:3-4; Psalm 143:2; Isaiah 64:6; Job 25:4-6 (Q. 124).’

Kleiner Katechismus, trans. Pastor Vernon Harley, LCMS, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1901, p. 164ff.

‘#306. What is justification? Justification is that activity (Handlung) of God by which He out of pure grace and mercy for the sake of Christ's merits forgives the sins of a poor sinner who truly believes in Jesus Christ and receives him to everlasting life.’

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Kleiner Katechismus, ibid., p. 164ff.}

‘The third controversy which has arisen among some theologians of the Augsburg Confession is concerning the righteousness of Christ or of faith, which God imputes by grace, through faith, to poor sinners for righteousness.’

Formula of Concord, Thorough Declaration, III. 1 Righteousness Concordia Triglotta, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1921, p. 917.

‘If this only article remains pure on the battlefield, the Christian Church also remains pure, and in goodly harmony and without any sects; but if it does not remain pure, it is not possible that any error or fanatical spirit can be resisted.’

Dr. Luther, Formula of Concord, Thorough Declaration, III. 4 Righteousness Concordia Triglotta, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1921, p. 917.

‘Accordingly, the word justify here means to declare righteous and free from sins, and to absolve one from eternal punishment for the sake of Christ's righteousness, which is imputed by God to faith, Philippians 3.9. For this use and understanding of this word is common in the Holy Scriptures of the Old and the New Testament. Proverbs 17.15: He that justifieth the wicked, and he that condemneth the just, even they both are abomination to the Lord. Isaiah 5.23: Woe unto them which justify the wicked for reward, and take away the righteousness of the righteous from him! Romans 8.33: Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth, that is, absolves from sins and acquits.’

Formula of Concord, Thorough Declaration, III 17 Righteousness Concordia Triglotta, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1921, p. 921 Philippians 3.9; Proverbs 17.15; Isaiah 5.23; Romans 8.33.

‘For when man is justified through faith [which the Holy Ghost alone works], this is truly a regeneration, because from a child of wrath he becomes a child of God, and thus is transferred from death to life, as it is written; When we were dead in sins, He hath quickened us together with Christ, Ephesians 2:5. Likewise: The just shall live by faith, Romans 1.17; Habakkuk 2.4.’

Formula of Concord, Thorough Declaration, III 20 Righteousness Concordia Triglotta, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1921, p. 921.

‘Here belongs also what St. Paul writes Romans 4:3, that Abraham was justified before God by faith alone, for the sake of the Mediator, without the cooperation of his works, not only when he was first converted from idolatry and had no good works, but also afterwards, when he had been renewed by the Holy Ghost, and adorned with many excellent good works, Genesis 15.6; Hebrews 11.8. And Paul puts the following questions, Romans 4.1ff.: On what did Abraham's righteousness before God for everlasting life, by which he had a gracious God, and was pleasing and acceptable to Him, rest at that time? Formula of Concord, Thorough Declaration, III 33 Righteousness.

Concordia Triglotta, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1921, p. 927. Romans 4.3; Romans 4.1ff; Genesis 15.6; Hebrews 11.8.

APPENDIX 4. Mysticism.

§ 1. Meaning of the Words Enthusiasm and Mysticism.

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In the popular sense of the word, Enthusiasm means a high state of mental excitement. In that state, according to the same Enthusiasts, all the powers are exalted, the thoughts become more inclusive and vivid, the feelings more fervid, and the will more determined. It is in these periods of excitement that the greatest works of genius, whether by poets, painters, or warriors, would have been accomplished. The Ancients referred this exaltation of the inner man to a divine influence. They regarded persons thus excited as possessed, or having a God within them. Hence they were called enthusiasts (entheos). In Lutheran theology, therefore, those who ignore or reject the guidance of the Scriptures, and assume to be led by an inward divine influence into the knowledge and obedience of the truth, are properly called Enthusiasts (German, Schwärmer.) This term, nevertheless, has been in a great measure superseded by the word Mystics.

Few words indeed have been used in such a vague, indefinite sense as Mysticism. Its etymology does not determine its meaning. A Mystic was one initiated into the knowledge of the Heathen mysteries, one to whom secret things had been revealed. Hence in the wide sense of the word, a Mystic is one who claims to see or know what is hidden from other men, whether this knowledge be attained by immediate intuition, or by inward revelation. In most cases these methods were assumed to be identical, as intuition was held to be the immediate vision of God and of divine things. Hence, in the wide sense of the word, Mystics are those who claim to be under the immediate guidance of God or of His Spirit. In Christianity, they argue be converted or regenerated, by a direct work of the Spirit, without any Means of Grace.

A. The Philosophical Use of the Word.

Hence Mysticism, in this sense, includes all those systems of philosophy, which teach either the identity of God and the soul, or the immediate intuition of the infinite. The pantheism of the Hindus and Buddhists, the esoteric wisdom of the Sufis, the old Egyptian, and many forms of the Greek philosophy, in this acceptation of the term, are all Mystical.

For the same reason the whole Alexandrian school of theology in the early Church has been called Mystical. They characteristically depreciated the outward authority of the Scriptures, and exalted that of the inward light. It is true they called that light reason, but they regarded it as divine. According to the new Platonic doctrine, the Logos, or impersonal reason of God, is Reason in man; or as Clemens Alexandrinus said, ‘The Logos was a light common to all men.’ That, therefore, to which supreme authority was ascribed in the pursuit of truth, was ‘God within us.’ Rationalism, in this way, conceived Reason as a revelation, a necessary and universal revelation which is wanting to no man, and which enlightens every man on his coming into the world. Rationalists teach that reason is the necessary mediator between God and man, the Logos of Pythagoras and Plato, the Word made Flesh, which serves as the interpreter of God, and teacher of man, divine and human at the same time. It is not indeed the absolute God in His majestic individuality, but His manifestation in spirit and in truth. It is not the Being of beings, but it is the revealed God of the human race.

Reason, according to this system, is not a faculty of the human soul, but God in man. As electricity and magnetism are (or used to be) regarded as forces diffused through the material world, so the Logos, the divine impersonal reason, is diffused through the world of mind, and reveals itself more or less potentially in the souls of all men. This theory, in one aspect, is a form of Rationalism, as it refers all our higher, and especially our religious knowledge, to a subjective source, which it designates Reason. It has, however, more points of analogy with Mysticism, because, (1.) It assumes that the informing principle, the source of knowledge and guide in duty, is divine, something which does not belong to our nature, but appears as a guest in our consciousness. (2.) The office of this inward principle, or light, is the same in both systems. It is to reveal truth and duty, to elevate and purify the soul. (3.) Its authority is the same; that is, it is dominant if not exclusive. (4.) Its very designations are the same. It is called by philosophers, God, Logos, the Word; by Christians, Christ within us, or, the Spirit. Thus

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systems apparently the most diverse (Locke and George Fox!) run into each other, and reveal themselves as reproductions of heathen philosophy, or of the heresies of the early Church.

Although the Alexandrian theologians had these points of agreement with the Mystics, yet as they were speculative in their whole tendency, and strove to transmute Christianity into a philosophy, they are not properly to be regarded as Mystics in the generally received theological meaning of the term.

B. The Sense in which Evangelical Christians are called Mystics.

As all Evangelical Christians admit a supernatural influence of the Spirit of God upon the soul, and recognize a higher form of knowledge, holiness, and fellowship with God, as the effects of that influence, they are stigmatised as Mystics, by those who discard everything supernatural from Christianity. The definitions of Mysticism given by Rationalists are designedly so framed as to include what all evangelical Christians hold to be true concerning the illumination, teaching, and guidance of the Holy Spirit. Bretschneider4 defines Mysticism as a ‘ Belief in a continuous operation of God on the soul, secured by special religious exercise, producing illumination, holiness, and beatitude (Systematische Entwickelung, fourth edit. p. 19.) ‘ Evangelical theologians so far acquiesce in this view, that some said, that every true believer is a Mystic. Some writers, indeed, make a distinction between Mystic and Mysticism. That is, Mysticism is an undue and perverted development of the mystical element that belongs to true religion. This distinction, between Mystic and Mysticism, is not generally recognized. A third opinion, instead of using different words, speaks of a true and false Mysticism. But different things should be designated by different words. There has been a religious theory, which has more or less extensively prevailed in the Church, which is distinguished from the Scriptural doctrine by unmistakable characteristics, and which is known in church history as Mysticism, and the word should be restricted to that theory. It is the theory, variously modified, that the knowledge, purity, and blessedness to be derived from communion with God, are not to be attained from the Scriptures and the use of the divine Means of Grace, but by a supernatural and immediate divine influence, which influence (or communication of God to the soul) is to be secured by passivity, a simple yielding the soul without thought or effort to the divine influx.

C. The System which makes the Feelings the Source of Knowledge.

A still wider use of the word Mysticism has to some extent been adopted. Any system, whether in philosophy or religion, which assigns more importance to the feelings than to the intellect, is called Mystical. The Mystic assumes that the senses and reason are alike unreliable and derisory, as sources of knowledge; that nothing can be received with confidence as truth, at least in the higher departments of knowledge, in all that relates to our own nature, to God, and our relation to Him, except what is revealed either naturally or supernaturally in the feelings. There are two forms of Mysticism, therefore: the one which assumes the feelings themselves to be the sources of this knowledge; the other that it is through the feelings that God makes the truth known to the soul. The fundamental process, therefore, of all Mysticism, is to reverse the true order of nature, and give the precedence to the emotional instead of the intellectual element of the human mind. This is declared to be the common ground of all Mysticism.

Old Schleiermacher's Theory.

