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

the baptismal formula, both are agreed: 1. That it is not to be imagined that
an infant is corporeally possessed by Satan: 2. That the rite of exorcism
may not be employed for any other end than to signify the habitual
inherence of original sin: 3. That these formulae of exorcism may be
omitted, and special prayers be substituted therefor."
It may be well to note that the practice of exorcism even with these
safeguards and limitations, never was universal in the Lutheran Church;
never was regarded as essential by those who practised it, always had
strong opposers among the soundest men in the Church, and long ago fell
into general disuse. It never could have been styled, without qualification, a
Lutheran usage. All that could with truth have been said, at any time, was
that the Lutheran Church in this or that country, retained it in the exercise
of church liberty, among things indifferent. Lutheran unity is based upon
heartfelt consent in the doctrines of the Gospel, and in the essential parts of
the administration of the Sacraments, and consistency, as Lutherans,
requires no more than that we should maintain and defend these. So much
it does demand, but it demands no more.
6. Claude.
CLAUDE, 120 one of the greatest theologians of the French
Reformed Church, says: "Those of the Augsburg Confession (who are
called Lutherans) are in difference with us only about the point of the real
presence, and about some questions of the schools which we cannot yet
impute to their whole body; and as for the rest, they reject with us the
invocation of saints, religious worship of images, human satisfactions,
indulgences, purgatory, worship of relics, the public service in an unknown
tongue, the merit of good works, transubstantiation, the sacrifice of the
mass, the supremacy of the Pope, the opinion of the infallibility of the
church, and the principle of blind obedience to the decisions of councils.
They acknowledge the Scriptures to be the only rule of faith; they carefully
practise the reading of them; they own their sufficiency; they believe their
authority, independent
120 Defence of the Reformation, 1673, translated by T. B., London, 1815, vol. i., p. 291.