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

Preface closes with the words: "This is the Confession of ourselves and of
ours, as now distinctly follows, Article by Article." They separate their
faith alike from the errors of Rome and of the fanatical and rationalizing
tendencies of the day.
4. The Confession declares that: "The CHURCHES among us teach
"the doctrines set forth in the Articles. It is not simply great princes, nor
great theologians; it is the CHURCHES which teach these doctrines. The
private opinions of the greatest of men are here nothing. It is the faith of the
Churches which is set forth, and those who acted for them spoke as their
representatives, knowing the common faith, and not mingling with it any
mere private sentiments or peculiar views of their own, however important
they might regard them.
It is a great mistake to suppose that our Evangelical Protestant
Church is bound by consistency to hold a view simply because Luther
held it. Her faith is not to be brought to the touchstone of Luther's private
opinion, but his private opinion is to be tested by her confessed faith, when
the question is, What is genuinely Lutheran? The name Lutheran, as our
Church tolerates it, means no more than that she heartily accepts that
kNew Testament faith in its integrity, in whose restoration Luther was so
glorious a leader. When, at the conferences at Augsburg, Eck produced
certain passages from Luther's writings, Brentius and Schnepf replied:
"We are not here to defend Luther's writings, but to maintain our
Confession." In showing that the Augsburg Confession is the Symbol of
our time, the Formula of Concord rests its authority on its being "the
unanimous consent and declaration of our faith." The private opinions of
individuals, however influential, can in no sense establish or remove one
word of the Creed of the Church. Any man who, on any pretence, gives
ecclesiastical authority to private opinions, is robbing the Church of her
freedom. She is to be held responsible for no doctrines which she has not
officially declared to be her own.
5. The Confessors say, at the end of the doctrinal Articles: "This is
almost the main portion (summa: chief points, principal matters) of the
doctrine which is preached and taught in our Churches, in order to the true
Christian instruction and