If this were a correct view of the nature of Mysticism; if it consists in giving predominant authority to the feelings in matters of religion; and if their impulses, developing themselves in the form of faith, are the true and infallible source of knowledge, then Schleiermacher's system was the most elaborate system of theology ever presented to the Church. It is the fundamental principle of Schleiermacher's theory that religion resides not in the intelligence, or the will or active powers, but in the sensibility. It is a form of feeling, a sense of absolute dependence. Instead of being, as we seem to be, individual, separate free agents, originating our own acts,

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we recognize ourselves as a part of a great whole, determined in all things by the great whole, of which we are a part. We find ourselves as finite creatures over against an infinite Being, in relation to who we are as nothing. The Infinite is everything; and everything is only a manifestation of the Infinite. This is said to be the essential principle of religion in all its forms from Fetichism up to Christianity. It depends mainly on the degree of culture of the individual or community, in what way this sense of dependence shall reveal itself: because the more enlightened and pure the individual is, the more he will be able to apprehend aright what is involved in this sense of dependence upon God. Revelation is not the communication of new truth to the understanding, but the providential influences by which the religious life is awakened in the soul. Inspiration is not the divine influence which controls the mental operations and utterances of its subject, so as to render him infallible in the communication of the truth revealed, but simply the intuition of eternal verities due to the excited state of the religious feelings. Christianity, subjectively considered, is the intuitions of good men, as occasioned & determined by the appearance of Christ. Objectively considered, or, in other words, Christian theology, it is the logical analysis, and scientific understanding and elucidation of the truths involved in those intuitions. The Scriptures, as a rule of faith, have no authority. They are of value only as means of awakening in us the religious life experienced by the Apostles, and thus enabling us to attain like intuitions of divine things. The source of our religious life, according to this system, is the feelings, and if this were the characteristic feature of Mysticism, the Schleiermaeher doctrine was purely Mystical.

D. Mysticism as known in Church History.

This, however, is not what is meant by Mysticism, as it has appeared in the Christian Church. The Mystics, as already stated, are those who claim an immediate communication of divine knowledge and of divine life from God to the soul, independently of the Scriptures and the use of the divine Means of Grace.

Mystics are of two classes; the Theosophists, whose object is knowledge, and with whom the organ of communication with God, is the reason; and the Mystics proper, whose object is, life, purity, and beatitude; and with whom the organ of communication, or receptivity, is the feelings. They agree, first, in relying on the immediate revelation or communication of God to the soul; and secondly, that these communications are to be attained, in the neglect of outward means, by quiet or passive contemplation. The Theosophist is one who gives a theory of God, or of the works of God, which has not reason, but an inspiration of his own for its basis. The Theosophists, neither contented with the natural light of reason, nor with the simple doctrines of Scripture understood in their literal sense, have recourse to an internal supernatural light superior to all other illuminations, from which they profess to derive a mysterious and divine philosophy manifested only to the chosen favourites of heaven.

Mysticism not identical with the Doctrine of Spiritual Illumination.

Mysticism, then, is not to be confounded with the doctrine of spiritual illumination as held by evangelical Christians. The Lutheran Church teaches that the Word of God is effective to the conversion and sanctification of men; that the natural man, does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them; that in order to any saving knowledge of the truth, i. e., of such knowledge as produces holy affections and secures a holy life, there is need of an inward supernatural teaching of the Spirit, producing what the Scriptures call ‘spiritual discernment,’ working habitually through the Means of Grace. Hence believers were designated as pneumatic, spiritual, a Spiritu Dei illuminati, qui reguntur a Spiritu. And men of the world, un-renewed men, are described as those who have not the Spirit neither the Life. God wishes that all men be saved, and by the oral Word and the Sacraments He brings forth and applies to all His divine grace, enough for all, and efficient for His elects. All this is admitted; but this is very different from Mysticism. The two things, namely, spiritual illumination and Mysticism, differ, firstly, as to their object. The object of the work of the Spirit is to enable us to discern the truth and excellence of what is already

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objectively revealed in the Bible. The illumination claimed by the Mystic communicates truth independently of its objective revelation. So there is a great difference between that influence which enables the soul to discern the things ‘freely given to us of God’ (1 Cor. 2. 12) in His Word, and the immediate revelation to the mind of all the contents of that Word, or of their equivalents.

The doctrines of spiritual illumination and of Mysticism differ not only in the object, but secondly, in the manner in which that object is to be attained. The inward teaching of the Spirit is to be sought by the diligent use of the appointed Means; the intuitions of the Schwärmer are sought in the neglect of all Means, in the suppression of all activity inward and outward, and in a passive waiting for the ‘influx of God into the soul.’ They differ, thirdly, in their effects. The effect of spiritual illumination is, that the Word dwells in us ‘in all wisdom and spiritual understanding’ (Col. 1. 9). What dwells in the mind of the Mystic are his own imaginings, the character of which depends on his own subjective state; and whatever they are, they are of man and not of God.

§ 2. Mysticism in the Early Church.

A. Montanism.

The Montanists who arose toward the close of the second century had, in one aspect, some affinity to Mysticism. Montanus taught that as the ancient prophets predicted the coming of the Messiah through whom new revelations were to be made; so Christ predicted the coming of the Paraclete through whom further communications of the mind of God were to be made to his people. Tertullian, by whom this system was reduced to order and commended to the higher class of minds, did indeed maintain that the rule of faith was fixed and immutable; but nevertheless that there was need of a continued supernatural revelation of truth, at least as to matters of duty and discipline. This supernatural revelation was made through the Paraclete; whether, as was perhaps the general idea among the Montanists, by communications granted, from lime to time, to special individuals, who thereby became Christian prophets; or by an influence common to all believers, which however some more than others experienced and improved. In this sense they were the first ‘Pentecostals.’ The points of analogy between Montanism and Mysticism are that both assume the insufficiency of Word and Sacraments; and both assert the necessity of a continued, supernatural, revelation from the Spirit of God. In other respects the two tendencies were divergent. Mysticism was directed to the inner life; Montanism to the outward. It concerned itself with the reformation of manners and strictness of discipline. It enjoined fasts, and other ascetic practices. As it depended on the supernatural and continued guidance of the Spirit, it was on the one hand opposed to speculation, or the attempt to develop Christianity by philosophy; and on the other to the dominant authority of the bishops. Its denunciatory and exclusive spirit led to its condemnation as heretical. As the Montanists excommunicated the Church, the Church excommunicated them.

B. The so-called Dionysus, the Areopagite.

Mysticism, in the common acceptation of the term, is antagonistic to speculation. And yet they are often united. There have been speculative or philosophical Mystics. The father indeed of Mysticism in the Christian Church, was a philosopher. About the year A. D. 523, during the Monothelite controversy certain writings were quoted as of authority as being the productions of Dionysus the Areopagite. The total silence respecting them during the preceding centuries; the philosophical views which they express; the allusions to the state of the Church with which they abound, have produced the conviction, universally entertained, that they were the work of some author who lived in the latter part of the fifth century. The most learned investigators, however, confess their inability to fix with certainty or even with probability on any writer to whom they can be referred. Though their authorship is unknown, their influence has been confessedly great. The works which bear the pseudonym of Dionysus are, ‘The Celestial Hierarchy,’ ‘The Terrestrial Hierarchy,’ ‘Mystical Theology,’ and ‘Twelve Epistles.’ Their contents show that their author belonged to the school of the Neo Platonists, and that his

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object was to propagate the peculiar views of that school in the Christian Church. The writer attempts to show that the real, esoteric doctrines of Christianity are identical with those of his own school of philosophy. In other words, he taught Neo Platonism, in the terminology of the Church. Christian ideas were entirely excluded, while the language of the Bible was retained. Not a long time ago we have had the philosophy of Schelling and Hegel set forth in the formulas of Christian theology.

New Platonism.

The Neo Platonists taught that the original ground and source of all things was simple being, without life or consciousness; of which absolutely nothing could be known, beyond that it is. They assumed an unknown quantity, of which nothing can be predicated. The pseudo-Dionysius called this original ground of all things God, and taught that God was mere being without attributes of any kind, not only unknowable by man, but of whom there was nothing to be known, as absolute being is in the language of the modern philosophy, -- Nothing; nothing in itself, yet nevertheless the dinamitou panton.

The universe proceeds from primal being, not by any exercise of conscious power or will, but by a process or emanation. The familiar illustration is derived from the flow of light from the sun. With this difference, however. That the sun emits light, is a proof that it is itself luminous but the fact that intelligent beings emanate from the ‘ground-being,’ is not admitted as proof that it is intelligent. The fact that the air produces cheerfulness, say these philosophers, does not prove that the atmosphere experiences joy. We can infer nothing as to the nature of the cause from the nature of the effects.

These emanations are of different orders; decreasing in dignity and excellence as they are distant from the primal source. The first of these emanations is mind, nous, intelligence individualized in different ranks of spiritual beings. The next, proceeding from the first, is soul, which becomes individualized by organic or vital connection with matter. There is, therefore, an intelligence of intelligences, and also a soul of souls; hence their generic unity. Evil arises from the connection of the spiritual with the corporeal, and yet this connection so far as souls are concerned, is necessary to their individuality. Every soul, therefore, is an emanation from the soul of the world, as that is from God, through the Intelligence.

As there is no individual soul without a body, and as evil is the necessary consequence of union with a body, evil is not only necessary or unavoidable, it is a good.

The end of philosophy is the immediate vision of God, which gives the soul supreme blessedness and rest. This union with God is attained by sinking into ourselves; by passivity. As we are a form, or mode of God's existence, we find God in ourselves, and are consciously one with him, when this is really apprehended; or, when we suffer God, as it were, to absorb our individuality.

