Encyclical

“ If it may be concluded that our liturgy is not good because it is comprehended in the mass-book, or in the breviary, we must, by the same reason, infer, that our doctrine is unsound, because it is all to be found in the councils, and in the writings of the doctors of the Romish Church. But so the Lord’s Prayer, the Apostles’ Creed, and many sentences of Scripture which are used in that missal, or in that breviary, as also the doctrine of the Trinity, of the incarnation, passion, &c., which are comprehended in the councils, would all of them be but superstitions and heresies. ”

“ Conscience bow him to the earth; Affection keep silence when the priest uplifts the Bible. Man is subordinate to the apocryphal, ambiguous, imperfect, and often erroneous Scripture of the Word; the Word itself, as it comes straightway from the fountain of Truth, through Reason, Conscience, Affection, and the Soul, he must not have. It takes the Bible for God's statute-book; combines old Hebrew notions into a code of ethics; takes figures for fact; settles questions in Morals and Religion by texts of Scripture! It can justify anything out of the Bible. ”

“ We partake of the sacrament every Sabbath to bear in remembrance the Son of God. Then, shall I say, leaving all these principles, go on unto perfection? No. They are the fundamental principles of our religion, the same as the 26 letters of the English alphabet are the roots of the written and printed form of our language. ”

“ Well, though we or an angel from heaven preach any other Gospel, let him be accursed No matter how near men may preach the Gospel; they must preach the same Gospel, every part of it, every ordinance of it, every principle Jesus Christ revealed and his Apostles taught, if they do not, they teach another Gospel, and if they teach another, says the Apostle, let them be accursed. ”

“ The great controversies that have been called forth from time to time on the doctrine of the Trinity, the Incarnation, the two natures and the two wills in the one person of our Lord, the Real Presence of our Lord's body, soul, and divinity in the Eucharist, liberty and necessity, the relations of nature and grace, and of reason and faith, throw a brilliant light on philosophy far surpassing all the light to be derived from Gentile sources, or by the most careful analysis of the facts of our own consciousness. ”

“ Therefore, separate the doctrine, sacraments and life of Christ, from the doctrine, sacraments and life of the priests and preachers; separate faith and unbelief, spirit and flesh, righteousness and unrighteousness. Seek after the truth, strive zealously for your salvation, believe that God is true, that he will reward the good and punish the evil, that his word is, and will for ever remain truth. ”

“ And whereas the best and greatest philosophers were in continual disputes, and in many degrees of uncertainty, concerning the very fundamentals and most important doctrines of truth and reason, amongst those, on the contrary, who embraced the Gospel of Christ, there never was the least room for dispute about any fundamental; all Christians at all times and in all places having ever been baptized into the profession of the same faith, and into an obligation to obey the same commandments. ”

“ Every later type of Christian life and teaching is to be judged, not by the standard of Scripture as a whole, nor even by the authority of the words of Christ as a whole, but by the content of this one discourse. ”

“ But to call them the Word of God which they never call themselves, but by which they peculiarly denominate and call Christ and in no slight to them— which we believe to be of Divine authority, and to embrace the best of books—and allow to be as much the word of God as a book can be—they do, in duty and reason bound, attribute to Christ only. ”

“ Concerning the nature of God and the Holy Trinity; concerning the sufficiency and authority of Scripture; concerning the sinfulness and helplessness of natural man; concerning justification by faith alone; concerning the place and value of good works; concerning salvation only by the name of Christ; concerning all these grand foundations of the Christian religion, it is hard to conceive language more decided, clear, distinct, ringing, and trumpet-toned than that of the Thirty-nine Articles. ”

“ Accordingly most of the epistles begin with the great doctrines of the gospel, the articles of the Christian faith, which, when received, work by love, purify the conscience, and produce evangelical obedience; and, after these principles have been laid down, practical conclusions are drawn and urged from them. In taking this method there is a regard paid to the nature and faculties of the soul of man (where the understanding is to lead the way, the will, affections, and executive powers, to follow after) , and to the nature of religion in general, which is a reasonable service. ”

“ But what is the example of all mankind, when it runs counter to scripture and reason? I have warned you a thousand times, not to regard any example, which contradicts reason or scripture. If it ever should be (pray, that it may not be; but if it ever should) that I or my brother, my wife, or his, or all of us together, should set an example contrary to scripture and reason: I intreat you, regard it not at all: still let scripture and reason prevail. ”

“ The doctrine which, first and foremost, it is the purpose of the Bible to affirm, and of the Christ to demonstrate, and in which reason entirely concurs, is no other than that of the divine potentialities of man, belonging to him in virtue of the nature of his constituent principles, the force and the substance of existence. ”

“ Who sifts for us the speeches of Job, and enables us to treasure up as divine truth what he utters in one verse, while we reject the next as Satanic ravings? Who gives the preacher authority and accuracy of aim to pounce on a sound text in Ecclesiastes, while wisdom and folly toss and roll over one another in confusingly rapid and inextricable contortions? ”

“ For them philosophy runs through the whole theological course, and when Holy Scripture, the pronouncements of the Church, and the utterances of the Fathers have established the truth of the particular doctrine which is under consideration, then reason enters, and elevated, ennobled, fortified and illumined, it walks secure in the highest realms of thought. ”

“ That the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are the Word of God, written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and are therefore infallible, and of divine authority in all things pertaining to faith and practice, and consequently free from all error whether of doctrine, fact, or precept. ”

“ To the prevailing formlessness, the simplified investigation, which determines from the scriptural construction of the Gospels their mutual relationship and their origin, will be regarded as formalism, as pure formalism, and the ecclesiastical consciousness will rejoice that its indifference to coherence and proportion finds a support in the popular aversion to strict definiteness. ”

