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

can it be, that the doctrine which arrayed itself against the Augsburg
Confession at Augsburg can be the doctrine of that Confession, or capable
of harmonizing with it anywhere else; that what was not Lutheranism
there is Lutheranism here; that what was Lutheranism then is not
Lutheranism now; that Zwingle or Hedio of Strasburg could, without a
change of views, honestly subscribe the Confession against which they had
arrayed themselves, that very Confession, the main drift of some of whose
most important Articles was to teach the truth these men denied, and to
condemn the errors these men fostered, or that men, who hold now what
they held then, can now honestly do what they would not and could not do
then? What could not be done then, cannot be done now. A principle is as
little affected by the lapse of three hundred years as of one year. It cannot
be, that, consistently with the principles of our fathers,. consistently with
Church unity with them, consistently with the Church name which their
principles and their faith defined, men holding Romish, or Rationalistic, or
Zwinglian error, should pretend to receive the Confession as their own.
Such a course effaces all the lines of historical identity, and of moral
consistency, and opens the way to error of every kind.
V. The language of the Confession, when it speaks of itself, is well
worthy of attention.
1. It calls itself a Confession, not a rule. The Bible is the only rule of
faith, and this document confesses the faith of which the Bible is the rule.
2. It calls itself a Confession of faith; of faith, not of men's opinions or
views, but of that divine conviction of saving truth, which the Holy Ghost
works through the Word. It speaks of that with which it has to do as "the
holy faith and Christian religion," "the one only and true religion," "our
holy religion and Christian faith." The title of the doctrinal portion of the
Confession is, "Principal Articles of Faith."
3. The Confessors speak of this Confession of faith as "the
Confession of their preachers, and their own Confession," "the doctrine
which their preachers have presented and taught in the Churches, in their
lands, principalities, and cities." The