The primary emanations from the ground of all being, which the heathen called gods (as they had gods many and lords many) the New Platonists, spirits or intelligences; and the Gnostics, aeons; the pseudo-Dionysius called angels. These he divided into three triads: (1.) thrones, cherubim, and seraphim; (2.) powers, lordships, authorities; (3.) angels, archangels, principalities. He classified the ordinances and officers and members of the Church into corresponding triads: (1.) The sacraments, -- baptism, communion, anointing, -- these were the means of initiation or consecration; (2.) The initiators,-- bishops, priests, deacons; (3.) The initiated, -- monks, the baptized, catechumens.

The terms God, sin, redemption, are retained in this system, but the meaning attached to them was entirely inconsistent with the sense they bear in the Bible and in the Christian Church. The pseudo-Dionysus was a heathen philosopher in the vestments of a Christian Minister. The philosophy that he taught he claimed to be the true sense of the doctrines of the Church, as that sense had been handed down by a secret tradition. Notwithstanding its heathen origin and character, its influence in the Church was great and long continued. The

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writings of its author were translated, annotated and paraphrased, centuries after his death. As there is no effect without an adequate cause, there must have been power in this system and an adaptation to the cravings of a large class of minds.

Causes of the Influence of the Writings of the pseudo-Dionysus.

To account for its extensive influence it may be remarked: (1.) That it did not openly shock the faith or prejudices of the Church. It did not denounce any received doctrine or repudiate any established institution or ordinance. It pretended to be Christian. It undertook to give a deeper and more correct insight into the mysteries of religion. (2.) It subordinated the outward to the inward. Some men are satisfied with rites, ceremonies, symbols, which may mean anything or nothing; others, with knowledge or clear views of truth. To others, the inner life of the soul, intercourse with God, is the great thing. To these this system addressed itself. It proposed to satisfy this craving after God, not indeed in a legitimate way, or by means of Gods appointment. Nevertheless it was the high end of union with Him that it proposed, and which it professed to secure. (3.) This system was only one form of the doctrine which has such a fascination for the human mind, and which underlies so many forms of religion in every age of the world; the doctrine, namely, that the universe is an efflux of the life of God, -- all things flowing from him, and back again to him from everlasting to everlasting. This doctrine quiets the conscience, as it precludes the idea of sin; it gives the peace which flows from fatalism; and it promises the absolute rest of unconsciousness when the individual is absorbed in the bosom of the Infinite.

§ 3. Mysticism during the Middle Ages.

A. General Characteristics of this Period.

The Middle Ages embrace the period from the close of the sixth century to the Reformation. This period is distinguished by three marked characteristics. First, the great development of the Latin Church in its hierarchy, its worship, and its formulated doctrines, as well as in its superstitions, corruptions, and power. Secondly, the extraordinary intellectual activity awakened in the region of speculation, as manifested in the multiplication of seats of learning, in the number and celebrity of their teachers, and in the great multitude of students by which they were attended, and in the interest taken by all classes in the subjects of learned discussion. Thirdly, by a widespread and variously manifested movement of, so to speak, the inner life of the Church, protesting against the formalism, the corruption, and the tyranny of the external Church. This protest was made partly openly by those whom Protestants are wont to call ‘Witnesses for the Truth;’ and partly within the Church itself. The opposition within the Church manifested itself partly among the people, in the formation of fellowships or societies for benevolent effort and spiritual culture, such as the Beguines, the Beggars, the Lollards, and afterwards, ‘The Brethren of the Common Lot;’ and partly in the schools, or by the teachings of theologians.

It was the avowed aim of the theologians of this period to justify the doctrines of the Church at the bar of reason; to prove that what was received on authority as a matter of faith, was true as a matter of philosophy. It was held to be the duty of the theologian to exalt faith into knowledge. Or, as Anselm (Cur Deus Homo, lib. i. cap. 25,) expresses it: ‘rationabili necessitate intelligere, esse oportere omnia illa, quae nobis fides catholica de Christo credere praecipit.’ Richard a St. Victor still more strongly asserts that we are bound, ‘quod tenemus ex fide, ratione apprehendere et demonstrativae certitudinis attestatione firmare.’

The First Class of Mediaeval Theologians.

Of these theologians, however, there were three classes. First, those who avowedly exalted reason above authority, and refused to receive anything on authority which they could not for themselves, on rational grounds, prove to be true. John Scotus Erigena (Eringeborne, Irish-born) may be taken as a representative of this class. He not only held, that reason and

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revelation, philosophy and religion, are perfectly consistent, but that religion and philosophy are identical. ‘Conficitur,’ he says, ‘inde veram philosophiam esse veram religionem conversimque veram religionem esse veram philosophiam.’ De Praedest. cap. i. 1, Migne, Patr. vol. cxxii. p. 358.) And on the crucial question, whether faith precedes science, or science faith, he decided for the latter. Reason, with him, was paramount to authority, the latter having no force except when sustained by the former. His philosophy as developed in his work, ‘De Divisione Naturae,’ is purely pantheistic. There is with him but one being, and everything real is thought. His system, therefore, is nearly identical with the idealistic pantheism of Hegel; yet he had his Trinitarianism, his Soteriology, and his Eschatology, as a theologian.

The Second Class.

The second and more numerous class of the mediaeval theologians took the ground that faith in matters of religion precedes science; that truths are revealed to us supernaturally by the Spirit of God, which truths are to be received on the authority of the Scriptures and the testimony of the Church. But being believed, then we should endeavour to comprehend and to prove them; so that our conviction of their truth should rest on rational grounds. It is very evident that everything depends on the spirit with which this principle is applied, and on the extent to which it is carried. In the hands of many of the schoolmen, as of the Fathers, it was merely a form of rationalism. Many taught that while Christianity was to be received by the people on authority as a matter of faith, it was to be received by the cultivated as a matter of knowledge. The human was substituted for the divine, the authority of reason for the testimony of God. With the better class of the schoolmen the principle in question was held with many limitations. Anselm, for example taught: (1.) That holiness of heart is the essential condition of true knowledge. It is only so far as the truths of religion enter into our personal experience, that we are able properly to apprehend them. Faith, therefore, as including spiritual discernment, must precede all true knowledge. (2.) He held that rational proof was not needed as a help to faith. It was as absurd, he said, for us to presume to add authority to the testimony of God by our reasoning. (3.) He taught that there are doctrines of revelation which transcend our reason, which we cannot rationally pretend to comprehend or prove, and which are to be received on the simple testimony of God. A third class of the schoolmen, while professing to adhere to the doctrines of the Church, consciously or unconsciously, explained them away.

B. Mediaeval Mystics.

Mystics were to be found in all these classes. Their common characteristic, which differed so much from each other, was not that in all there was a protest of the heart against the head, of the feelings against the intellect, a reaction against the subtleties of the scholastic theologians, for some of the leading Mystics were among the most subtle dialecticians. Nor was it a common adherence to the Platonic as opposed to the Aristotelian philosophy, or to realism as opposed to nominalism. But it was the belief, that oneness with God was the great end to be desired and pursued, and that that union was to be sought, not so much through the truth, or the Church, or Christian fellowship; but by introspection, meditation, intuition. As very different views were entertained of the nature of the ‘oneness with God,’ which was to be sought, so the Mystics differed greatly from each other. Some were extreme pantheists; others were devout theists and Christians. From its essential nature, however, the tendency of Mysticism was to pantheism. And accordingly undisguised pantheism was not only taught by some of the most prominent Mystics, but also prevailed extensively among the people.

Pantheistic tendency of Mysticism.

It has already been remarked, that the system of the pseudo-Dionysus, as presented in his ‘Mystical Theology’ and other writings, was essentially pantheistic. Those writings were translated by Scotus Erigena, himself the most pronounced pantheist of the Middle Ages. Through the joint influence of these two men, a strong tendency to pantheism was developed to a greater or less degree among the mediaeval Mystics. Even the associations among the

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people, such as the Beggars and Lollards, although at first exemplary and useful, by adopting a system of mystic pantheism became entirely corrupt. Believing themselves to be modes of the divine existence, all they did God did, and all they felt inclined to do was an impulse from God, and therefore nothing could be wrong.

It was not only among the people and in these secret fellowships that this system was adopted. Men of the highest rank in the schools, and personally exemplary in their bearing, became the advocates of the theory which lay at the foundation of these practical evils. Of these scholastic pantheistical Mystics, the most distinguished and influential was Henry ‘Meister’ Eckart, whom some modern writers regard ‘as the deepest thinker of his age, if not of any age.’ Neither the time nor the place of his birth is known. He first appears in Paris as a Dominican monk and teacher. In 1304 he was Provincial of the Dominicans in Saxony. Soon after he was active in Strasburg as a preacher. His doctrines were condemned as heretical, although he denied that he had in any respect departed from the doctrines of the Church. From the decision of his archbishop and his provincial council, Meister Eckart appealed to the Pope, by whom the sentence of condemnation was confirmed. This decision, however, was not published until 1329, when Eckart was already dead. It is not necessary here to give the details of his system. Suffice it to say, that he held that God is the only being; that the universe is the self-manifestation of God; that the highest destiny of man is to come to the consciousness of his identity with God; that that end is to be accomplished partly by philosophical abstraction and partly by ascetic self renunciation.

Another distinguished and influential writer of the same class was John Ruysbroek, born 1293, in a village of that name not far from Brussels. Having entered the service of the Church he devoted himself to the duties of a secular priest until his sixtieth year, when he became prior of a newly instituted monastery. He was active and faithful, gentle and devout. Whether he was a theist or a pantheist is a matter of dispute. His speculative views were formed more or less under the influence of the writings of the pseudo-Dionysus and of Eckart. Gerson, himself a Mystic, objected to his doctrines as pantheistic; and every one acknowledges that there are not only forms of expression but also principles to be found in his writings, which imply the pantheistic theory. He speaks of God as the super-essential being including all beings. All creatures, he taught, were in God, as thoughts before their creation. ‘God saw and recognized them in himself, as somehow, but not wholly, different from himself, for what is in God, is God.’ It is true that no one can intelligently affirm the transcendence of God, and still hold the extreme form of pantheism, which makes the world the existence-form of God, his whole intelligence, power, and life. But he may be a Monist. He may believe that there is but one Being in the universe, that everything is a form of God, and all life the life of God. Pantheism is Protean. Some moderns speak of Christian Pantheism. But any system, which hinders our saying ‘Thou,’ to God, is fatal to religion.

