The Conservative Reformation and Its Theology - Saint Mary ...

etween them, but in his judgment they should unite their strength against
the common enemy, and when he was overthrown it would be
comparatively easy to harmonize on those two points, and to restore the
Church of God to its pristine purity and splendor."
4. Alting.
HENRY ALTING 119 says, that one great object of his writing his
book is to show "to those into whose hands it may come how truly both
the Palatinate Church (which has always been regarded as the mother of
the other churches of Germany,) and the other Reformed Churches with
her, still adhere to the Augsburg Confession, and have by no means
departed from the old profession of faith." He then takes up article by
article, claiming that the Heidelberg Catechism and the Helvetic
Consensus are in unity with the Augsburg Confession. Quoting the
Second Article, (of original sin,) he says: "The Palatinate Catechism
teaches the same thing in express words--we are all conceived and born in
sin--and unless we be regenerated by the Holy Spirit, are so corrupt, that
we are able to do no good whatever, and are inclined to all vices. It is a
calumny that the Reformed teach that the children of believers are born
holy, and without original. sin." On the Third: "It is a calumny that the
Reformed Churches dissolve the personal union of the two natures in
Christ; and abolish a true and real communion of natures (communicatio
idiomatum)." In the Tenth Article (of the Lord's Supper): "This is a
manifest dissent of the Confession--but not of such a character that it ought
to destroy the unity of the faith, or distract with sects the Evangelical
Christians--so that the dissent is not total in the doctrine of the Lord's
Supper, neither as regards its principal thing, nor much less, as regards a
fundamental article of faith and of the Christian religion." Of the Eleventh
Article (of private absolution): "The Heidelberg Catechism never
condemns or abrogates Confession and Private Absolution, but leaves it as
a thing indifferent and free." “And this," he says in conclusion, "is a
collation of the Augsburg, Palatinate, and Helvetic Confessions, in all the
articles, which most clearly exhibits
119 Exegesis Log. et Theol. Augustan. Confess. Amstel., 1648, 4to.