True Christianity: A Treatise on Sincere Repentence, True Faith, the Holy Walk of the True Christian, Etc. — John Shaqi
True Christianity: A Treatise on Sincere Repentence, True Faith, the Holy Walk of the True Christian, Etc.Arndt, Johann
Religion
True Christianity: A Treatise on Sincere Repentence, True Faith, the Holy Walk of the True Christian, Etc.
Arndt, Johann
Christian life; Christianity
not consent to sacrifice one jot or one tittle of the Augsburg Confession,
nor could he assign to it an isolated position, even though Zwingli and
his associates readily adopted it, with the single exception of Article X.
Nor did his heart or his conscience allow him to ignore the other Lutheran
Symbols. The _Augsburg Confession_ undoubtedly contained the pure truth of
the Gospel, without any admixture of errors; but, owing to the
circumstances and the times in which it originated, when it was the great
object of Luther and his associates to justify their course in withdrawing
from antichristian Rome, it confined itself to those principles which were
then specially debated. Hence Calvin, who differed so widely on some
points from the fully developed Lutheran creed, readily adopted and
subscribed it at Strasburg.—The _Apology_, or Vindication of the Augsburg
Confession, set forth, among others, the cardinal doctrine of the Lutheran
faith, namely, Justification by faith alone, with extraordinary power and
purity. Its full, lucid, and strictly scriptural character has never been
successfully controverted. For this very reason the Apology was rejected
by Papists, as it now is practically by Rationalists and others who depend
on human merit, and are unwilling to give all honor to the Saviour
alone.—The _Smalcald Articles_, which Luther prepared in order to set
forth the points on which no Protestant or Bible Christian could make any
concession to Popery, are also offensive to Papists, to Rationalists, and
to the unbelieving and impenitent generally, as they contain the pure
evangelical truth, which humbles man, while it exalts God.—_The Two
Catechisms (the Large and the Small)_ furnish materials for popular
instruction in revealed truth, which have never been equalled by other
manuals, in their adaptation to the object, their fulness, and their
purity. Hence, a friend of divine truth, like Arndt, who took so deep an
interest in the religious education of the young, could not do otherwise
than regard them as of inestimable value. An enemy of the truth would
naturally disavow them.—The _Formula of Concord_—the last of the series of
Lutheran Confessions of Faith, and the one which Arndt appears to have
prized most highly—was intended, as we have shown above, to determine
various important points involved in the controversies which had arisen in
the bosom of the Lutheran Church before or at the time when he was born.
The very circumstance that this Symbol was demanded by the exigencies of
the Church, demonstrates that the Augsburg Confession was _not originally
designed to be a full and complete confession of faith_, but only a
statement of points discussed during the infancy of the Reformation. While
it excludes every error which might dishonor God, and confirm the
impenitent sinner in his evil course, it completes the previous Symbols,
and forms with them an undivided and harmonious whole, exhibiting with
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