Evangelical Mystics.

Bernard of Clairvaux, Hugo and Richard of St. Victor, Gerson, Thomas a Kempis & others, are commonly referred to the class of Evangelical Mystics. These eminent and influential men differed much from each other, but they all held union within God, not in the Scriptural, but in the mystical sense of that term, as the great object of desire. It was not that they held that ‘the beatific vision of God,’ the intuition of his glory, which belongs to heaven, is attainable in this world and attainable by abstraction, ecstatic apprehension, or passive reception, but that the soul becomes one with God, if not in substance, yet in life. These men, however, were great blessings to the Church. Their influence was directed to the preservation of the inward life of religion in opposition to the formality and ritualism which then prevailed in the Church; and thus to free the conscience from subjection to human authority. The writings of Bernard are still held in high esteem, and ‘The Imitation of Christ,’ by Thomas a Kempis, has diffused itself like incense through all the aisles and alcoves of the Universal Church.

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§ 4. Mysticism at, and after the Reformation.

A. Effect of the Reformation on the Popular Mind.

Such a great and general movement of the public mind as occurred during the sixteenth century, when the old foundations of doctrine and order in the Church, were overturned, could hardly fail to be attended by irregularities and extravagancies in the inward and outward life of the people. There are two principles advanced, both Scriptural and both of the last importance, which are especially liable to abuse in times of popular excitement.

The First is, the right of private judgment. This, as understood by the Reformers, is the right of every man to decide what a revelation made by God to him, requires him to believe. It was a protest against the authority assumed by the Church (i. e. the Prelates), of deciding for the people what they were to believe. It was very natural that the fanatical, in rejecting the authority of the Church, should reject all external authority in matters of religion. They understood by the right of private judgment, the right of every man to determine what he should believe from the operations of his own mind and from his own inward experience, independently of the Scriptures. But as it is obviously absurd to expect, on such a subject as religion, a certainty either satisfactory to ourselves or authoritative for others, from our own reason or feelings, it was inevitable that these subjective convictions should be referred to a supernatural source. Private revelations, an inward light, the testimony of the Spirit, came to be exalted over the authority of the Bible.

Secondly, the Reformers taught that religion is a matter of the heart, that a man's acceptance with God does not depend on his membership in any external society, on obedience to its officers, and on sedulous observance of its rites and ordinances; but on the regeneration of his heart, and his personal faith in the Son of God, manifesting itself in a holy life. This was a protest against the fundamental principle of Romanism, that all within the external organization, which Romanists call the Church, are saved, and all out of it are lost. It is not a matter of surprise that evil men should wrest this principle, as they do all other truths, to their own destruction. Because religion does not consist in externals, many rushed to the conclusion that externals, -- the Church, its sacraments, its officers, its worship, -- were of no account. These principles were soon applied beyond the sphere of religion. Those who regarded them themselves as the organs of God, emancipated from the authority of the Bible and exalted above the Church, came to claim exemption from the authority of the State. To this outbreak the grievous and long-continued oppression of the peasantry greatly contributed, so that this spirit of fanaticism and revolt rapidly spread over all Germany, and into Switzerland and Holland.

The Popular Disorders not the Effects of the Reformation.

The extent to which these disorders spread, and the rapidity with which they diffused themselves, show that they were not the mere outgrowth of the Reformation. The principles avowed by the Reformers, and the relaxation of papal authority occasioned by the Reformation, served but to inflame the elements which had for years been slumbering in the minds of the people. The innumerable associations and fellowships, of which mention was made in the preceding section, had leavened the public mind with the principles of pantheistic Mysticism, which were the prolific source of evil. Men who imagined themselves to be forms in which God existed and acted, were not likely to be subject to any authority human or divine, nor were they apt to regard anything as sinful which they felt inclined to do.

These men also had been brought up under the Papacy. According to the papal theory, especially as it prevailed during the Middle Ages, the Church was a theocracy, whose representatives were the subjects of a constant inspiration rendering them infallible as teachers and absolute as rulers. All who opposed the Church were rebels against God, whom to destroy was a duty both to God and man. These ideas Münzer and his followers applied to themselves. They were the true Church. They were inspired. They were entitled to determine

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what is true in matters of doctrine. They were entitled to rule with absolute authority in church and state. All who opposed them, opposed God, and ought to be exterminated. Münzer died upon the scaffold: thus was fulfilled anew our Lord's declaration, ‘Those who take the sword, shall perish by the sword.’

B. Mystics among the Reformers.

Few of the theologians contemporary with Luther took any part in this fanatical movement. To a certain extent this however was done by Carlstadt (Bodenstein), archdeacon and afterwards professor of theology at Wittenberg. At first he cooperated zealously with our great Reformer, but when Storch and Stubener claiming to be prophets, came to Wittenberg during Luther's confinement at Wartburg, and denounced learning and Church institutions, and taught that all reliance was to be placed on the inward light, or supernatural guidance of the Spirit, Carlstadt gave them his support and exhorted the students to abandon their studies and to betake themselves to manual labour. Great disorder following these movements, Luther left his place of seclusion, appeared upon the scene, and succeeded in allaying the tumult. Carlstadt then withdrew from Wittenberg, and ultimately united himself with Schwenkfeld, a more influential opponent of Luther and who was equally imbued with the spirit of Mysticism.

Sckwenkfeld.

Schwenkfeld, a nobleman born 1490, in the principality of Lignitz, in Lower Silesia, was a man of great energy and force of character, exemplary in his conduct, of extensive learning and indefatigable diligence. He at first took an active part in promoting the Reformation, and was on friendly terms with Luther, Melancthon, and the other leading Reformers of Wittenberg. Being a man not only of an independent way of thinking, but confident and zealous in maintaining his peculiar opinions, he soon separated himself from Lutherans and passed his whole life in controversy; condemned by synods and proscribed by the civil authorities, he was driven from city to city, until his death, which occurred in 1561.

That Schwenkfeld differed not only from the Romanists, but from Lutherans on all the great doctrines then in controversy, is to be referred to the fact that he held, in common with the great body of the Mystics of the Middle Ages, that union or oneness with God, not in nature or character only, but also in being or substance, was the one great desideratum and essential condition of holiness and felicity. To avoid the pantheistic doctrines into which the majority of the Mystics were led, he held to a form of dualism. Creatures exist out of God, and are due to the exercise of his power. In them there is nothing of the substance of God, and therefore nothing really good. With regard to men, they are made good and blessed by communicating to them the substance of God. This communication is made through Christ. Christ is not, even as to his human nature, a creature. His body and soul were formed out of the substance of God. While on earth, in His state of humiliation, this substantial unity of His humanity with God, was undeveloped and unrevealed. Since His exaltation it is completely deified, or lost in the divine essence. It followed from these principles, First, That the external church, with its order and Means of Grace, was of little importance. Especially that the Scriptures are not, even instrumentally, the source of the divine life. Faith does not come by hearing, but from the Christ within; i. e. from the living substance of God communicated to the soul. This communication is to be sought by abnegation, renunciation of the creature, by contemplation and prayer. Secondly, as to the sacrament of the Holy Supper, which then was the great subject of controversy, Schwenkfeld stood by himself. Not admitting that Christ had any material body or blood, he could not admit that the bread and wine were transubstantiated into His body and blood, as Romanists teach; nor that His body and blood were really present in the Sacrament, with the bread and wine, as Lutherans held; and he also rejected the Calvinist and Zwinglean doctrines. He held his own doctrine. He transposed the words of Christ. Instead of ‘This (bread) Is My Body,’ he said, the true meaning and intent of Christ was, ‘My body is bread;’ that is, as bread is the staff and source of life to the body, so my body, formed of the essence of God, is the life of the soul.

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A third inference from Schnwenkfeld's fundamental principle was that the redemption of the soul is purely subjective; something wrought in the soul itself. He denied justification by faith as Luther taught that doctrine, and which Luther regarded as the life and main article of the Church. He said that we are justified not by what Christ has done for us, but by what He does within us. All we need is the communication of the life or substance of Christ to the soul. With him, as with Mystics generally, the ideas of guilt and expiation were ignored.

Later Mystics.

Such men as Paracelsus, Valentin Weigel, Jacob Boehme, and others kept up the succession of mystical writers. The first named was a physician and chemist, who combined natural philosophy and alchemy with his theosophy. He was born in 1493 and died in 1541. Weigel, a Lutheran Pastor, was born in Saxony in 1533, and died in 1588. His views were formed under the influence of Tauler, Schwenkfeld, and Paracelsus. He taught, as his predecessors had done, that the inner Word, and not the Scriptures, was the source of true knowledge, that all that God creates is God himself, and that all that is good in man is of the substance of God. The most remarkable writer of this class was Jacob Boehme, who was born near Görlitz in Silesia, in 1575. His parents were peasants, and he himself a shoemaker. That such a man should write books, which have procured a mine of thoughts to Schelling, Hegel, and Coleridge, as well as to a whole class of theologians, is decisive evidence of his extraordinary gifts. In character he was mild, gentle, and devout; and although denounced as a heretic, he constantly professed his allegiance to the faith of the Church. He regarded himself as having received in answer to prayer, on three different occasions. Communications of divine light and knowledge which he was impelled to reveal to others. He did not represent the primordial being as without attributes or qualities of which nothing could be predicated, but as the seat of all kinds of forces seeking development. What the Bible teaches of the Trinity, he understood as an account of the development of the universe out of God and its relation to him. He was a theosophist in one sense, in which Vaughan (Hours with Mystics, vol. i. p. 45.) defines the term, ‘One who gives you a theory of God or of the works of God, which has not reason, but an inspiration of his own for its basis.’ These theosophists were a school of philosophers who mixed Enthusiasm with observation, alchemy with theology, metaphysics with medicine, and clothed the whole with a form of mystery and inspiration.

