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

first important witness is an Apostolic Father, IGNATIUS, for whom it is
claimed that he saw our Lord, and who, beyond all dispute, was a pupil of
the Apostles. He was consecrated pastor of the church of Antioch, by St.
Peter, about A. D. 43; and was put to death as a Christian about A.D. 107.
Principles to be observed in interpreting the Fathers.
The importance of the testimony of the early Church in regard to the
Lord's Supper has been felt in all the churches. Extremists, in the churches
most alien in their faith to the testimony of the Fathers, have tried to torture
their declarations, if not so as to teach their own peculiar views, yet, at
least, so as not directly to contradict them. Some, as for example,
Marheineke, have claimed that the three leading views of modern times all
have their representatives among the Fathers. In presenting the facts of
most importance, it may be useful to premise the following principles:--
First. For the early Fathers, as mere thinkers, we need feel comparatively
little regard. It is only where they are competent witnesses that we attach
great value to what they say. Second. We propose first to show, not what
was the whole line of patristic thinking, but what was the original view, so
early as to create a moral presumption that it was formed not by
speculative thinking, but on the direct teaching of the Apostles. With this
as a sort of patristic "Analogy of Faith," we shall assume that the later
Fathers agree, if their language can be fairly harmonized with it. Third. The
easiest and simplest interpretation of the Fathers is the best; the less use we
make of the complex ideas and processes of the scholastic or modern
theology the better. If we find our faith in the Fathers, we must not always
expect to find it couched in the terms which we should now employ. It is
their faith rather than their theology we are seeking; and we should
compare our faith with their faith rather than our dogmatics with theirs.
Systematic thinking and nicely balanced expression are the growth of ages
in the Church. We must not suppose that the faith of the Church is not
found in a particular writer, because we miss many of its now current
phrases. No existing system of theology, and no dogmatic statement of a
single distinctive Christian doctrine, can find its absolute fac-simile in form
in the writings