“ Or is our languor rather to be accounted for by the want of express scriptural encouragement to the notion of a divine ministerial commission? Nay, Scripture, at first sight, is express; whether we take the analogy of the Old Testament, the words of our Lord, or the practice of His Apostles. The Primitive Christians read it accordingly; and cherished, with all affectionate reverence, the privilege which they thought they found there. Why are we so unlike them? ”

“ And shake the belief in the One God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity, the belief in righteousness is shaken, it is thought, also. Whereas righteousness and the God of righteousness, the God of the Bible, are in truth quite independent of the God of ecclesiastical dogma, the work of critics of the Bible,—critics understanding neither what they say nor whereof they affirm. ”

“ Now, if, in order to verify these words of the Sacred Scriptures, you take a view of the doctrine of the world and of that of Jesus Christ, and compare them, you will not find a single point in the one that is not in direct contradiction to the other; so that, by the Gospel, you are enabled to discover the maxims of the world, and vice versa. You may rest assured that what is recommended and sought for by the one is censured and despised by the other. ”

“ VI. It is a wrong use of the Bible to manufacture cut of it any one uniform, system, of theology, as the fixed and final form of thought in which religion is to live.
Let me define these contrasting terms, so commonly confounded. Religion is man's perception of the Power in whom we live and move and have our being, and his emotion towards this power. Theology is man's conception of this Power, and his thought defined and formulated.
Religion is man's feeling after God; theology is man's grasp of God. ”

“ And the Four Gospels, the part of the Bible to which this sort of criticism is most applied and most confidently, are just the part which for literary criticism is infinitely the hardest, however simple they may look, and however simple the saving doctrine they contain really is. For Prophets and Epistlers speak for themselves: but in the Four Gospels reporters are speaking for Jesus, who is far above them.
Now, we all know what the literary criticism of the mass of mankind is. ”

“ Now if you will preach the same Gospel, you will preach the same principles precisely that were taught not only by Paul, Peter, James, and John, but by all the rest of their fellow servants. And when men received the Holy Ghost, they spake with other tongues, and prophesied. In order to tell whether people have embraced the true Gospel or not, we need only to look at their fruits, for by their fruits shall ye know them, says the Savior. ”

“ I omit also many excellent doctrines which the Christian has in common with the other world-sects, and some peculiar to itself, and ask your attention to the five great false ideas of this theology which are embodied in the Ecclesiastical Institutions of Christendom.
I. Of the false idea op God.—The ecclesiastical idea of God represents him as deficient in all the great essentials of Deity except eternal self-existence. He is imperfect in power, in wisdom, in justice, in benevolence, and in holiness—fidelity to Himself. ”

“ It is not Christianity—the rational, thorough, all-embracing Gospel of Christ,—which throws its blessed sanctities over and around our whole humanity,—which owns and consecrates our whole nature and our whole life—which is thus taught. ”

“ To establish this absurd doctrine they pervert the Scriptures, and bring forward that expression in the Psalms, wherein is said of Christ, 'Thou hast loved righteousness and hated iniquity, therefore thy God hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.' (Psalm xiv. 7.) ”

“ The greater part of these questions introduced into theology, with all the modes of disputation (see p. 115) and solution, are in the terms of philosophy, as is known to all theologians, who have been well exercised in philosophy before proceeding to theology. Again, other questions which are in use among theologians, though in terms of theology, viz., of the Trinity, of the fall, of the incarnation, of sin, of virtue, of the sacraments, etc., are mainly ventilated by authorities, arguments, and solutions drawn from philosophy. ”

“ Since ail the Scriptures point us to the Spirit, gospel, command, ordinance, usage, and example of Christ; and since we, in our worship, do not follow conjectures, our own desires, false explanations, and doctrines of men, as we are accused of, Christ's plain word and command, the doctrine and usage of the holy apostles, and of the true, primitive church ”

“ Chapter V. Apprehension And Assent In The Matter Of Religion. We are now able to determine what a dogma of faith is, and what it is to believe it. A dogma is a proposition; it stands for a notion or for a thing; and to believe it is to give the assent of the mind to it, as it stands for the one or for the other. To give a real assent to it is an act of religion; to give a notional, is a theological act. It is discerned, rested in, and appropriated as a reality, by the religious imagination; it is held as a truth, by the theological intellect. ”

“ If the happy effects of true doctrines, and the true principles of the Gospel were not great—why are they to be preached—why is there so much said about holding fast the form of sound words—of being sound in the faith—of sound doctrines,—of contending earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints—of abiding in the doctrine of Christ? ”

“ The same thing in modern guise besets us to-day. We are called upon, on all sides, to bring into the pulpit what they call an ethical gospel; putting it into plain English, to preach morality, and to leave out Christ. We are called upon, on all sides, to preach an applied Christianity, a social gospel—that is to say, largely to turn the pulpit into a Sunday supplement to the daily newspaper. We are asked to deal with the intellectual difficulties which spring from the collision of science, true or false, with religion, and the like. ”

“ By this mark judge of doctrines and of spirits—whether they be of God or not; what is impure, and prejudicial to true piety and practical religion, cannot be of divine original. All gospel truth is after godliness, teaching and nourishing reverence and fear of God, and obedience to him; it is truth not only to be known, but acknowledged; it must be held forth in word and practice, Phil. ii. 15, 16. With the heart man believes to righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation, Rom. ”

“ Nothing if the general indifference to detail helps the ecclesiastical consciousness and entitles it to save itself from the disintegration of the Gospels to the phrase of the Gospel and to balance and blunt the differences and contrasts of the real Gospels by means of that phrase. ”