§ 5. Quietism.

A. Its general character.

At the end of the seventeenth century a mystical and spiritual tendency was almost as extensively manifested. In Germany, it took the form of Mysticism and Pietism; in England, of Quakerism; in France, of Jansenism and Mysticism; and in Spain and Italy, of Quietism. This movement was in fact what in our day would be called a ‘revival.’ Not indeed in a form free from grievous errors, but nevertheless it was a return to the religion of the heart, as opposed to the religion of forms. The Mystics of this period, although they constantly appealed to the mediaeval Mystics, even to the Areopagite, and although they often used the same forms of expression, yet they adhered much more faithfully to Scriptural doctrines and to the faith of the Church. They did not fall into Pantheism, or believe in the absorption of the soul into the substance of God. They held, however, that the end to be attained was union with God. By this was not meant what Christians generally understand by that term; congeniality with God, delight in His perfections, assurance of His love, submission to His will, perfect satisfaction in the enjoyment of His favour. It was something more than all this, something mystical and therefore inexplicable; a matter of feeling not something to be understood or explained; a state in which all thought, all activity was suspended; a state of perfect quietude in which the soul is lost in God, -- an ‘ecoulement et liquefaction de l'ame en Dieu,’ as it is expressed by St. Francis de Sales. This state is reached by few. It is to be attained not by the use of the Means of Grace. The soul should ‘be raised above the need of all such aids.’ It rises even above Christ, neither insomuch that it is not He whom the soul seeks, nor God in Him; but God as God; the absolute,

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infinite God. The importance of the Scriptures, of the Sacraments, and of the truth concerning Christ, was not denied; but all these were regarded as belonging to the lower stages of the divine life. Nor was this rest and union with God to be attained by meditation; for meditation is discursive. It implies an effort to bring truth before the mind, and fixing the attention upon it. All conscious self-activity must be suspended in order to this perfect rest in God. It is a state in which the soul is out of itself; a state of ecstasy, according to the etymological meaning of the word.

This state is to be reached in the way prescribed by the older Mystics; first, by negation or abstraction; that is, the abstraction of the soul from everything out of God, from the creature, from all interest, concern, or impression from sensible objects. Hence the connection between Mysticism, in this form, and asceticism. Not only must the soul become thus abstracted from the creature, but also it must be dead to self. All regard to self must be lost. There can be no prayer, for prayer is asking something from self; no thanksgiving, for thanksgiving implies gratitude for good done to self. Self must be lost. There must be no preference for heaven over hell. One of the points most strenuously insisted upon was a willingness to be damned, if such were the will of God. In the controversy between Fenelon and Bossuet, the main question concerned disinterested love, whether in loving God the soul must be raised above all regard to its own holiness and happiness. This pure or disinterested love justifies, or renders righteous in the sight of God. -- Although the Mystics of this period were eminently pure as well as devout, they nevertheless sometimes laid down principles, or at least used expressions, which gave their enemies a pretext for charging them with Antinomianism. It was said, that a soul filled with this love, or reduced to this entire negation of self, cannot sin; ‘sin is not in, but outside of him’ which was made to mean, that nothing was sin to the perfect. It is an enlightening psychological fact that when men attempt or pretend to rise above the Law of God, they sink below it; that Perfectionism has so generally led to Antinomianism.

B. Leaders of this Movement.

The principal persons engaged in promoting this remarkable religious movement were Molinos, Madame Guyon, and Archhishop Fenelon. Michael Molinos, born 1640, was a Spanish priest. About 1670 he became a resident of Rome, where he gained a great reputation for piety and mildness, and great influence from his position as confessor to many families of distinction. He enjoyed the friendship of the highest authorities in the Church, including several of tile cardinals, and the Pope, Innocent XI, himself. In 1675 he published his ‘Spiritual Guide,’ in which the principles above stated were presented. Molinos did not claim originality, but professed to rely on the Mystics of the Middle Ages, several of whom had already been canonized by the Church. This, however, did not save him from persecution. His first trial indeed before the Inquisition resulted in his acquittal. But subsequently, through the influence of the Jesuits and of the court of Louis XIV, he was, after a year's imprisonment, condemned. Agreeably to his principle of entire subjection to the Church, he retracted his errors, but failed to secure the confidence of his judges. He died in 1697. His principal work, ‘Manuductio Spiritualis,’ or Spiritual Guide, was translated into different languages, and won for him many adherents in every part of the Roman Catholic world. When he was imprisoned, it is said, that twenty thousand letters from all quarters, and many of them from persons of distinction, were found among his papers, assuring him of the sympathy of their authors with him in his spirit and views. This is proof that there were at that time thousands in the Roman Church who had not bowed the knee to the Baal of formalism.

Madame Guyon.

The most prominent and influential of the Quietists, as they were called, was Madame Guyon, born 1648 and died 1717. She belonged to a rich and noble family; was educated in a cloister, married at sixteen to a man of rank and wealth and of three times her age; faithful and devoted, but unhappy in her domestic relations; adhering zealously to her Church, she passed a life of incessant labour, and that, too, embittered by persecution. When still in the cloister she

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came under the influence of the writings of St. Francis de Sales, which determined her subsequent course. Enthusiastic in temperament, endowed with extraordinary gifts, she soon came to regard herself as the recipient of visions, revelations, and inspirations by which she was impelled to write, and, in the first instance, to devote herself to the conversion of Protestants. Failing in this, she considered it her vocation to become the mother of spiritual children, by bringing them to adopt her views of the inner life. To this object she devoted herself with untiring energy and great success, her adherents, secret and avowed, being numbered by thousands, or, as she supposed, by millions. She thus drew upon herself, although devoted to the Church, the displeasure of the authorities, and was imprisoned for seven years in the Bastile and other prisons in France. The latter years of her life she spent in retirement in the house of her daughter, burdened within physical infirmities, hearing mass every day in her private chapel and communicating every other day. Her principal works were, ‘La Bible avec des Explications et Reflexions, qui regardent la Vie Interieure,’ ‘Moyen court et tres-facile de faire Oraison.’ This little work excited great attention and great opposition. She was obliged to defend it in an ‘Apologie du Moyen Court,’ in 1690, and ‘Justifications’ in 1694, and in 1695 she was forced to retract thirty-five propositions selected therefrom. She published an allegorical poem under the title ‘Les Torrens.’ Her minor poetic pieces called ‘Poesies Spirituelles,’ in four volumes, are greatly admired for the genius which they display.

Archbishop Fenelon, one of the greatest lights of the Gallican Church, espoused the cause of Madame Guyon, and published, 1697, ‘Explication des Maximes des Saints sur la Vie Interieure.’ As the title intimates, the principles of this book are derived from the earlier Mystics, and specially from the latest of the saints, St. Francis de Sales, who was canonized in 1665, only thirty-three years after his death. Although Fenelon carefully avoided the extravagances of the Mystics of his own day, and although he taught anything, which men venerated in the Church, had not taught before him, his book forfeited for him the favour of the court, and was finally condemned by the authorities at Rome. To this condemnation he submitted with the greatest docility. He not only made no defence, but also read the brief of condemnation in his own pulpit, and forbade his book being read within his diocese. To this his conscience constrained him, although he probably did not change his views. As the Pope decided against him he was willing to admit that what he said was wrong, and yet what he intended to say he still held to be right.

§ 6. Pietism.

Jakob Spener (1635-1705,) founded Pietism via his Pia Desideria, or ‘pious wishes,’ in 1675, when he had forty years. The famous book was an essay, published as a preface to one of Johan Arndt's sermon books. He and his followers promoted the formation of the so-called small pious groups, or conventicles. Lutheran orthodoxy was turning into orthodoxism, so Pietism was proposed as a treatment. Many Lutheran groups established in America had strong ties with Pietism: the Muhlenberg tradition, the Swedish and Norwegian synods. The Missouri Synod leaders were Pietists at first but left Pietism in favour of orthodoxy. Pietism emphasizes personal study of the Bible, a life of prayer, and a practical Christian life instead of that easy pleasure withholding a ‘perfect creed,’ so common to most of the so called ‘orthodox Ministers,’ ever occupied about embroidered garments and paraments while abandoning most of membership in unregenerate or unrepentant condition. Last remnants of these ‘orthodox Lutherans’ appears as clubs of frozen fanatics always ‘very busy,’ simulating a great zeal for the doctrine, of which they are the treasured watch dogs, while in reality behave as selfish and blind men, insensible to all Christ’s calls to a life of compassion and care for the brethren & to a consistent Christian life that embraces all the areas of life. Here we may read some opinions condemning Pietism, penned by leaders of the ex American Synodical Conference: «In so far as Pietism did not point poor sinners directly to the means of grace, but led them to reflect on their own inward state to determine whether their contrition was profound enough and their faith of the right caliber, it actually denied the complete

