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

and Free Will. On a number of the points, arguments ar e urged, Scripture
is quoted and Patristic authorities appealed to, and in the Article on Good
Works, the prevailing character is entirely Apologetic. The Doctrine of
Good Works had been stated in the sixth article, the twentieth is devoted to
the defence of it.
Dr. Shedd exhibits the thoroughly catholic and evangelical character
of the Augsburg Confession in regard to the Trinity, Sin, Salvation, and the
Last Things. He goes on, however, to make some strictures on certain
points, and says: “Though decidedly Protestant upon the cardinal points,
the Augsburg Confession contains some remnants of that unscriptural
system, against which it was such a powerful and earnest protest." He
admits, that upon the cardinal doctrines, the Augsburg Confession is
Protestant and sound. He maintains, however, that the same Confession
contains some remnants of Romanism.
We feel at this point no little surprise in regard to Dr. Shedd's
admissions. He speaks of matters as of little moment, which we could have
supposed he, as a Calvinist, would esteem as highly important. Is Dr.
Shedd safe, for example, in conceding that the doctrines concerning the
Eucharistic presence and Absolution are not cardinal; for if the doctrines
are not cardinal, the errors in regard to them, cannot be; on his premises,
then, Transubstantiation itself is not a cardinal error, and the Romish
doctrine of priestly absolution is not a cardinal error. We, as Evangelical
Lutherans, hold that, as error on these points is cardinal, so must the truth,
in regard to them, be cardinal. Fundamental errors are the antitheses of
fundamental truths only, and we Evangelical Lutherans actually cherish,
on Dr. Shedd's own showing, a stronger, and, as he would perhaps regard
it, an extremer opposition to the Romish errors on these points, than he
does--we do regard the Romish errors on these doctrines as cardinal, but it
seems he does not. He will find in our divines, through centuries, this stern
opposition to these very errors as cardinal, and among no men, at this hour,
is this feeling deeper, than among the most tenacious adherents to the
Augsburg Confession. How does he account for it then, that under the
nurture of this very Confession, which he supposes to be sympathetic