Untitled - Rore Sanctifica

Ixx
Introductory Essay.
Church Communions, on the basis of their doc
trinal Confessions, according to the unalterable
rule of Holy Writ, ought to
develops further in
and for truth ;" in other words, starting from
different, and in some respects contradictory,
confessions of faith, but both developing. A
development from different
"
doctrinal con
of what each
fessions," being an expansion
contains in germ, must, of course, be different ;
as in fact the Church of England and the Lu
theran bodies have been developing in different
directions hitherto. The conditions, also, of de
velopment are different ; the Lutherans,
"
accor
ding to the rule of Holy Scripture" alone, i.e.,
according to what each, in his own individual
judgment, conceives to be the mind of Holy Scrip
ture ; the Church of England, according to that
same rule, but the arbitrariness of the individual
mind, swayed, controlled, guided by the con
"
sentient tradition of the Church always, every
agree in first principles
where, by all." We
(as has often been pointed out) with the
whole Church, both East and West for both
;
acknowledge the office of genuine and universal
tradition determining the sense of Holy Scrip
ture ; both appeal to Holy Scripture, as so in
terpreted.
The Lutheran and Calvinistic bodies
appeal to Holy Scripture, only as interpreted by
themselves.
* In Col. Ch. Chr. 1867, p. 28.