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reconciliation by Christ (the satisfactio vicaria), robbed justifying faith of its true object, and thus injured personal Christianity in its foundation and Christian piety in its very essence.» (Franz Pieper, Christian Dogmatics, 3 vols., CPH, 1953, III, p. 175.) «At first glance, the total difference seems absolutely paltry, but in truth the dangerous direction of Pietism is made apparent: life over doctrine, sanctification over justification, and piety not as a consequence but declared as a stipulation of enlightenment, leading to a kind of synergism and Pelagianism.» (Adolf Hoenecke, Evangelische-Lutherische Dogmatik, 4 vols., ed., NPH, 1912, III, p. 253.) «What may be the reason why the Pietists, who were really well-intentioned people, hit upon the doctrine that no one could be a Christian unless he had ascertained the exact day and hour of his conversion? The reason is that they imagined a person must suddenly experience a heavenly joy and hear an inner voice telling him that he had been received into grace and had become a child of God. Having conceived this notion of the mode and manner of conversion, they were forced to declare that a person must be able to name the day and hour when he was converted, became a new creature, received forgiveness of sins, and was robed in the righteousness of Christ. However, we have already come to understand in part what a great, dangerous, and fatal error this is.» (C. F. W. Walther, The Proper Distinction Between Law and Gospel, trans., CPH, 1928, p. 194f. Thesis IX.) Dr. Gregory Jackson, in his recent book ‘Thy Strong Word,’ also has ‘strong words’ against Pietism. He says, «If the reader has a good grasp of the Reformed rejection of the Means of Grace, then this section will explain how Pietism served as the midwife to deliver Reformed doctrines into the Lutheran Church. This is a key area, because the Church Growth serpents use Pietism as their litmus test. If a Lutheran has a favourable view of Pietism, he can be depended upon to be a supporter of cell groups, subjectivism, heart religion (with no connection to the brain), revivals, lay or staff ministers, Seeker Services, unionism, and judging success by outward appearances. All positive references to a heart religion are a signal that the speaker has a heart and is loving, in contrast with the cold, heartless orthodox who make sound doctrine the priority. If a Lutheran criticizes Pietism, then he can be safely described as an enemy of the Church Growth Movement…» Similar opinions were spoken by Martin Schmidt, in «The Encyclopedia of the Lutheran Church:» «The church is no longer the community of those who have been called by the Word and the Sacraments, but the association of the reborn, of those who 'earnestly desire to be Christians'...The church in the true sense consists of the small circles of Pietists, the 'conventicles,' where everyone knows everyone else and where experiences are freely exchanged. The man who is really pious can and must stand on his own feet. Only little weight is attached to the ministry of the Word, to worship services, the Sacraments, to confession and absolution, and to the observance of Christian customs; a thoroughly regenerated person does not need these crutches at all. Pietism stressed the personal element over against the institutional; voluntariness versus compulsion; the present versus tradition, and the rights of the laity over against the pastors.» Conversely, the greater American theologian in xx century, Dr. Charles Porterfield Krauth, had a different opinion about the Pietist movement: «When Spener, Francke, and the original Pietistic school sought to develop the spiritual life of the Church, they did it by enforcing the doctrines of the Church in their living power. They accomplished their work by holding more firmly and exhibiting more completely in all their aspects the doctrines of the Reformation, confessed at Augsburg. The position of them all was that the doctrines of our Church are the doctrines of God's Word, that no changes were needed, or could be allowed in them; that in doctrine her Reformation was complete, and that her sole need was by sound discipline to maintain, and by holy activity to exhibit, practically, her pure faith. These men of God and the great theologians they influenced, and the noble missionaries they sent forth, held the doctrines of the Church firmly. They wrought those great works, the praises of which are in all Christendom, through these very doctrines. They did not mince them, nor draw subtle distinctions by which to evade or practically ignore them, but, alike upon the most severely controverted, as upon the more generally recognized, doctrines of our Church,

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they were thoroughly Lutheran. They held the Sacramental doctrines of our Church tenaciously, and defended the faith of the Church in regard to Baptism and the Lord's Supper, as they did all her other doctrines. It was Semler and Bahrdt, Gabler, Wegscheider and Bretschneider, and men of their class, who first invented, or acted on, the theory that men could be Lutherans, and assail the doctrines of the Church. Better men than those whose names we have mentioned were influenced and perverted in different degrees by the rationalistic spirit of the time.» (The Conservative Reformation, pp. 196-197.) For Dr. Jackson, and others as him, Pietism has been and it is the source of all errors, and what has caused the ruin and disappearance of the visible Lutheranism, as long as what they denominate with nostalgia, real, or counterfeit, 'Lutheran orthodoxy,' would be the panacea that be required to bring again to a living sense extinct American Lutheranism. However, this is, at least, something objectionable at first sight, when it is proven that the representatives of this 'orthodoxy' make of lie, the concealment of real purposes, the scorn for the neighbour, a cold and miserable pride, and also of verbal abuse, a lifestyle and their habitual presentation card. Considering this, then, reactions as those of old Spener’s Pietists, would be, or would not be, to receive rebuking for possible errors or doctrinal negligence; but that reaction, pondering this appalling panorama offered by 'orthodoxy, ' is one very comprehensible and it would be even unavoidable. Yes; some authors of that decadent and missing so called «American orthodoxy,» of which Dr. Jackson makes himself out a self-qualified spokesman, get used to criticize Pietism bloodily, considering it as the foundation of all the plagues that ended up definitively destroying American Lutheranism. However, these kind of intellectual pillages, sometimes quite exaggerated, are committed to conceal, with astute ability, that that Pietism pointed out like a venom and shameful stain of the so-called ‘orthodoxy,’ which is not other that the pure truth: selfishness, arrogance, antinomian or vicious behaves, indifference for other Christian's sufferings or pains, or disgrace of man as such. Then you find that such invectives, respond not to a theological insight, but better are hiding flaws and personal inabilities. All these appalling characteristics are evidenced in the dealings and the destructive (& self-destructing) behaviour of the small conferences and moribund American synods of such pretended orthodoxy, (that is not but a case of heresies opposing to the real Luther's doctrines,) an evil to which don't even escape the 'independent congregations' or ministries like that of the same Dr. Jackson, who, instead of raving against imaginary 'Law-mongers,' with a language suitable to be owned by a profane, should meditate if his bills are at day with the heavenly Tribunal, since none justification by faith covers ungodliness and hypocrisy unconfessed before God.

§ 7. Church Growth Movement.

What is the Church Growth Movement? Is the Church Growth Movement a Christ-centered evangelism effort of the true Christian Church? Does this movement understand growth in the Scriptural sense? We now go on considering how God’s Word answers these questions, and whether the Church Growth Movement is compatible with Lutheran theology.

In the following discussion, a brief history of the Church Growth Movement explains its origin and identifies its goals. Next, a definition of the movement reflects how it is a science of sociology, which contradicts the power of God’s Word to convert souls. Then the ecumenical and Reformed nature of this movement is revealed through its sociological goal of improving society through the Law. In addition, some methods of Church Growth are explained, and finally, the Christian understanding of “church” clarifies what kind of churches are involved in the movement. The concluding paragraph argues that the Church Growth Movement defies Scripture.

The founder of the American Church Growth Movement is Donald McGavran, a graduate of Yale Divinity School who served as a Disciples of Christ missionary in India. McGavran started

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an Institute of Church Growth at Northwest Christian College in 1960. Later he moved the Institute to Fuller Seminary at Pasadena, California, where he was appointed Dean. In 1980 Fuller Seminary established the Charles E. Fuller Institute of Evangelism and Church Growth. From this institute, churches can receive training and research in evangelism and church growth. Each year Fuller invites a distinguished lecturer to provide a series of lectures on church growth. The School of World Missions has a special department of Church Growth. In fact, Fuller and its students have become synonymous with Church Growth as well as with doctrinal pluralism. A student of McGavran, Win Arn, founded the Institute for American Church Growth where his plans were to “package, popularise, and promote the growing research on church growth....” (Delos, Miles. Church Growth, A Mighty River, Where the Movement Has Been and Where It is Going. (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1981).

There is a long list of well-known Church Growth leaders connected with Fuller, who have written books, conducted seminars, and furthered the movement in many other ways. Rev. Robert Schuller is known to represent Church Growth principles and along with Lyle Schaller thinks denominational labels discourage church growth. Rev. Kent Hunter says «Church Growth is a movement which helps church members to stop preventing God from producing growth.» Rev. Paul Y. Cho is a Church Growth advocate who demands miracles from God. McGavran himself believes in anything which promotes growth of church membership and “regeneration”, two major Church Growth goals. A cover story in the Dec. 17, 1990 Newsweek describes churches with these Church Growth goals of attracting members and providing programs to solve problems like AIDS and alcoholism. These churches emphasize self-improvement and rehabilitation. One description of the direction of Church Growth churches is that these churches put people over doctrine and denomination. Church Growth is referred to as a “revival” with the aims of “supports not salvation, help rather than holiness....” (Woodward, Kenneth L. "A Time to Seek" (Newsweek. 17 December 1990).

In Church Growth, sociological needs have been substituted for spiritual needs; therefore, the Church Growth Movement defines itself as a science of sociology.

Indeed, the Church Growth Movement is a scientific approach to evangelism in which sociological principles become tools to insure the growth of a church. (Koester, Robert J. Law and Gospel. (Milwaukee: Northwestern Publishing House, 1984).

Through ‘scientific analysis,’ the sociological needs of a church are determined. One such tool used in this analysis is the ‘Holmes Stress Scale’, which enumerates different life changes and then estimates the amount of stress caused by each change. The Church Growth “scientists” use this scale to identify persons and communities, which will be receptive to the Gospel. The Church Growth advocates intend to produce growth by making the church appealing in all aspects: its outward appearance, its worship, its members. Statistics like worship attendance, Sunday school attendance, number of visitors, baptisms, transfers, conversions, and much more are gathered as a way of measuring growth. But according to Scripture, God established only one method for converting people. God’s entire evangelism program consists of teaching and baptizing, as He commands, “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost” (Matt 28: 19). Church Growth Enthusiasts Charles and Win Arn make a statement contrary to the inspired Word when they say, “The non-Christian person who perceives your relationship as one of a ‘friend’ is far more likely to eventually respond to Christ’s love than the person who sees you as a ‘teacher’--instructing on doctrine, sin, and morality.” (Am, Win and Charles. The Master's Plan for Making Disciples. (Pasadena: Church Growth Press 1982).

