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

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.'
The Rule of Faith.
The thetical statements of the Council and the declaration which
follows, exhibit, as we believe, the relation of the Rule of Faith and the
Confessions, in accordance with the principles of the Conservative
Reformation. Accepting those principles, we stand upon the everlasting
foundation--the Word of God: 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 Spirit, 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 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, 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. The student of theology is
to be taught the Biblical languages, to make him an independent
investigator of the word of the Holy Spirit, as the organ through which that
Spirit reveals