Chapter VIII: The Religious Principles Inspiring The Reformation.(386) (6)

421 It maybe useful to note the statements about the authority of
Scripture in the earlier Reformation creeds. The Lutherans, always
late in discerning the true doctrinal bearings of their religious
certainties, did not deem it needful to assert dogmatically the
supreme authority of Scripture until the second generation of
Protestantism. The Schmalkald Articles and the Augsburg Confession
expressly assert that human traditions are among abuses that ought
to be done away with; but they do not condemn them as authorities
set up by their opponents in opposition to the word of God, only as
things that burden the conscience and incline men to false ways of
trying to be at peace with God (_Augsburg Confession_, as given in
Schaff, _The Creeds of the Evangelical Protestant Churches_, p. 65;
_Schmalkald Articles_, xv.). It was not until 1576, in the Torgau
Book, and in 1580 in the _Formula Concordiæ_, that they felt the
necessity of declaring dogmatically and in opposition to the Roman
Catholics that “the only standard by which all dogmas and all
teachers must be valued and judged is no other than the prophetic
and apostolic writings of the Old and of the New Testaments” (§ 1).

Zwingli, with the clearer dogmatic insight which he always showed,
felt the need of a statement about the theological place of
Scripture very early, and declared in the _First Helvetic
Confession_ (1536) that “Canonic Scripture, the word of God, given
by the Holy Spirit and set forth to the world by the prophets and
apostles, the most perfect and ancient of all philosophies, alone
contains perfectly all piety and the whole rule of life.” The
various Reformed Confessions, inspired by Calvin, followed Zwingli’s
example, and the supreme authority of Scripture was set forth in all
the symbolical books of the Reformed Churches of Switzerland,
France, England, the Netherlands, Scotland, etc.—_The Geneva
Confession_ of 1536 (Art. 1), _The Second Helvetic Confession_ of
1562 (Art. 1), _The French Confession_ of 1559 (Arts. 3-6), _The
Belgic Confession_ of 1561 (Arts. 4-7), _The Thirty-nine Articles
of_ 1563 and 1571 (Art. 6), _The Scots Confession_ of 1560 (Art.
19). It is instructive, however, to note how this is done. The key
to the central note in all these dogmatic statements is to be found
in the first and second of _The Sixty-seven Theses_ published in
1523 by Zwingli at Zurich, where it is declared that all who say
that the Evangel is of no value apart from its confirmation by the
Church err and blaspheme against God, and where the sum of the
Evangel is “that our Lord Jesus Christ, very Son of God, has
revealed to us the will of the heavenly Father, and with His
innocence has redeemed us from death and has reconciled us to God.”
The main thought, therefore, in all these Confessions is not to
assert the formal supremacy of Scripture over Tradition, but rather
to declare the supreme value of Scripture which reveals God’s good
will to us in Jesus Christ to be received by faith alone over all
human traditions which would lead us astray from God and from true
faith. The Reformers had before them not simply the theological
desire to define precisely the nature of that authority to which all
Christian teaching appeals, but the religious need to cling to the
divinely revealed way of salvation and to turn away from all human
interposition and corruption. They desire to make known that they
trust God rather than man. Hence almost all of them are careful to
express clearly the need for the Witness of the Holy Spirit.

422 Compare especially the discussions in the first part of the Second
Book of the _Summa_.

423 Harnack, _History of Dogma_, vii. 173-174.

_ 424 Luther’s Works_ (Erlangen edition), Latin, xxxvi. 506: “Quodsi odit
anima mea vocem homoousion, et nolim ea uti, non ero hæreticus, quis
enim me coget uti, modo rem teneam, quæ in concilio per scripturas
definita est?” It may be remarked that Athanasius himself did not
like the word that has become so associated with his name.

_ 425 Luther’s Works_ (2nd Erlangen edition), vi. 358: “Dreyfaltigkeit
ist ein recht böse Deutsch, denn in der Gottheit ist die höchste
Einigkeit. Etliche nennen es Dreyheit; aber das lautet
allzuspöttisch”; he says that the expression is not in Scripture,
and adds: “darum lautet es auch kalt and viel besser spräch man Gott
denn die Dreyfaltigkeit” (xii. 408).

_ 426 Ibid._ v. 236.

_ 427 Luther’s Works_ (Erlangen edition), xlvii. 3, 4.

_ 428 Luther’s Works_ (Erlangen edition), xlix. 183, 184.

_ 429 Luther’s Works_ (2nd Erlangen edition), xii. 244.

_ 430 Ibid._ xii. 259.

431 Calvin, _Opera omnia_ (Amsterdam, 1667), viii. 38, 39.

_ 432 Augsburg Confession_, Art. xxi.

433 Müller, _Die Bekenntnisschriften der reformierten Kirche_, pp. 935
f.

434 Müller, _Die Bekenntnisschriften der reformierten Kirche_, pp. 34
ff.

435 Luther’s gradual progress towards his final view of the Church is
traced minutely by Loofs, _Leitfaden_, pp. 359 ff.

436 Enders, _Dr. Martin Luthers Briefwechsel_, ii. 345.

437 Enders, _Dr. Martin Luthers Briefwechsel_, i. 253.

_ 438 Luther’s Works_ (Weimar edition), i. 190.

_ 439 Luther’s Works_ (Erlangen edition), xii. 249.

440 Calvin, _Institutio_, IV. i. 12.

441 Herrmann, _Communion with God_, p. 149.

_ 442 Luther’s Works_ (2nd Erlangen edition), x. 162.