Church Growth leaders disregard God’s Word, which commands us to teach His Word--to teach doctrine--and leave the converting to the Holy Spirit. Paul says, “For I have not shunned to declare to you all the counsel of God” (Acts 20.27).

Although some of these men claim that Holy Scripture is the inspired, infallible Word of God, they do not believe in the divine efficacy of the Word; rather, “they separate the divine power

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from the Word (Enthusiasm)....” (Mueller, J. T. Christian Dogmatics. (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1934). Christians who do believe God’s Word to be inspired and infallible also believe in the power of God’s Word, when they say with Paul, “For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth” (Rom 1.16).

This lack of concern for doctrine and lack of trust in the power of the Word are characteristics of ecumenical thought and Enthusiastic theology. The Church Growth Movement is ecumenical and Enthusiastic in nature. Many of the churches involved in the movement are actively growing churches, which dispose of doctrine and substitute Law for Gospel. Donald McGavran downplays doctrine, stating, “Each denomination is a separate branch of the one universal church.... As long as each branch is firmly in the vine, as long as each branch believes on Jesus Christ as God and only Saviour and the Bible as the inspired and only reliable Word of God, real differences in regard to baptism, ecclesiastical organization, and other less central doctrines can be tolerated.” (McGavran, Donald. Understanding Church Growth. (Eerdmans: Grand Rapids, 1980.)

This statement reveals the movement as ecumenical. However, Christ says the disciples are to preach to all nations, “Teaching them all things whatsoever I have commanded you…” (Matt 28:20). From God’s Word, it is clear that the believer is to adhere to every doctrine in Scripture and that “toleration of a recognized falsehood is a denial of the divine truth.” (Mueller, J. T. Christian Dogmatics. (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1934).

The Law-oriented focus of Church Growth indicates a legalistic influence, which distorts the distinction between the Law and the Gospel and mixes faith with obedience, resulting in the Church Growth message of Law.

Donald McGavran writes that the Church Growth mission is growth of the church, through which he understands God’s work as renewal of society. He states his belief in this renewal when he hopes that his book, Understanding Church Growth, might be “...used of God to aid in the urgent revitalization of His Church and the incorporation of sufficient men and women in it so that major social advance may be achieved in all nations.”

For McGavran and other Church Growth adherents, the goal of Church Growth is not Christ’s Great Commission to teach the Gospel; rather, the goal is sociological. Our Lutheran theology sees the Gospel as the message of forgiveness of sins in Christ. Speaking of Christ, Paul says, “Be it known unto you therefore men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins: And by him all that believe are justified from all things from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses” (Acts 13. 38-39). For the legalists, the Gospel has become a way of moral regeneration or renewal in individuals and society. Church Growth literature lacks reference to the forgiveness of sins, because the Reformed understand moral regeneration as dominant in the Gospel. Consequently, for the thoroughly Reformed Church Growth theology, the ‘good news’ means that God will renew our lives.

The methods used by the Church Growth Movement reflect emphasis on moralism. One method, the felt needs method, is an approach focusing on the needs of people and their problems. Christianity ends up being a religion which has something to offer the community in improving individuals or society. Felt needs is a method of attracting people and causing growth. However, felt needs avoids the true Gospel message of God’s forgiveness. The method itself is contrary to Scripture which tells us only to teach the Word, not to develop a social program that solves our problems. What methods did the Apostles use to establish churches? They preached the powerful message of the cross of Christ without trying to discover the “felt needs” of people. Paul emphasizes, “But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness: But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God”(1 Cor 1. 23-24).

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The Apostles did not dwell on growth or its absence but instead trusted the power and efficacy of the Word. As Paul says to the Thessalonians, “And ye became followers of us, and of the Lord, having received the Word in much affliction, with joy of the Holy Ghost...” (Thess 1. 6).

A second fundamental Church Growth axiom is the “harvest principle” which teaches that God is working spiritually in unbelievers while they have not yet encountered the Gospel. Among Church Growth adherents, “Nothing is said about church growth through the Means of Grace, since sectarians reject Means of Grace, teaching instead that the Spirit operates apart from the Word of God.” But Paul reminds the Thessalonians, “For our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Ghost ...” (Thess 1. 5). Means of Grace are ignored in keeping with Reformed theology which has no respect for the significance of the Lord’s Supper and Holy Baptism. But God says, “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved...” (Mark 16:16). Also Christ’s words, “This is the new Testament in my blood ...” tell the believer he has forgiveness of sins in the gift of the Lord’s Supper (1 Cor 11.25). The Augsburg Confession V reminds us of God’s tools for growth, stating, “Through the Word and Sacraments, as through means, the Holy Spirit is given, who works faith where and when it pleases God, in them that hear the Gospel.” We are told, “So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Rom 10.17). God works spiritually only through the Word and Sacraments.

A religious group, which does not teach God’s pure Word and the Sacraments, does not show the marks of the true Christian Church. What is the pure Word? It is the Gospel of Christ as Paul tells the Corinthian Christian church, “...for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel” (1 Cor 4. 15). Through Word and Sacraments, the Holy Ghost works saving faith and the growth of the Church. Scripture testifies, “Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized everyone of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.” (Acts 2. 38) The result of preaching the Gospel of Christ is evident when Scripture states, “Then they that gladly received his word were baptized: and the same day there were added unto them about 3,000 souls. And they continued steadfastly in the apostle’s doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers” (Acts 2. 41, 42).

Not every growing church is following Christ’s Great Commission, and therefore not every growing church can claim to be a Christian church. Words of the Augsburg Confession VII say that «the Church is the congregation of saints in which the Gospel is rightly taught and the Sacraments are rightly administered.” (Augsburg Confession V and VII.) Those who try to lutheranize the movement misquote these words substituting the word “Word” for the word “Gospel” and omitting the word “rightly” twice. These changes in the wording of the statement from the Augsburg Confession are consistent with Enthusiasm. That the Gospel and the Sacraments be rightly administered is imperative in defining the Church. Church Growth churches, which do not bear these marks, are not Christian churches.

Finally, Church Growth’s idea of “growth” does not agree with Scripture. The true Church is not concerned with growth per se, while growth is the actual focus of the Church Growth Movement. Luther taught that the “Holy Spirit calls me by the Gospel”; Church Growth maintains only that the “Holy Spirit calls me.” True growth, according to Scripture, can be effected only by God through the preaching of the Gospel and the administering of the Sacraments. Through the Word & Baptism, we receive the Holy Spirit who works faith and therefore growth (Acts 2.38). God promises that His Word will then be effective as He stresses in Isaiah, “For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it” (Isaiah 55. 10.11).

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In summary, the Church Growth Movement is not compatible with Lutheran theology. In Church Growth the Christ-centered proclaiming of the Word and forgiveness of sins of Lutheran theology is replaced with a man-centered theology proclaiming the Law. Church Growth does not give God the glory and has surrendered the Gospel and the Sacraments, which define the true Church. The man-made programs and strategies of the movement such as those originating at Fuller Seminary assume that people have the ability to effect church growth. But God says through Paul, “I have planted, Apollos watered, but God giveth the increase. So neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth, but God that giveth the increase” (1 Corinthians 3. 6-7). And again Paul states, “That, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord” (I Corinthians 1.31). Because human nature resists God’s forgiveness, it is clear that only God can work faith in a person’s heart. God works this faith through the preaching of the Gospel which has the power to save. Paul tells the faithful, “For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God” (I Corinthians 1. 18). Lutheran theology and Scripture therefore teach that God deals with man only through His Word and the Sacraments; thus, Church Growth’s teachings that the wisdom of man causes church growth defies Scripture. Paul testifies, “And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power. That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God” (1 Corinthians 2. 4-5). (With gratitude to Mrs. A.B. collaboration.)

§ 8. Objections to all Mystical Theories.

The idea on which Mysticism is founded is Scriptural and true. It is true that God has access to the human soul. It is true that He can, consistently with His own nature and with the laws of our being, supernaturally and immediately reveals truth objectively to the mind, and attends that revelation with evidence, which produces an infallible assurance of its truth and of its divine origin. It is also true that such revelations have often been made to the children of men. But these cases of immediate supernatural revelation belong to the category of miracles. They are rare and are to be duly authenticated.

The common doctrine of the Christian Church is, that God has at sundry times and in divers manners spoken to the children of men; that what eye hath not seen, or ear heard, what never could have entered into the heart of man, God has revealed by his Spirit and Word to those whom He selected to be His spokesmen to their fellow-men; that these revelations were authenticated as divine, by their character, their effects, and by signs and wonders, and divers miracles and gifts of the Holy Ghost; that these holy men of old who spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost, communicated the revelations which they had received not only orally, but in writing, employing not the words which man's wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Ghost teaches; so that we have in the Sacred Scriptures the things of the Spirit recorded in the words of the Spirit; which Scriptures, therefore, are the Word of God, -- i.e., what God says to man; what He declares to be true and obligatory, -- and constitute for His Church the only infallible rule of faith and practice.

Romanists no longer believe in the infallibility of the Word of God, and thus still contend, albeit for other motives, that it is not sufficient; and hold that God continues in a supernatural manner to guide the Church by rendering its bishops, in communion with the pope, infallible teachers in all matters pertaining to truth and duty.

Mystics, making the same admission as to the infallibility of Scripture, claim that the Spirit is given to every man as an inward teacher and guide, whose instructions and influence are the highest rule of faith, and sufficient, even without the Scriptures, to secure the salvation of the soul.

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Mysticism has no Foundation in the Scriptures.

The objections to the Roman and Mystical theory are substantially the same.

1. There is no foundation for either in Scriptures. As the Scriptures contain no promise of infallible guidance to bishops, so they contain no promise of the Spirit as the immediate revealer of truth to every man. Under the Old Testament dispensation the Spirit did indeed reveal the mind and purposes of God; but it was to selected persons chosen to be prophets, authenticated as divine messengers, whose instructions the people were bound to receive as coming from God. In like manner, under the new dispensation, our Lord selected twelve men, endowed them with plenary knowledge of the Gospel, rendered them infallible as teachers, and required all men to receive their instructions as the words of God. It is true that during the apostolic age there were occasional communications made to a class of persons called prophets. But this ‘gift of prophecy,’ that is, the gift of speaking under the inspiration of the Spirit, was analogous to the gift of miracles. The one has as obviously ceased as the other. Besides, in the New Testament, a prophet is, in the current meaning, that man that preaches the Word of God’s Gospel.

It is true, also, that our Lord promised to send the Spirit, who was to abide with the Church, to dwell in His believers, to be their teacher, and to guide them into the knowledge of all truth. But what truth? Not historical or scientific truth, but plainly revealed truth; truth which He himself had taught, or made known by His authorized messengers. The Spirit is indeed a teacher; and without His instructions there is no saving knowledge of divine things, for the Apostle tells us, ‘The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.’ (1 Cor. 2. 14.) Spiritual discernment, therefore, is the design and effect of the Spirit's teaching. And the things discerned are ‘the things freely given to us of God,’ namely, as the context shows, the things revealed to the Apostles and clearly made known in the Scriptures.

The Apostle John tells his readers, ‘Ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things’ (1 John 2. 20), and again, ver. 27, ‘The anointing which ye have received of Him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you; but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in Him.’ These passages teach what all Lutherans admit. First, that true knowledge, or spiritual discernment of divine things, is due to the teaching of the Holy Spirit by the Word; and Secondly, that true faith, or the infallible assurance of the truths revealed, is due in like manner to the ‘demonstration of thine Spirit.’ (1 Cor. 2. 4.) The Apostle John also says: ‘He that believeth on the Son of God, hath the witness in himself.’ (1 John 5. 10.) Saving faith does not rest on the testimony of the Church, nor on the outward evidence of miracles and prophecy, but on the Word Alone. He who has this truthful testimony needs no other. He does not need to be told by other men what is truth; this same Word teaches him what is truth, and that no lie is of the truth. Christians were not to believe every spirit. They were to try the spirits whether they were of God. And the test or criterion of trial was the external, authenticated revelation of God, as spiritually discerned and demonstrated by the inward operations of the Spirit. So now when errorists come and tell the people there is no God, no sin, no retribution, no need of a Saviour, or of expiation, or of faith; that Jesus of Nazareth is not the Son of God, God manifest in the flesh, the true Christian has no need to be told that these are what the Apostle calls lies. He has a witness to the truth of the Word that God has given by His Son.

If the Bible gives no support to the Mystical doctrine of the inward, supernatural, objective revelation of truth made by the Spirit to every man, that doctrine is destitute of all foundation, for it is only by the testimony of God that any such doctrine can be established.

Mysticism is contrary to the Scriptures.

2. The doctrine in question is not only destitute of support from Scripture, but it contradicts the Scriptures. It is not only opposed to isolated declarations of the Word of God, but to the

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whole revealed plan of God's dealing with man. Everywhere, and under all dispensations, the rule of faith and duty has been the teaching of authenticated messengers of God. The appeal has always been ‘to the law and testimony.’ The prophets came saying, ‘Thus saith the Lord.’ Men were required to believe and obey what was communicated to them, and not what the Spirit revealed to each individual. It was the outward and not the inward Word to which they were to attend. And under the Gospel the command of Christ to His disciples, was, ‘Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved’ (Mar. 16. 15, 16), -- believeth, of course, the Gospel that they preached. Faith cometh by hearing. ‘How,’ asks the Apostle, ‘shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?’ (Rom. 10. 14.) God, he tells us, hath determined to save men by the foolishness of preaching. (1 Cor. 1. 21.) It is the preaching of the cross he declares to be the power of God. (Verse 18.) It is the Gospel, the external revelation of the plan of salvation through Jesus Christ, he says in Rom. 1. 16, which ‘is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek; for therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith.’ This idea runs through the whole New Testament. Christ commissioned His disciples to preach the Gospel. He declared that to be the way in which men were to be saved. They accordingly went forth preaching everywhere. This preaching was to continue to the end of the world. Therefore, provision was made for continuing the Ministry. Men qualified by the Spirit were to be selected and called to this Office by divine command. And it is in this way, so far, the world has been converted. In no case do we find the Apostles calling upon the people, whether Jews or Gentiles, to look within themselves, to listen to the inner Word. They were to listen to the outward Word; to believe what they heard, and were to pray for the Holy Ghost to enable them to understand, receive, and obey what was thus externally made known to them.

Contrary to the Facts of Experience.

3. The doctrine in question is no less contrary to fact than it is to Scripture. The doctrine teaches that by the inward revelation of the Spirit saving knowledge of truth and duty is given to every man. But all experience shows that without the written Word, men everywhere and in all ages, are ignorant of divine things, without God, without Christ, and without hope in the world. The sun is not more obviously the source of light, than the Bible is the source of divine knowledge. The absence of the one is as clearly indicated as the absence of the other. It is incredible that the Holy Ghost makes an inward revelation of saving truth to every man, if the appropriate effects of that revelation are nowhere manifested. It is to be remembered that without the knowledge of God, there can be no religion. Without right apprehensions of the Supreme Being, there can be no right affections towards Him. Without the knowledge of Christ, there can be no faith in Him. Without truth there can be no holiness, any more than there can be vision without light. As right apprehensions of God, and holiness of heart and life, are nowhere found where the Scriptures are unknown, it is plain that the Scriptures, and not an inward light common to all men, are the only source to us of saving and sanctifying knowledge.

No Criterion by which to judge of the Source of Inward Suggestions.

4. A fourth objection to the Mystical doctrine is that there is no criterion by which a man can test these inward impulses or revelations, and determine which are from the Spirit of God, and which are from his own heart or from Satan, who often appears and acts as an angel of light. It is admitted that there is an inward and infallible testimony of the Spirit in the hearts of believers to the truths objectively revealed in the Scriptures. It is admitted, also, that there have been immediate revelations of truth to the mind, as in the case of the Prophets and Apostles, and that these revelations validate themselves, or are attended with an infallible assurance that they come from God. But these admissions do not invalidate the objection as above stated. Granted that a man who receives a true revelation knows that it is from God; how is the man who receives a false revelation to know that it is not from God? Many men honestly believe themselves to be inspired, who are under the influence of some evil spirit, -- their own it may

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be. The assurance on certainty of conviction may be as strong in one case as in the other. In the one it is well founded, in the other it is a delusion. Irresistible conviction is not enough. It may satisfy the subject of it himself. But it cannot either satisfy others, or be a measure of truth. Thousands have been, and still are, fully convinced that the false is true, and that what is wrong is right. To tell men, therefore, to look within for an authoritative guide, and to trust to their irresistible convictions, is to give them a guide which will lead them to destruction. When God really makes revelations to the soul, He not only gives an infallible assurance that the revelation is divine, but also accompanies it with evidence satisfactory to others as well as to the recipient that it is from God. All His revelations have had the seal both of internal and external evidence. And when the believer is assured, by the testimony of the Spirit, of the truths of Scripture, he has only a new kind of evidence of what is already authenticated beyond all rational contradiction. Our blessed Lord Himself said to the Jews, ‘If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not. But if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works.’ (John 10. 37, 38.) He even goes so far as to say, ‘If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin.’ (John 15. 24.) The inward teaching and testimony of the Spirit are Scriptural truths, and truths of inestimable value. But it is ruinous to put them in the place of the divinely authenticated written Word.

The Doctrine productive of Evil.

5. Our Lord says of men, ‘By their fruits ye shall know them.’ The same rule of judgment applies to doctrines. Mysticism has always been productive of evil. It has led to the neglect or undervaluing of divine institutions, -- of the Church, of the Ministry, of the Sacraments, and of the Scriptures. History shows that it has also led to the greatest excesses and social evils. -- Nineteen and twenty centuries showed the phenomenon of modern Enthusiasm, the Pentecostals, the tongue-talkers, in the form of a Movement. Pentecostalism, on one hand, and rationalistic Liberalism in the other (cropping up practical atheism as a consequence,) have been the two fateful tools that better contributed to the devastation of the Christian church and the lose of a Confessional condition in the Historical bodies. The Lutheran Church, worm-eaten since ending the eighteen century for Rationalism, fell, by the middle of last century, in the spider webs of the ‘Charismatic Movement,’ that also has seized of vast regions of the Church of Rome, as well as of Episcopalism and Anglicans. These nefarious influences, added other factors of the secular environment, have taken Lutheranism to an almost final crisis, with uncertain future. It is possible to say that, at the moment, no external organization of Lutheranism does exist, neither big, nor small, that may be able to affirm, without objection, to be orthodox and confessional, sustaining the Lutheran Confessions in all its purity. As Luther predicted, the church survives in small congregations and home-churches, expecting the Second Advent of Christ.

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END OF BOOK I.

© Enrique Ivaldi, Trinity 2004, October, Month of the Reformation. All Rights Reserved.